Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Shattered Light

  STAR TREK®

  MYRIAD UNIVERSES

  SHATTERED LIGHT

  Gallery Books

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  First Pocket Books trade paperback edition December 2010

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shattered light / David R. George III … [et al.].—1st Gallery Books trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.—(Star Trek. Myriad universes)

  1. Star Trek fiction. 2. Science fiction, American. I. George, David R., III.

  II. Star trek, the next generation (Television program)

  PS648.S3S455 2010

  813.087620806—dc22 2010022986

  ISBN 978-1-4391-4841-9

  ISBN 978-1-4516-0590-7 (ebook)

  The Embrace of Cold Architects

  David R. George III

  The Tears of Eridanus

  Steve Mollmann and Michael Schuster

  Honor in the Night

  Scott Pearson

  The Embrace of Cold Architects

  David R. George III

  To Steven H. Pilchik,

  The first stranger I met in a strange land,

  Who turned out to be a fine man and a lifelong friend,

  One of the few who always understood and who always believed,

  And whose presence in my life has enriched it greatly.

  Until the long march of seasons

  Brought an empty, treacherous night

  That drew her into hollow depths.

  I journeyed out, seeking reune

  With the soul that lighted my own,

  To wrest her from the cold embrace

  Of remorseless winter.

  —PHINEAS TARBOLDE,

  “THE LOST CHILD”

  Picard: There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders.

  —“THE OFFSPRING”

  1

  Like the waters of a vast ocean, the voices threatened to drown him. They surrounded him, weighed him down, pulled him inexorably into their midst. As uncountable as sea waves and as unsympathetic, they battered him from all sides.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard lay on his back, the metal table beneath him once cold and hard, but now beyond his ability to feel. He stared blindly upward, no longer seeing the complex equipment pervading the alien vessel. Numbness suffused his body, a welcome release from the thousand natural shocks to which his flesh had been heir.

  A glimmer of recognition darted through Picard’s awareness. Shakespeare, he thought, grasping for the paraphrased fragment of dialogue, desperate to latch onto something—anything—familiar. Shakespeare, The Tragedy … The Tragedy of …

  William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, said a voice in his head—said all the voices, knit together as one. Hundreds of Borg—perhaps a thousand or more—spoke in unison, a chorus of unremitting pressure. Until now, their refrain had articulated only pronouncements of conquest: Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.

  A single voice loosed itself from the whole and spoke to him through the continued din of the aggregate. To die, to sleep—no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. The words came in flat tones, devoid of emotion, the cadence robotic. Act Three, Scene One, of Hamlet.

  How do they know that? Picard wondered. Had they extracted the information from his brain, or had they gleaned it from some other source? Even as he posed the question, he understood the answer. Though he and the Enterprise crew had discovered from their first encounter with the Borg that the physically augmented humanoids procreated, it had grown clear just how they added the “biological distinctiveness” of other species to their own: by brute force. The restraints that bound Picard prevented him from peering down at himself, but earlier he’d heard the awful sound of a drill penetrating the side of his skull, he’d felt the strange sensation of tubes pushing into newly opened holes in his torso, he’d watched a dark, plated mechanism being secured to the right half of his face.

  And he had begun to hear their voices, no longer without, but within, side by side with his own thoughts. As he resisted, they continued to tell him that he had been chosen to speak for the Borg in all communications, in order to facilitate their introduction into Federation societies. The Borg would make him one of their own, both physically and mentally—just as they had with so many others. Their knowledge of Shakespeare had not come from him, but from some other individuals they had incorporated into their hive.

  When did you learn Shakespeare? came another lone voice, barely distinguishable from that of the Borg mass, yet divergent enough to impose a primacy of attention.

  Where did you learn Shakespeare? asked a second.

  Why did you learn Shakespeare? demanded a third.

  Picard did not intend to respond in any way, but his mind’s eye conjured the image of a classroom. He saw himself in school at the age of fourteen, listening to Ms. DeGiglio, his literature instructor. He knew at once that the Borg had in that moment ascertained the answers they’d just sought, and more: the appearance and name of his teacher. The mere act of hearing their questions had amounted to an irresistible interrogation.

  More voices peeled away from the ongoing swell of Borg thought rushing through Picard’s mind.

  What else did you learn?

  What scientific concepts did you learn?

  What scientific applications did you learn?

