“Then how the hell do you know she’s coming, Picard?” said Korsmo impatiently. “What the hell kind of show are you running here?”
Riker frowned, looking from one captain to the other and then at Shelby. She seemed to be shifting uncomfortably in her boots, clearly not any happier with Korsmo’s attitude than was Riker.
With a soft voice that hinted at danger, Picard said, “Her response, Captain, is clearly affirmative because she has dropped out of warp space upon the convergence of our two ships. She’s packing enough fire-power to turn both our ships into free-floating molecules. She doesn’t have to talk to us, Morgan. She doesn’t have to do a damned thing she doesn’t want to do, and the sooner you realize that we’re walking on eggshells with her, the better off we will all be. Are we clear on this?”
Korsmo raised an eyebrow but merely looked bemused. “Quite clear. Lead on, Jean-Luc.”
Picard did so, Korsmo taking care to match his stride and even managing to be a half step ahead of him. The two first officers hung back as if by unspoken agreement, and when the two commanding officers were out of sight, Riker and Shelby slowed even more.
“What’s his problem?” said Riker with no preamble.
At first she considered making a strident protest of Korsmo’s attitude, but Shelby realized that there was no point to it. “He’s jealous of Picard,” she said.
“Jealous?”
“Apparently, they were very competitive back in their Academy days,” she said. She spoke in a low voice, as if concerned that her voice might carry. “He envies Picard’s status, and the way he’s viewed throughout Starfleet.”
“Korsmo’s record is very respectable,” said Riker in confusion. “Medals and commendations, and command of the Chekov, which is hardly a garbage scow.”
“But it’s not the Enterprise,” she said, which Riker had to acknowledge with a nod. “And, when all is said and done, he’s not Captain Picard. When the great stand of Starfleet happened at Wolf 359, the Chekov wasn’t able to get there in time. I think Captain Korsmo has convinced himself that, had he been there, he would have been able to make a difference.”
“He’s probably right. He could have made it forty-one destroyed vessels rather than forty.”
“You’re probably right,” she admitted. “But he imagines that he could have had some impact. It eats at him that he didn’t have the chance. And it eats at him even more that it was, of all people—”
“Jean-Luc Picard who turned the tide. Are you saying Captain Korsmo is unfit for command?”
“Not at all. He just has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Picard, that’s all. We all have our blind spots. I know one officer, for example, who has a blind spot when it comes to realizing the best thing he could do for his career is move on to captaincy of another vessel and let someone else take his place.”
“Except for that blind spot, he’s a superb officer,” said Riker dryly.
“Oh, an exceptional officer. Absolutely exceptional.” She smiled, and she had a lovely smile. “And not afraid to make the tough decisions.”
Ahead of them, the two captains strode side by side, neither speaking, until finally Picard said, “It’s good to see you again, Morgan. Once this business is done, I’ll buy you a drink in Ten-Forward and we’ll discuss old times.”
“Old times?” Korsmo gave a short laugh. “I rode you like the devil, Picard. I helped to make your life miserable. Don’t tell me you’re nostalgic for that.”
Picard shrugged. “You exaggerate.”
“Not in the least. In a way, you have me to thank for your current success.”
Picard looked at him with barely concealed surprise. “I do?”
“Of course. It was my constant haranguing of you that drove you to achieve as much as you could.”
“What a fascinating way of recalling our Academy days.”
“It’s true. I spent so much time reminding you of your limitations, that you felt driven to try and surpass them whenever possible.”
That, Picard thought, had to be the biggest crock that he had ever heard. But something warned him that Korsmo wasn’t just needling him. He had the distinct feeling that Korsmo actually believed it, and more, that the belief was important to him. And now was definitely not the time to challenge it.
“My thanks, Morgan,” he said simply, and then quickly changing the subject, said, “What do you intend to say to the pilot of the planet-killer?”
