Destiny: The Complete Saga: Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, and Lost Souls

by David Mack

  Hernandez nodded and looked somber. “In other words, the Borg take all your best toys and make you a zombie.”

  “Basically, yes,” Dax said.

  Picard’s countenance was haunted by his memories. “It’s far more terrible than anything you can imagine,” he said, though not to anyone in particular. “Part of you remains trapped inside yourself. You become a spectator to the hijacking of your mind and body. It’s like a nightmare from which there’s no awakening. You see everything, and you can’t even shut your eyes.”

  A grim silence descended on the room.

  Dax coughed to clear her throat. “Well, we weren’t planning on risking Erika, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “Any time you enter a Borg ship, it’s a risk,” Riker said. “And unless the Aventine has another amazing innovation we don’t know about, I’m guessing you’ll need to board a Borg ship to gain access to a vinculum for Captain Hernandez.”

  “You’re right,” Dax said. “I do plan on boarding a Borg ship to use its vinculum. But first, I plan to have my people eliminate every drone on the ship and neutralize its defenses. Erika won’t set foot on it till it’s been secured.”

  With his composure recovered, Picard replied, “That’s a tall order, Captains. How do you intend to carry it out?”

  Nodding toward Hernandez, Dax said, “Erika has a very keen sense for where the Borg are. If we give her natural gifts a boost, she can help us pinpoint a small scout cube or some other smaller Borg vessel traveling alone.”

  “I’d need energy and equipment to extend my range and enhance my precision,” Hernandez said. “If I could make a direct interface with Titan’s sensor module, it’d be a big help.”

  Riker nodded. “All right. I’ll have my science officer help you set it up.”

  Picard sounded doubtful and dismissive. “Even a brief infiltration of a Borg cube is dangerous,” he said to Dax. “What, may I ask, is your plan for capturing such a vessel?”

  Dax’s voice took on an aggressive edge. “We’ll fight them with the same tactics the Hirogen used on us,” she said. “Erika picks a target, and the Aventine uses its slipstream drive to catch it. We fire a few low-yield transphasic torpedoes to knock out their shields. Then our strike teams beam in with projectile weapons, chemical explosives, and energy dampeners replicated from the ones we captured. The Aventine emits an energy-dampening field to suppress the Borg ship’s regenerative capacity and defensive systems. Then my people go deck by deck, section by section, and secure the cube. Once we eliminate all the drones and access the vinculum, we send over Erika to do her thing—and coronate a new queen for the Borg.”

  The grimace on Picard’s face was sterner than any Riker had ever seen. Picard heaved a deep sigh. “I can’t fault you for a lack of ambition,” he said, “but I remain unconvinced. Your plan is beyond dangerous; it runs the risk of granting the Borg access to a staggering new level of technology. Furthermore, you grossly underestimate their speed and ferocity.”

  Riker thought he heard an undercurrent of fear in Picard’s voice, and he wondered if perhaps the captain’s recent brief reassimilation had inflicted deeper wounds than Picard let on.

  Picard continued, “Put simply, Captain Dax, your plan is foolhardy.”

  Undaunted, Dax replied, “It’s also our only chance.”

  * * *

  From the first moment Hernandez stepped inside Titan’s stellar cartography lab, she was overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu. Standing beside Melora Pazlar at the end of the widow’s-walk platform, she watched the galaxy appear from the darkness and take shape in reduced form all around them.

  Pazlar freed herself from her metal motor-assist armature and said with a smile, “When you’re ready, just give a push to come up and join me.” Then she vaulted straight up, off the platform, with the same ease that Hernandez herself had once taken for granted in Axion.

  Hernandez hesitated to follow the science officer, unsure of how much freedom of movement she would have in her new clothing. At Captain Riker’s request, Hernandez had exchanged her Caeliar-made attire for the current Starfleet duty uniform. The black jumpsuit with gray shoulder padding and a burgundy-colored undershirt had appeared in her quarters’ replicator, complete with the rank insignia for a captain.

  She took a breath, bent her knees a bit, and sprang with grace into the open space above. It felt strange, she thought, to be back in a uniform after eight centuries of wearing gossamer. She added it to the other aspects of her past—sleep and hunger—that had caught up with her since she’d fled her captivity in Axion. A lifetime of sensations had come back to her in a matter of hours.

