They stepped into the turbolift and Picard said, “Bridge.” As the lift began to move, he said, without looking at Riker, “You sounded somewhat aggressive in there, Number One.”
“I spoke my mind,” said Riker. “I had thought that was standard operating procedure.”
“It is. And is that all there is to it?”
Riker fixed him with an even stare. “Yes, sir.”
Picard pursed his lips a moment and then said, “You can’t afford to lose your objectivity where the Borg are concerned, Commander.”
“I know that, sir.”
“Then no more need be said.”
“No sir.”
“Good.”
Taggert was standing and studying the object ahead of them, stroking her chin thoughtfully. “Specs on the planet that’s currently serving as that thing’s main course,” she said.
“Planet Kalish IX,” said Mr. Seth after a moment. “Class-B. High methane content, fierce arctic winds. Uninhabitable. No life forms.”
“Okay,” said Taggert slowly. “So what we have to figure out is whether this thing destroyed a planet because it knew that the planet was lifeless…or if the planet was simply the first one that it encountered. Slow to half impulse. Give me information, people.”
“We’ve been scanning it, Captain,” said Seth. “The hull is neutronium, making detailed sensor readings impossible.”
“Best guess?”
“Mechanical device of some sort. Perhaps some sort of artificial intelligence, although for all we know, there’s life forms aboard. Difficult to be certain.”
“Open a hailing frequency.”
“A hailing frequency,” said the tactical officer, Goodman. “To that thing?”
“If there’s a humanoid mind or minds behind it, I want to talk to it,” said Taggert firmly.
She could understand her officer’s surprise. This thing didn’t look like a ship. This thing looked like nothing she had ever seen before.
Foremost was a wide circular opening in the front, like a huge, gaping mouth. It was miles wide, like an entranceway to a tunnel that led straight down to hell. From within there were flickerings of some ungodly light, like unseen demons dancing around a towering pyre. The thing then immediately angled straight down, the mouth projecting forward while the rest of the body spiralled down at a ninety-degree angle to it. It twisted and turned all the way to the bottom, looking for all the world like some sort of spacegoing cyclone.
The most noticeable feature, however, was the huge series of projections that extended from all over the exterior. They were longest and most densely packed around the maw, huge pointed towers miles high that came to points, packed so densely that they overlapped. Yet there was a symmetry to them, a sense of deadly beauty and purpose. With the combination of the flickering within the maw itself, and the dazzling projections so thickly set around the mouth, it gave the impression of a massive, moving, highly stylized starburst. A mobile sun, consuming whatever was in its path.
Scattered along the rest of the cyclonic image were more of the huge, spike-like projections. They stuck out at odd angles, in all directions. Any one of them looked capable of skewering a planet through to the core, or smashing through starships with no trouble. It meant that an attacking ship couldn’t even get in close.
“Sir, having trouble getting through,” reported Goodman. “We’re getting some sort of subspace interference. It’ll take me a minute to punch through.”
“Can you inform Starfleet of what’s going on?”
“Negative, sir. We have local communication, but there’s too much interference to go beyond the solar system.”
Taggert sat back in the command chair, steepling her fingers. A planet-devouring ship. Neutronium hull. Subspace interference. Damn, it all sounded familiar somehow. “Mr. Seth,” she began, “check Starfleet logs for—”
“Captain, we’re getting a response!” The surprise in Goodman’s voice was clear.
“On visual.”
“No visual transmission.”
“Audio, then.”
There was a pause, and then there was a voice…a combination of voices. A symphony of voices.
“Yes?” it said. Insanely, it sounded almost polite, as if going about consuming planets was simply standard operating procedure.
Taggert licked her suddenly dry lips and said, “This is Captain Taggert of the starship Repulse.” She paused, waiting for some response, some replying identification.
Instead, the huge planet-destroyer simply hung there. Chunks of rubble were being hungrily scooped up by means of what appeared to be a tractor beam.
“And?” said the voice finally. It seemed even vaguely amused somehow.
“Identify yourself,” said Taggert.
“Why?”
“Because,” Taggert said, using annoyance to cover her deep-seated conviction that they were in way over their heads, “I wish to know the name of the individual, or individuals, who believe that they can just go about the galaxy, destroying planets with impunity.”
There was a silence. And then the voice spoke again. “You describe the Borg,” it said.
“You are not one of the Borg,” said Taggert.
“No. But they are the destroyers. They operate with impunity. We will stop them, though. I will stop them.”
“You just destroyed a planet!” said Taggert. “What makes you any better?”
“There was no life. We needed the fuel. I needed the fuel. We are hungry. Hungry for fuel. Vengeance fuels our hatred, but the body needs fuel of a different sort.”
“And if there had been life?”
“There was none.”
“But if there were?” Taggert said, this time with increased urgency.
“Then they would die. It does not matter. Nothing matters except stopping the Borg. The soulless ones. For if they are not stopped, then truly nothing will matter.”
“I must ask you,” said Taggert firmly, “as a duly authorized representative of Starfleet, to remain where you are. We cannot permit you to continue on your present course.”
“You cannot stop me.”