“Starfleet’s position. A position that I expect you to back me on. I am the senior officer here, after all, Picard.”
“Senior off—”
“I received my commission as captain before you did,” Korsmo said. “Or were you unaware of that?”
“Two weeks before,” said Picard, trying to keep the derisiveness out of his voice.
“Seniority is seniority, Jean-Luc, and I’ll thank you to remember that.”
“I will consider myself officially thanked,” said Picard, and then he suddenly said, “Halt.”
The turbolift came to a stop and Picard turned towards the surprised Korsmo.
“We are dealing with an obsessed woman,” he said, not allowing Korsmo to even open his mouth. “You seem to be under the impression that we, with our two starships, are going to intimidate this woman just by the force of our presence and our words. You had best think again, Morgan. She has the drive and the power to do what she wants. We may not be able to stop her.”
“We sure as hell will stop her,” said Korsmo.
“She may not listen to us.”
“She will listen if I have to shoot her legs out from under her. Besides, we’ve done a scan on her ship. There’s damage to a section of the neutronium hull. We can hit that if necessary, possibly damage her.”
“I don’t want her hurt.”
“Now listen, Picard…”
And Picard stabbed a finger into Korsmo’s face and said, each word a dagger, “I don’t…want…her…hurt.”
Korsmo stared at Picard in utter confusion. “Have you lost your mind? What is she to you?”
“A victim. A victim many times over, and I will not see her victimized further. Clear?”
Korsmo seemed ready to laugh, but he saw the intensity in Picard’s face. His expression tightened and clouded. “I will do what I have to, Captain,” he said. “And I trust that you will do likewise.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Picard said sharply, “Resume.” The turbolift obediently completed its journey to the bridge in stony silence.
When Picard and Korsmo entered the conference room, Deanna Troi and Guinan were waiting for them. A ship’s counselor Korsmo naturally recognized, but he stared with open curiosity at Guinan. Picard quickly introduced them.
“May I ask, just out of morbid curiosity, Captain,” said Korsmo, “why you feel it necessary to have your bartender here?”
“Hostess,” corrected Guinan politely. “I have a…history with the woman in question.”
“May I ask the nature of that history?”
“It’s personal.”
Korsmo seemed slightly taken aback by that and turned to Picard to protest this apparent attitude problem on the part of someone who was, at best, a crew member of questionable need in these circumstances. But the firm look in Picard’s face quickly discouraged Korsmo from pursuing the subject further.
Picard turned to Troi and said, “How is Miss Bonaventure? I understand that there was some unpleasantness in engineering.”
“She is resting comfortably. Quarters have been assigned her,” said Troi, “to remove her from the rather tense environment of sickbay.”
“Tense?” Korsmo looked at Picard with a question in his face.
“There are Penzatti recovering from wounds there, and they react somewhat strongly to Miss Bonaventure’s presence. She is a female Borg whom we have managed to separate from the Borg consciousness.”
Korsmo scratched at his salt-and-pepper sideburns. “Never a dull mom
ent on this ship, is there, Picard? Kind of a zoo.”
“I prefer to think of it as a stimulating work environment,” replied Picard. “It would be best to post a guard outside her quarters—”
“Lieutenant Worf has already attended to that,” Troi told him, and Picard nodded his approval.
The doors hissed open, admitting Shelby and Riker. Picard looked at them with faint disapproval. “Took our time, did we, Number One?”
“Scenic route, sir.”
“I see.”
Moments later Geordi La Forge entered as well. Picard nodded a silent greeting to him.
Korsmo was circling the briefing room, looking annoyed. “So where is this woman? We’re all here. Where is she?” “She’ll come,” said Guinan. “Ah. We have the personal assurance of your hostess that she’ll be along,” said Korsmo.
“Captain,” Picard began dangerously.
But Korsmo continued, “And what is it with this ship of hers? Is she the only crew? How does it run?”
