Ghost in the Machine

Gutierrez and Broca, deep in discussion over the ops console to the side of the bridge, looked up as one.  Gutierrez spoke first: "Are you Ensign Quart?"

Rolling his eyes, he said, "Quarton.  Quarton.  Now... what seems to be the dilemma here?"

Broca whispered something in Gutierrez's ear and realization dawned on the young Hispanic.  "Quarton.  Right.  Here's the dilemma."  He started explaining, then Broca joined in, and together it sounded like two professors at a science convention, laced with technobabble and communications jargon, with several mentions of subspace.  When they finished, they regarded Quarton, waiting as if he understood.

Wolfgang rolled his eyes.  "Oh for goodness sakes."  He walked over to the console.  Punching a few random buttons, he said to the two, "Have you both noticed an increase in tachyon energy fluctuation?"

"Uh," Broca offered.  "You mean the Hepner wave?  It's—"

Gutierrez elbowed him, shutting him up.  "What are you getting at, Ensign?"

"Isn't it obvious?  There is a major power surge trapped in the communications system."

The ops officers looked at each other.  "A power surge," Gutierrez repeated.

Broca regarded Quarton.  "But... it's draining power.  The sarium krellide—"

Quarton finished for Broca.  "The batteries are detonating, due to a massive power influx."

"An influx from where?" Gutierrez said.  He eyed the console, looking it over.  "It looks like someone trying to tap into coms, but without the regular triaxillating frequency..."

"Someone is tapping into the coms.  From inside the system."

Gutierrez's eyes lit up.  "A ghost in the machine."

Broca frowned.  "A what?"

"I heard about them growing up," Gutierrez said.  "Some called them gremlins.  They'd get inside ships and... well, never mind."  He eyed Quarton.  "We can't isolate it without factoring a subspace signal.  Care to theorize a location for this 'ghost'?"

"Let me see... let me see..."  Quarton looked over the system profile.  It went to here... then it appeared that this was where the major system overload was occurring.  Tapping on the screen, he said, "Can you isolate this datablock?"

Broca's nimble fingers danced over the console, touching buttons in rapid sequence.  The requested section leaped to larger resolution on the screen, with corresponding highlighted data.  At a glance from Gutierrez he grinned.  "I play the piano too."

Quarton, for some odd, unexplained reason... smiled.  "Impressive."  Tapping the grid on the screen, he said, "This block is packed.  It shouldn't have nearly that much compressed data in it.  Not even close.  There is something very large trapped in there."

Gutierrez looked closer at it, frowning.  Then his expression paled and he practically yelled to tactical, "Wildberry!  Take a look at this!"  He punched a couple buttons and the same display appeared on Wildberry's console.

Wildberry did a double-take.  "What is that?  That carries a Borg signature!"

Everyone on the bridge (not many at the moment, but a few) trained eyes on Quarton as if he had done something.  Perhaps, in an indirect way, they thought he did: Q (a member of the Q Continuum) had introduced the Borg to the Federation back in '65.

Quarton looked around.  "What?  Is it something I said?"

Gutierrez and Broca looked at each other again.  "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Broca said.

"Holoprocessors," Gutierrez said.  The two men acted in concert, routing the information to the ship's array of holoemitters.  Then at the touch of a button a hologram shimmered into view... but it wasn't anything recognizable.  It was a huge gray lump, or a holoapproximation thereof.  It writhed like it was alive and emitted an ear-splitting scream.  Suddenly everyone on the bridge was slumped over their consoles, unconscious.

Everyone... but Quarton, for some reason.