  Within moments, she was beside Pazlar, who reached out and manipulated elements of the simulation in much the same way that Inyx had plucked stars from the darkness in the Star Chamber, during the century that Hernandez had helped him seek a new homeworld for the Caeliar. I hope he’s all right, she thought. The Quorum must’ve been furious at him for letting me get away.

  “It’s easy to configure,” Pazlar said. She raised an open palm and extended it. As she drew her hand back, a low-opacity holographic interface appeared. “You can alter any of the simulation parameters with this. Just be careful if you start messing with the gravity.” She cocked her head and gestured at the lower part of her body. “I’m a bit fragile, you see.”

  “Understood,” Hernandez said. She reached forward and expected to find herself miming physical interaction with the projected controls. Instead, when she pushed her fingers on the various padds and slider panels, they met with the same resistance she would have expected of a physical console. Muted feedback tones followed each of her inputs. “It’s very intuitive,” she said.

  “I know,” Pazlar said. “Xin—I mean, Commander Ra-Havreii—designed the interface himself.” The slender blond Elaysian averted her eyes when Hernandez glanced over at her.

  “All right,” Hernandez said. “I’ve set up a signal feed on the same frequency as my catoms. How do I activate the sensors?”

  Pazlar pointed at a radiant blue panel on the interface. “Press that, and the sensor module switches into high gear. You’ll be able to pull up high-resolution scans on anything within a hundred light-years.”

  “Then the only thing I still need is a simulated quantum field to power my catoms.”

  Nodding, Pazlar said, “We can’t generate even a fraction of the energy that the Caeliar were making at New Erigol, but we’ll give you everything we can.”

  “It’ll be enough,” Hernandez said. “Axion had to sustain itself, millions of Caeliar, and who knows what else. I just need enough to boost my catoms back to full strength. A fraction ought to do the trick, I’d think.”

  The science officer tapped her combadge. “Pazlar to Ra-Havreii,” she said, and Hernandez noted a subtle shift in the woman’s vocal inflection—it became gentler and a bit higher. “We’re ready for the simulated quantum field.”

  “Perfect timing, Melora,” Ra-Havreii replied. “Stand by while I bring it online.… Charging the deflector.” The channel closed with a soft double beep a few seconds later.

  Hernandez waited to feel the infusion of new strength. Several seconds passed with no change. Pazlar filled the silence by explaining, “It might take a few minutes to bring the main deflector up to full power as a quantum-field generator.”

  “I know,” Hernandez said. “I was the one who wrote the plan for the reconfiguration.”

  “Right,” Pazlar said, embarrassed. After another awkward moment, she added, “I’m sure Commander Ra-Havreii was able to make the changes. You can count on him.”

  Overcoming her aversion to meddling in others’ business, Hernandez said, “Commander, may I make an observation?”

  “Of course,” Pazlar said.

  “I’ve noticed that you and Commander Ra-Havreii seem to have a very cordial working relationship.”

  Immediately, Pazlar became tense and defensive. “So?”

  “Don’t misunder
stand,” Hernandez said. “I’m not making any assumptions about your relationship with—”

  “Xin and I don’t have a relationship,” Pazlar said. “We’re just friends.”

  Unable to suppress a knowing smile, Hernandez replied, “If you say so, Commander.”

  Pazlar crossed her arms and spent a moment looking flustered. “All right, there was one time when he tried to kiss me, but it didn’t happen, and it was all a big misunderstanding—just crossed wires, you know? It didn’t mean anything.”

  “Forget I mentioned it,” Hernandez said. “It’s none of my business, anyway. Sorry I pried.”

  Apparently unwilling to drop the subject, Pazlar added, “I made it very clear that I don’t feel that way about him.”

  “No doubt,” Hernandez said.

  A fresh silence yawned between them. Then came Ra-Havreii’s voice, filtered through the overhead comm. “Engineering to Pazlar. Quantum field stabilizing at full strength … now.”

  Again, Hernandez opened her senses to the state of the local ambient energy potential. She was rewarded by a flood of strength and focus as her catoms pulsed with renewed vigor. Nodding to Pazlar, she said, “I’m ready.”

  “Sensors online and ready,” Pazlar said. “The system’s all yours now, Captain.”

  Hernandez closed her eyes and felt a rush of raw data from Titan’s sensors being transmitted directly to her catoms, which processed all of it and accelerated her synapses to keep pace. Then she extended the range of her senses and let herself hear the intimidating chorus of the Borg Collective.