“She claims it runs on the hatred of ghosts,” said Picard dourly. “Frustrated spirits who waited for her to come along and provide them with drive. However, Mr. La Forge has been working along far more prosaic lines to determine just what it is we are up against.”
“Our sensors have managed to punch through some of the interference her fields and hull have created,” said Geordi, and he moved to the main computer screen. He called up a schematic he had prepared as he continued, “And Data and I have also done research into other cultures that have similar glimmerings of technology of a more—shall we say—mundane nature, based on things that the captain said Delcara told him.”
The planet-killer appeared on the screen, and Geordi tapped the spike-like extensions. “These are definitely what propel the ship. They warp space in a manner similar to our own nacelles, but appear to do so in a slightly different manner. We’re detecting warp fluctuations on a field pattern at variance with our own warp system. It’ll take us at least a week to fully analyze the structure, and we don’t have the technology to duplicate it. It seems to have tremendous potential, though, especially in its more efficient use of fuel.”
“Fuel that comes from planets. Then that’s how it operates and this nonsense about being driven by souls—” said Korsmo.
“I’m getting to that,” said Geordi. “There’s a race on Orin IV that has technological procedures that sound similar to what Delcara told the captain exists on her ship, except it’s not lots of hocus-pocus.”
“Orin IV was a colony world about fifty years ago, wasn’t it?” asked Picard.
“Good memory, Captain. And the colonists made a fascinating archaeological find—an intricate computer net that was still functional, developed by an ancient race, speculated to be the Preservers, and then long ago abandoned. It was crystalline in appearance and about the size of a small mountain, and what it contained was an intricate network of individual memory pockets.
“Presumably, when members of the race died, they would be capable of imprinting the engrams of their minds—or perhaps transferring their consciousness entirely—into the interlocking network within the crystal. There they would provide knowledge and information that, to the right operator, was accessible.”
“Accessible how?”
“Through a central sort of mother board,” said Geordi. “You see, that was the really tough part. In a way, it’s the main difference between the setup on Orin IV and my understanding of how the Borg operate. The Borg are one central consciousness. The Orin IV mechanism consisted of hundreds, thousands of individual pocket memories. Computer files, if you will. But in order for them to be accessed, they required a central mind to act as a processing station. That central mind had to be, first, a living individual, and second, incredibly strong. The first time one of the Orin IV colonists, who was a Betazoid, tried to use his empathic ability to access the crystal computer they’d found, the minds stored within the computer literally overwhelmed him and blew his gray matter inside-out. Finally they brought a Vulcan in, but by then it was too late. The failed attempt had wiped the data banks clean.”
“So the people who created the planet-killer,” said Picard slowly, “may have transferred their collective consciousness to the central data banks of the vessel. But they needed a powerful enough living mind to process all of their individual impulses, to unify them and drive their individual functions towards one goal.”
“They need one central mind strong enough to govern all of them and direct the ship’s functions,” agreed Geordi. “Otherwise, they’re just random bits of data and information without any purpose. It’s that central, functional imperative that enables this planet-killer to be something more complicated than just a mindless killing machine like its prototype.
“One of the ship’s functions that the mind maintains is the process of consuming planets and converting them to energy for the ship’s drive and weapons systems. Those spike towers,” he pointed again, “can warp space for the purpose of forward drive, and also funnel force beams with pinpoint accuracy, making it capable of omnidirectional offense. Nasty piece of work.”
Korsmo started towards him, about to make some point, and he walked right through Delcara.
He jumped back in shock as Delcara’s holographic persona turned to face him for a moment and look at him with amused disdain. Then she looked at Geordi. “So many explanations,” she said. “So much effort to try and take the divine rightness and wonder of my mission and turn it into something ordinary. ‘Mother board’ and ‘functional imperative.’ These are not words of humans who understand what it is to live and breathe and hate. These are words that the Borg would use. Beware that the enemy becomes thyself, and that you are not as blind in intellect as you are in eyes.” Then she turned back to Picard. “I’ve heard you, Picard. I am here.” She spread her hands. “What do you wish of me?”