  Though he made no conscious effort to do so, Picard thought about the warp-field effect, about the equations he’d studied during his years at Starfleet Academy. He envisioned the classroom, the campus in San Francisco, diagrams in textbooks, and schematics he’d seen in Enterprise’s engineering section. Distressed by the idea of the Borg gathering any information at all about Starfleet and its abilities, Picard attempted to blank his mind. He understood that the human brain did not function as a computer did, or even as Data’s positronic brain did. The Borg could not simply download his organic intelligence and memory, so that they could then scour the data for useful information, but after connecting their colle
ctive mind to his psyche, they could “see” and “hear” his waking thoughts. If they could compel him to think of some particular detail, then they could incorporate that detail into their own body of knowledge.

  Despair washed over Picard like the tide, carried along by the unrelenting voices of the Borg. They had already exhausted his body and his mind, leaving him with a faltering resolve that he knew he couldn’t maintain for much longer. He had promised to resist the Borg with his last ounce of strength, but once they had worn him down, what then? It required no guesswork to determine the information they wanted most—information he retained as the captain of Enterprise.

  No! Picard cried without opening his mouth. He would not think of his starship. Instead, he struggled to envisage the night sky above his childhood home in La Barre. As a boy, he’d often stood out in his family’s vineyard, gazing upward and identifying the constellations and stars that so fascinated him. He’d spent more than a few nights imagining himself aboard a starship, warping through space.

  Your vessel possesses warp capabilities, stated a Borg voice. What other technologies does it employ?

  Cepheus, the constellation of the King, Picard forced himself to think. He recalled the formation of stars from memory. Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, he thought next. Draco, the Dragon.

  What are your vessel’s armaments?

  Alderamin and Errai in Cepheus, Picard recited to himself—to himself and to the Borg. Polaris and Kochab in Ursa Minor. Eltanin and—

  What are your vessel’s newest technological developments?

  Newest, Picard echoed, the word shining in his mind bright as a nova. Newest, he thought again. The newest technological developments aboard Enterprise.

  His thoughts drifted backward to—when? Hours ago, perhaps? Or had days passed? The perception of time had slipped away from him beneath the constant assault of the Borg intelligence. Still, whenever he had last been aboard Enterprise, he’d witnessed firsthand his crew’s most recent technological achievement. In a flash, related sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings, emerged from his memory.

  The Borg saw everything.

  The turbolift glided to a stop, its doors easing open with a whisper. Captain Picard stepped out onto deck twelve and strode purposefully down the corridor, headed for one of Enterprise’s numerous science laboratories. His presence there had been requested by Commander Riker, who had just contacted him about a highly unusual—and wholly unauthorized—project undertaken by Lieutenant Commander Data. Unclear as to precisely what he would find in the lab, the captain feared the worst-case scenario, already rehearsing what he would say to Starfleet Command in such a circumstance.

  Picard approached Room 5103 and reached for the door control. The panels parted before him to reveal Riker standing beside Data and Counselor Troi at the periphery of the raised octagonal platform that dominated the space. Lieutenant Commander La Forge and Ensign Crusher stood off to one side. Each of the officers faced the experiment chamber at the center of the room, though they all peered over at Picard as he entered. Whatever conversation they might have been having immediately ceased.

  Gesturing toward the chamber as Picard mounted the platform, Riker said, “Captain, this is Data’s—” He hesitated, seeming to search for the appropriate word. “—creation,” he finished.

  Picard regarded the humanoid figure. Slight of form, perhaps a meter and a half tall, it projected a neutral, unfinished appearance. It wore no clothing, and its bronze skinlike covering showed neither hair nor sexual characteristics. Its nose had no nares. Narrow slits formed its eye sockets and mouth.

  “Lal,” Data said, “say hello to Captain Jean-Luc Picard.”

  The android looked first to Data, then to Picard. Its head did not turn smoothly, but incrementally, much as Data’s often did. “Hello, Captain Jean-Luc Picard,” it said, its voice possessed of a vaguely electronic quality, not really masculine, not really feminine.

  Picard did not reply. Of Data, he asked, “How similar is this android to you?”

  “Lal is very similar to me,” Data said, “though I have attempted to improve those design elements I could.”

  Any hope Picard nurtured for an uncomplicated resolution to the situation vanished. He studied the android, and began slowly working his way around the experiment chamber to examine it further. It had not been so long ago that Picard had fought Starfleet to establish Data’s own rights as an individual. While a reasonable argument could be made to apply that decision to Data’s new creation, the captain doubted that Command would agree so readily.

  “Lal has a positronic brain much like my own,” Data continued. “I began programming it during my time at the cybernetics conference on Galtinor Prime.” Data had attended the conference more than a month earlier.

  “Nobody’s ever been able to do that,” said La Forge. “Not since Doctor Soong programmed you, anyway.” Soong had constructed Data three decades earlier, not long before the doctor’s death.

