Free The Light by Jeff D. Jacques Page B

” he said. “A chat with Seven of Nine would really be helpful about now.”
    â€œWouldn’t it, though,” Pattie agreed. “I’d love to pick her brain about the structural fortitude of the Borg design and regenerative properties.”
    Fascinating stuff, Stevens thought, smiling as he rolled his eyes. “Aha,” he said as he spotted a square drop-down panel near the control interface that looked hopeful. But before he had a chance to open it, the sound of hushed voices and footsteps echoed around their metallic environment and drew his attention. The voices belonged to Corsi and Gomez, he realized, and a few moments later the two women came around a corner, bright airy expressions on their faces. They couldn’t have looked more relaxed and refreshed if they’d spent the day at a Risan spa. Obviously Sonya hasn’t told Dom about last night . As they came closer, he noticed something a bit odd.
    â€œYour hair’s wet,” he said. His curiosity went into overdrive as he wondered what the two of them had been up to.
    Corsi raked her damp blond hair with her fingers. “You noticed, huh?” Oh yeah, thought Stevens. Her hair looked great when it was wet.
    â€œDid you get caught in a rainstorm down there?” asked Pattie, then laughed at the crazy notion.
    â€œNah,” Gomez said with a nonchalant gesture. “After the tour, we went swimming.”
    â€œSwimming?” Hawkins asked skeptically.
    â€œWhere?” Stevens asked.
    â€œWhere else?” Gomez shrugged. “The beach.”
    â€œThe beach?” Stevens had the feeling that he was the victim of some joke hatched by the two women. “Come on, you guys are pulling our legs.”
    â€œHonestly, Fabe,” Corsi said, apparently enjoying the moment as much as Gomez. “They have an underground lake down there, complete with a sandy beach. The water’s even heated by an underwater fissure. It’s incredible.”
    â€œRemarkable,” Pattie said. “That would have been something to see.”
    â€œIt was,” Gomez said. “And you should have seen the crops, Pattie. It was an unbelievable sight to behold. Maybe if there’s time after the mission, we’ll go see it again.”
    Pattie waved her antennae delightedly.
    â€œHang on a second,” Stevens said. “Your uniforms are dry.”
    â€œOf course they are,” Corsi said. “You don’t really think we’d go swimming wearing these things, do you?”
    Stevens’s eyebrows lifted slowly, as a series of delightful implications occurred to him in vivid detail. “Now I really wish I’d been there.”
    â€œFabian,” Gomez said, getting back to business, “did you contact the captain?”
    â€œYeah,” Stevens said with a nod. “Soloman and Tev are still looking for any useful Borg tech in the database, but nothing so far. We’ve decided what we need to do is change the frequency of the power signature so it no longer identifies as Borg. That way we can allow the power flow to continue down to the city. It’s just a matter of figuring out these systems.” He gave the central interface a pat. “Frankly, we could really use Soloman for this.”
    â€œYou’re probably right,” Sonya said. “I’ll mention it to the captain when I report in. In the meantime, go ahead and fiddle around, and see if you can make any headway.”
    â€œRight,” Stevens said as Gomez moved off to contact the ship. He returned to the access panel and opened it with little effort. The guts of the computer interface stared at him, all twinkling telltales and snaking conduits. “Right,” he said again, and stared right back.

    David Gold listened to the report of his first officer and was astounded at what the away team had discovered in the underground city. That these comparatively primitive subterranean dwellers had