Picard was staring at her, hard. There was something different about her. She seemed older, somehow. Some of the luminous quality that had surrounded her was diminished. Her face appeared longer, more drawn. Her hair, which had seemed to be constantly billowing about her, as if puffed up by a perpetual breeze, was hanging limply. Her eyes did not sparkle as they had. He glanced at Guinan and Troi, and they noticed it, too.
He couldn’t dwell on it. Nor did he wish to contemplate Delcara’s singleminded determination to reject every rational answer in favor of the irrational. There was business to be attended to. “Delcara,” he said formally. “This is Captain Morgan Korsmo. He and I are appealing to you now as representatives of Starfleet.”
“Are you, dear Picard?” She seemed amused, but there was something haggard in her smile. “And what is Starfleet’s business with me, Captain Morgan Korsmo?” She walked towards him and right into the conference table. She stood there, only the upper half of her body visible, the lower half obscured by the table, giving the impression that she was some sort of bizarre centerpiece. It was a most disconcerting appearance.
Korsmo cleared his throat and said, “Captain Picard and I wish to express our concern over your present course of action.”
“You have a problem with my intention to obliterate the most dangerous enemy in this galaxy?” Skeptical, she raised an eyebrow.
“It is our concern,” Korsmo said, “that your plan of action will cause devastating results throughout the Federation. Your vessel consumes planets. There are various races, both friendly and unfriendly, that will not take kindly to the concept of your ingesting them or parts of their solar systems.”
“I believe the human phrase is, ‘You cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,’ ” said Delcara.
“This is more than a few eggs, Delcara,” Picard spoke up. “You’re talking about the greatest destruction our galaxy has known. Far more destructive than if the Borg swept through.”
“Truly, sweet Picard, that was spoken as someone who has never experienced the full sweep of a Borg invasion.”
“We’ve h
ad our encounters.”
“You’ve had nothing,” she said, her voice suddenly harsh. “One Borg ship. A ship that smashed through your fleet and cost thousands of lives and was stopped as much by fluke as by anything else. You have no idea what the full might of the Borg would do to you. It would be far more than my humble needs.”
“Your humble needs will launch the galaxy into war against you!” said Korsmo. “And Starfleet will lead that war! You cannot be allowed to traverse the quadrants in a device of this power—a device which consumes planets for fuel!”
“A device which will prove your ultimate salvation,” she replied.
“Delcara,” Guinan said firmly, “have you realized the magnitude of what you’re proposing? It will take you years, even at warp speed, to reach Borg space. And all during those years, you will be cutting a swath of devastation and destruction across populated space. Certainly you can see the insanity of that?”
“Insanity is quibbling over a relative handful of lives when the Borg care nothing for life! I will try to avoid populated worlds when I can, but my ship—even with improved matter-to-energy conversion—has needs. Those needs will be satisfied. Sustenance will be derived when needed, and if lives are lost, I will mourn them, but it is necessary. And if some race tries to stop me with deadly force, I will stop them with deadlier force. And again I will mourn them, but it is necessary, and their souls will come to know that they served a greater good. Mourning loss of life, promising to try and be as careful as possible—these are not claims that you could make in reference to the Borg’s operations.”
“Promising to be as careful as possible is hardly enough,” said Picard. He leaned forward on the table, facing the holographic image. “For example, you’ll be entering Tholian space in half a day. Your very presence will be anathema to them, as will ours. They will attack you with everything they have!”
“My father,” said Riker, “was the sole survivor of a Tholian raid fifteen years ago. They’re fierce and unrelenting.”
“You speak to me of unrelenting? Me? Let them come!” shot back Delcara, her voice even more harsh. The spaces where her eyes were darkened even more than before. “They cannot stop me. You cannot stop me.”