“We will do what we have to.”
“If what you have to do is die, then that is what you will do. We would regret that. But if it is necessary, then it is necessary. Nothing must stop me from destroying the Borg.”
“Captain, communications have been cut off,” said Goodman.
“It’s finished consuming the planet,” said Seth. “It’s…it’s heading for the next one.” He looked up in alarm. “Captain…there’s a small colony on Kalish VIII—three hundred people.”
Taggert bolted to her feet. “Hard about, Mr. Seth. Alert all transporter rooms. Emergency evacuation about to commence. Raise the colonists.”
“They hailed us, Captain. They’re coming on now.”
On the screen appeared the panicked face of a colonist. His skin had turned as white as the thin hair on his head. “Repulse, come in!” he was saying urgently. They could see, behind him, people running about frantically, screaming, waving their arms. “This is Astra colony on Kalish VIII. Come in!”
“We’re reading you, Astra,” said Taggert, the voice and picture of calm.
“Our planetary sensors are reading—”
“We know,” she said. “We’ll be there in no time. Get your people together—transportation will go faster if we can do you in large masses. And pray,” she added, “that what’s coming toward you is full from its most recent meal.”
The Borg soldier lay in the biobed, the implants glistening metal all over her skin and, insanely, the knife still sticking out of her arm. Dr. Crusher was studying the implants carefully, shaking her head. “Machine parts, attached to people against their will,” she was muttering. “Tapping into your body and soul. It’s like cybernetic rape.”
Data had finished putting the connectors from his own positronic mind to the appropriate connections on the Borg. La Forge stood nearby, making some last-
minute adjustments. “Data, you sure about this?” he asked.
Data looked at him with as close to puzzlement as he could muster. “Of course not, Geordi,” he said. “One can only be sure if there is no possibility of error, and all factors are known. With the Borg, neither condition is met.”
“You sure know how to instill a sense of security,” mumbled Geordi, going back to his work.
Deanna Troi stood nearby, feeling helpless and useless. She was reaching out as much as she could to the helpless woman in the biobed, but there was simply nothing there. Troi was perceiving no sense of awareness, no sense of self, no nothing. It was as if the biobed were empty.
“I am ready to proceed,” said Data quietly.
Crusher stepped aside to keep a close eye on the life signs. “Ready on this end,” she said.
“Proceeding,” said Data, and he lapsed into silence.
No one spoke, and there was no sound except for a soft, gentle humming of circuitry. All the normal sounds of sickbay abruptly seem magnified beyond all proportion. Troi looked at Crusher, who glanced at her and then looked at Geordi. La Forge, for his part, kept a steady watch on all the important circuitry.
“I have located the neural path that maintains contact with the Borg central mind,” Data said finally. “It appears to be generating a steady flow of electrons which, due to the disruption in the circuitry, are being rerouted and returned to the programming center. It will be necessary to continue this loop, or else the immediate destruction of the soldier will result.” He suddenly paused and then said, “She is aware of my presence.”
“Vitals are fluctuating,” said Beverly.
“I still sense nothing,” Troi commented.
“She is aware,” said Data. “On a rudimentary level, she senses that I am within her frame of reference.”
“Does she know she’s severed from the Borg?” said Geordi.
“No, and she must not find out. Not at this point in the procedure,” Data said. “Otherwise, it would trigger her self-destruct mechanism…as would any attempt by you, Geordi, to remove her self-destruct mechanism. There are enough redundant fail-safes within her that you could never disarm her without causing her to disintegrate. Only by integrating override commands directly into her directives—while simultaneously preventing her from taking self-destruction action—can she be safely recovered.”
Data lapsed back into silence.
“Her vital signs are all over the place,” said Beverly, and then warning tones began to sound from the life scanners. She started to prepare a hypo, and as she did so, Deanna looked at her with concern.
“Is that wise?” said Troi.
“I don’t honestly know,” said Crusher, “but I have to do something. We can lose the body while he’s working with the mind.”
“I am processing through preliminary stages of setting up a self-answering signal,” said Data.
“Pulse is racing,” said Crusher. “Heart rate is racing.”
“Data…” Geordi began.
“Body temperature increasing,” Beverly noted. Then her voice went up with alarm as she said, “Increasing dramatically. Data, she’s starting to heat up!”
“It’s a fail-safe, Data,” said Geordi. “She’s going to combust! Her anti-tampering imperative is kicking in!”
“There are primary alert systems built in,” said Data calmly. “I am proceeding to override them.”
“Body temperature still increasing,” reported Crusher. “I’m going to try and slow down her metabolism,” and she started to press the hypo against the Borg’s arm.
“That is not advisable,” Data said.
Geordi could see the air around the Borg woman, through his VISOR, changing from blue to orange. “Data, she’s going to go up! And she’s going to take you with her! Her surface temperature is rising. The air is—”
Data was no longer listening.
Instead, all the impulses of his brain were racing through the Borg soldier, with literally the speed of thought.