  “That is true,” Data agreed, “but at the conference, I learned of a new sub-micron matrix-transfer technology. The process intrigued me. As I studied it, I discovered that it could be utilized to set up complex neural-net pathways.”

  “So you used your brain as a template,” Ensign Crusher said, “and transferred the setup to Lal’s brain.”

  “That is correct, Wesley,” Data said. “With this advance, I realized that it would be possible to continue Doctor Soong’s work. The initial transfers proved promising, and so I brought Lal’s brain back to the Enterprise with me. Several more transfers will be required in order to complete the process.”

  As Picard completed his circuit around the new android, Riker asked, “Data, why didn’t you tell anybody about this?” The question bespoke the captain’s own thoughts.

  “It was a personal experience,” Data said. “I have not observed members of the crew involving others in their attempts at procreation.”

  Riker’s eyebrows arched as he glanced over at Picard. Data’s characterization of his building the android as an act of reproduction signaled an added complexity to what Picard had already assumed would develop into a difficult situation. The captain needed to understand everything he could about Data’s invention before the inevitable inquiries from Starfleet Command. “Commander Data, I would like to speak with you in my ready room in one hour.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Commander Riker,” Picard said, bidding his first officer to follow him. “Counselor.” The captain exited, headed back to the bridge, his two officers in tow. Once in the corridor, Picard asked, “Why did we not know about this?”

  “Technically, Data hasn’t done anything wrong,” Riker said. “He may have conducted his efforts privately, but he didn’t violate any regulations about personal, off-duty use of the ship’s facilities.”

  “Even so,” Picard said, “his operating in secret precluded the possibility of us preventing this from happening.”

  “I don’t think he meant to deceive anybody,” Troi said. “You heard him: he views Lal not as his invention, but as his child.”

  “An outlook we must discourage,” Picard said. “This android is an invention, not a child.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Troi said. “Is biology necessarily a determining factor in what is and what isn’t a child? Data has created an offspring, a separate life based at least partly on his own being. That suggests to me that Lal is his child.”

  “A child that can perform sixty trillion calculations a second and could lift me over its head with one arm,” Riker observed wryly.

  “An exceptional child, perhaps,” Troi said, “but a child nonetheless.”

  The trio arrived at a turbolift and entered. The captain specified their destination, and the car started upward. Thinking beyond the new android’s capabilities, it occurred to Picard that Data’s motivations might help inform the situation. “Counselor, I’m recollecting Data’s experiences during the past couple of months. Could his decision to do
this be a reaction to what happened on the Jovis?”

  “You mean his abduction by Kivas Fajo?” Troi asked.

  “And the faking of his death,” Picard said. Fajo, a Zibalian trader and a collector of rare and valuable items, had staged a shuttle accident in order to cover his kidnapping and detention of Data. “Could his facing indefinite confinement have contributed to his desire to construct another of his own kind? Or could his potentially having to kill his captor in order to escape captivity have contributed?”

  “It’s possible,” Troi allowed, though with a tone of skepticism. “Post-traumatic stress can sometimes drive individuals to life-affirming actions, such as having a child. But I think such circumstances imply the presence of emotion, so I’m not sure this would explain Data’s behavior.”

  “The conference was postponed a few months because of severe weather around the cybernetics center on Galtinor Prime,” Riker said. “Do you think if it had taken place as originally scheduled, prior to the incident with Fajo, that Data still would have constructed Lal?”

  “Provided that the technology he learned about was available at that time,” Troi said, “yes, I do.”

  The turbolift reached the bridge, depositing Picard and his officers on the lower level, beside the door to the captain’s ready room. “Counselor,” Picard said, “I’d like you to look into that more. See if there’s any basis for post-traumatic stress and related actions without an emotional component.”

  “Yes, sir,” Troi said. She padded across to her position.

  “Number One,” Picard said, and entered his ready room. Riker followed. Inside, the captain crossed to his desk and took his chair. His first officer sat down opposite.

  “Will, do you still have whatever research you conducted for the hearing on Starbase One-Seven-Three?” Picard asked. A year and a half earlier, Commander Bruce Maddox, a cyberneticist attached to the Daystrom Technological Institute, had moved to dismantle and reverse-engineer Data. Maddox hoped thereby to complete his own research so that he could then manufacture Soong-type androids for Starfleet. Data refused, causing the judge advocate general in the sector to decide on his legal status. When the JAG declared Data property of Starfleet, Picard challenged the ruling. The captain argued on Data’s behalf, and because the judge advocate general’s office in Sector 23 had just been set up and had yet to be fully staffed, it fell upon Riker to prosecute the case against Data’s freedom. Picard and Data had prevailed, but Riker—unwillingly, but with little choice in the matter—had made the case for the opposing viewpoint quite convincingly.