Data nodded stiffly. “Hope . . . is all . . . I have.”
“Understood,” Picard said. “Continue doing whatever you have to.”
At that moment, Data lapsed into a disconcerting silence, and Picard moved forward to take the cockpit seat beside Hawk. The lieutenant’s full attention was focused on his evasive flying. “Mr. Hawk, how thoroughly did Commander Data brief you on the Romulan command protocols he’s been using?”
“He showed me the entire abort‑command sequence,” Hawk said, casting his wide eyes momentarily on Picard. He added sheepishly, “Once.”
“Lieutenant, I think it’s time to test that photographic memory I’ve read so much about in your service record.”
“Captain, I could never enter the commands as quickly as Commander Data could.”
“Then slow and steady will have to do,” Picard said, smiling grimly as he took control of the helm. “The subspace uplink with the array should still be open. I’ll hold the warbird off while you enter the commands.”
At once, Hawk began manipulating the instrument panel, slowly at first, then accelerating to an almost inhuman speed. Though Picard gave most of his concentration over to the flight controls, he saved some for the forward viewer. It showed the maw of the approaching warbird’s main disruptor bank, which was glowing like the core of a star.
‹ Cease whatever you are doing at once. ›
The Presence caught up with Data at last–it felt as though years had passed since Data had first distracted it with his emotion chip–and restrained him again within its cybernetic tendrils. Data became aware that he had once more lost command of his speech functions. That revelation discouraged him.
Until he noted that the emotion chip remained firmly under his control. That told him that the Presence stilldid not understand what he was doing. Emotion chip–generated hope sang within him.
‹ Cease whatever you are doing at once, › the Presence repeated.
No,Data said simply.
But he quickly understood that resolve would be an insufficient weapon against this AI. Data could feel his internal clock slowing, his information cycles becoming slow, lethargic. His consciousness itself was beginning to diffuse, as though it were a small blob of ink spreading out across a vast, wine‑dark sea.
‹ You will have no further opportunity to infect the Apparatus with aberrant code, › the Presence said confidently. ‹ I will overwrite you now. ›
Data knew all too well what the Presence meant. His positronic matrix would be wiped clean. His experiences and memories, his dreams and hopes, his friendships and loves would be reduced to a blank slate. He would be erased as though he had never been.
The Presence had obviously adapted to the output of his emotion chip. The only weapon he possessed had been neutralized. Despair threatened to overwhelm him. How easy it would be to simply let it happen, and accept the surcease of deactivation and nothingness.
No!Data shouted silently. He recalled his brief glimpse of the scoutship’s interior. He remembered that a Romulan warbird was about to vaporize Captain Picard and Lieutenant Hawk.
Then, even as awareness began to flee him, hope arose within Data once again: He recalled that he had set the emotion chip’s output at nowhere near its maximum gain. That told him that he still had a weapon. Gathering up his will, he let the chip’s energies build, as though it were a phaser set on overload.
A cybernetic eternity later, he released the chip’s greatly increased emotional output, letting it flood into the Romulan machine‑entity’s consciousness.
‹ No, › said the Presence. Data could feel it actively resisting him.
With all of his remaining will, he directed the totality of his anger, his fear, his frustration straight into the algorithm‑creature’s core. It was as though the Presence had been forced to drink from a fire hose. Teraquads of intense emotion rushed through the chip, sweeping the entity away before it had an opportunity to sever Data’s subspace connection to the Romulan array. The deathscream of the Presence reverberated in Data’s consciousness as the entity’s code decompiled, corrupting itself in a spontaneous cascade effect.
Even as Data felt his adversary’s passing, he wondered whether his triumph had cost him the use of his emotion chip. At that thought, hope fled from him, as did every other human emotion he had worked so hard to acquire for so many years. But with no emotions to distract him, Data had no trouble accepting that the loss was infinitely preferable to nonexistence.
And he had no trouble giving the plight of Picard and Hawk his full attention. Noticing that his cybernetic connection to the Romulan array remained intact, he sent a portion of his consciousness deeper inside it, ready to resend the abort command–
–only to find the data channels still aswarm with “antibody” programs, the final nonsentient remnants of the Presence. Or perhaps they had arisen as a consequence of that entity’s contact with him, like a cybernetic immune response.
Regardless, Data knew that he could never get the abort command past them, even if he were to perish in the attempt. He quietly backed away, all but disengaging entirely from the Romulan array. Despair stung him then–
–and struck a spark that glimmered into joy. Only a functioning emotion chip could have made either experience possible. As his maintenance subroutines reawakened and began purging his matrix of whatever remained of the Presence within him, Data rejoiced at having succeeded in hanging onto his hard‑won humanity.
And, even as he struggled to regain control over his body’s many subsystems, Data clung just as steadfastly to the hope of finding some other way to neutralize the Romulans’ subspace singularity.
His hands a blur on the instrument panel, Hawk entered the final command sequence, then tried to get a fix on the subspace singularity with the sensors. This has to work,he thought.
No change.
Ten long seconds ticked by as Picard continued dodging the Gal Gath’thong’s relentless disruptor fusillades, while staying less than quarter of a kilometer from the warbird’s bifurcated hull. At this range, it was relatively easy to foil the Romulans’ target locks. But it was still a minor miracle that they had thus far avoided a mutually destructive collision.
Sooner or later, Hawk knew, their luck was going to run out.
Hawk examined the singularity once again on the passive sensor display. It seemed indestructible. He closed his eyes, feeling utterly defeated.
“Report, Lieutenant!” Picard barked.
“It . . . didn’t work. I don’t understand it. I must have mis‑keyed one of the command pathways.”
Hawk heard a voice behind him. “I do not believe that is so, Lieutenant.”
“Data!” Hawk said, startled. He turned in his seat and saw that Data was now standing in the crew compartment. Except for the cable that connected his metallic skull to the bulkhead, he appeared none the worse for wear.
“Forgive me, Lieutenant. I did not mean to startle you.”
“Data, what happened to the AI you were fighting?” Picard said as he rolled the scoutship past a disruptor tube an instant before it fired. Hawk noticed that the Captain’s hand was on his phaser.
“It has been . . . neutralized. My internal housekeeping subroutines are purging its remaining code‑structures from my physical matrix even now.”
“Excellent. But can you get back inside the array?”
“Not in the same manner as before. I just checked the information channel through which I originally entered the array, and I have determined that it is now filled with electronic ‘antibodies’ designed to cancel out any recurrence of my original externally introduced abortcommand sequence. It is the positronic equivalent of an inoculation against a viral infection. I am afraid that we must find another avenue of attack.”
Picard finally seemed to be running out of patience. “Data, don’t you understand? We don’t have timeto look for another avenue of attack!”
Attack.The notion struck Hawk like a clap of thunder. Attack! That’s the key.“Maybe we already have one,” he said.