He was being pulled down, down a long, spiralling stairway. A maze of cross-circuiting and pure, unaffected, undiluted order. Humans were a tangle of emotions, all intertwined and all endlessly trying to sort each other out and never coming close to succeeding. It was an existence that Data envied, a consummation to be desired. Yet here, here was an alternative that almost seemed to be calling to him and summoning him. Icy tendrils seemed to lick at his positronic brain, savor his impulses, and salivate hungrily over his thoughts. You are primitive, they seemed to say, but you can be used. You can be part of us. You can join with us…
And Data realized that he was encountering some vestigial memory of the great Borg mind. The overwhelming uniformity of purpose, the purity of the concept, so engrained into the deepest engrams of the mind that even a brain that was a virtual tabula rasa could not completely divest itself.
He did not reply. He could not reply. And yet, to save the life of this Borg soldier, he had to reply. He had to insinuate himself within.
His positronic brain reached down and through, into the depths of the Borg imperative. It swept over him—a black tide, and the sounds of gears turning and a steady, implacable thudding. A thudding like a pendulum swinging steadily, or the sounds of a million boots marching in perfect precision, tromping across the galaxy, leaving their great heeled prints behind them in the form of scooped-out planets and ravaged lives.
He submerged himself in it, hiding the integrity of his own programming while, at the same time, fighting to maintain it. He played a dangerous game. So many ways to fail: If the Borg soldier destroyed herself, his mind might go with it. Or if he lost his grip on the integrated individual that was Data, his matrix could be overwhelmed and replaced with that of the Borg.
It filled him up: the Borg mentality, the Borg identity, the Borg mission and the pure, undying, unwavering conviction that they would triumph; that they were the future. There was, quite simply, no doubt in their collective mind. No room for error. No chance of concern or questioning, of failure. There would be no failure. The Borg would triumph.
The Borg reached into every aspect of Data. They were inescapable and had spread themselves throughout the soldier’s body and soul like a malignant cancer that could never be excised.
Human life is chaos. Machine life is order. Order is preferable to chaos. To make humans one with the Borg is to give them order. The Borg will provide order. The Borg will remove the human chaos. The Borg are inevitable.
And it made sense. If Data were capable of being frightened, he would have been. It made such perfect sense. Humans were chaos. Humans wallowed in their chaos. They enjoyed it…enjoyed it.
Of course.
No enjoyment, said Data, and his own programming began to reassert itself. There would be no enjoyment. Humans revel in their humanity.
Enjoyment is irrelevant. Humanity is irrelevant.
No, said Data. A light of pure truth seemed to shine before him. That is the only relevant thing.
The light widened, beginning to fill the darkness. The Borg voice railed against him, saying You are demonstrating your imperfection. You are displaying your obsolescence. You will be irrelevant.
Data’s brain, programmed with respect and admiration for the accomplishments and wonder of humanity, stabbed out. He sensed the world/mind of the woman running out of time around him. The Borg imperatives hidden deep in her mind were about to order her to self-destruct. He could virtually sense the impulse command about to be sent, for the preparations had been made in response to his initial probings.
The call for destruction went out.
And Data snared it.
He fashioned a net from his own neurons, tackling the synaptic leap that would trigger the final command. The Borg imperative almost seemed to howl in frustration, although Data wasn’t certain whether that was really happening, or whether it was his imagination. He knew he had imagination, or something approximating it. He had realized it the first time he’d fo
und himself wondering what it would have been like if Tasha Yar had lived.
The destruct command writhed deep within her subconscious, and Data pushed it farther and farther away. For one brief instant the Borg almost fought back, but Data shoved it down once more and then sealed it off. Then he suddenly realized that in so doing, he had halted the continuous loop that was preventing the Borg soldier from launching the destruct sequence and turning to ash.
He realized this in less than a millisecond and, because of the state that he was in, his thinking the action was performing the action. He sent a command winging directly into the conscious, operational brain of the Borg soldier, and the command was, quite simply, You are functional. There was, after all, no reason she couldn’t be. She just needed someone to tell that was the case.
He waited for a response. Some sort of reply that would say, he expected, What are your orders? What should I do? Something like that.
But nothing came. For a moment he thought that he had failed, but he ran a complete diagnostic along the neural systems. No, he had succeeded. He sensed that the command was now firmly in place. Implanted in her brain was the command telling her to function. In its most basic concept, he had ordered her to live. That’s all. Just live. And he had done so with such force that it had overridden the Borg self-destruct imperative. He had imprinted his own determination for continued existence upon her brain engrams. But he had not been able to do more than that.
If he could have felt frustration, he would have. If he could have felt anger, or helplessness, or even pity, then all those would have flooded through him as well. Instead, all he could do was decide that he had accomplished as much as possible, and with that, he withdrew.
“—getting hotter,” said Geordi La Forge, finishing the sentence that, to him, had taken a mere second. Yet to Data, it was almost as if Geordi had begun the sentence a lifetime ago. Then La Forge saw through his VISOR that the intense heat being generated had abruptly begun to subside. “Son of a—”
Crusher, for her part, was studying her medical monitors. “Life signs stabilizing,” she said with great relief, and she laid down the hypo. “Pulse, respiration, both beginning to attain human norms.”