  Millions of voices—some near, some distant. Clustered in groups as small as three or as large as thousands, a roar of minds yoked to the will of something that included them all and yet remained apart from them, aloof and domineering. She fought to parse their cacophony and subdivide it into manageable blocs. With effort, she began to separate them by sectors, and then by subsectors, and then by individual ships.

  “I hear them,” she said to Pazlar. “I see them.”

  Holding the snapshot of the Borg armada in her mind, she began to search it; she combed it for lone vessels, stragglers, outriders, or scouts. Her mind raced from one target to the next, flitted from sector to sector at the speed of thought.

  Each time she found a promising lead, she targeted Titan’s sensor module on the coordinates that she heard echoing from that link in the Collective. Her first effort found a trio of small Borg vessels—ostensibly a light attack group but still too formidable for the Aventine to challenge alone. Several subsequent leads proved to be massive assault cubes en route to major star systems; such targets would be too heavily manned by drones for the Aventine’s limited strike forces to overcome.

  Then she found it. The ideal target.

  Zeroing in with Titan’s sensors, she said to Pazlar, “Have a look at this.” The simulated galaxy expanded and flew away as the holographic projection enlarged a detailed sensor scan of a small Borg probe, traveling alone. “I’m not reading any major targets along their trajectory,” Hernandez said. “They might be a long-range recon vessel.”

  Pazlar summoned a new command interface and made a quick evaluation of the ship. “Definitely a scout of some kind,” she said. “Probably no more than fifty to a hundred drones onboard. What are their coordinates?”

  “Bearing zero-one-three, approximately ten-point-five light-years from Devoras.” She felt a profound trepidation as she added, “Inside Romulan space.”

  Pazlar replied, “Good thing they’re on our side in this fight.”

  That’s right, Hernandez reminded herself, ashamed that she had succumbed so easily to old fears. Things changed while I was gone. The Romulans aren’t the biggest problem anymore.

  Pazlar tapped in more commands. “Target locked in,” she said. “Sending its coordinates to the Aventine.” A moment later, she added, “Aventine confirms: target acquired.”

  “Now all we have to do is go get them,” Hernandez said, with a bit more brio than she had intended.

  Throwing a cautionary look in her direction, Pazlar said, “I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to meet the Borg if I were you. Finding them was easy.” She eyed the image of the black ship in front of them and frowned. “What comes next won’t be.”

  * * *

  The transporter beam released Hernandez as her new surroundings took shape around her. The transition felt smoother than it had in her days aboard the Columbia. It helped that the process was faster, but she was certain that the confinement beam had been made less oppressive—a change for which she was grateful.

  Freed from its paralyzing hold, she found herself in a transporter room aboard the Aventine. Several security personnel from Titan had beamed over with her. Lieutenant sh’Aqabaa and Senior Petty Officer Antillea flanked Hernandez, and Lieutenant Shelley Hutchinson stood behind her. The Andorian and the reptilian female, whom Hernandez had been told was of a species known as the Gnalish, stepped off the padds. Hutchinson, a trim woman with short brown hair, walked around Hernandez and followed her colleagues out of the transporter room.

  Waiting to greet Hernandez were Captain Dax and a lean man with short black hair whose face was defined by parallel drooping ridges on his cheeks. “Captain Hernandez,” Dax said. “Welcome aboard the Aventine. This is my second officer and senior science officer, Lieutenant Commander Gruhn Helkara.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” said Hernandez, stepping down from the platform. She offered her hand to Helkara, who shook it. “Pleasure to meet you, Mister Helkara.”

  “Likewise, Captain,” Helkara said with a polite nod.

  “Well,” Dax said, “I hate to beam and run, but I need to get back to the bridge. Mister Helkara will escort you to main engineering, where you can offer Chief Engineer Leishman the benefit of your technical expertise.”

  Hernandez nodded. “I understand, Captain. Thank you.”

  Dax smiled, turned, and left the transporter room. Hernandez reflected on how much Dax reminded her of herself at that age, as a young starship captain, brimming with confidence and as-yet-unrealized potential.

  Behind Hernandez, the transporter’s energizer coils came alive with a deep hum. She pivoted on her heel and saw five more shapes materialize: two human men, a Vulcan woman, and a male and a female of different species that she didn’t recognize. All carried imposing-looking rifles and other combat equipment.

  Helkara touched Hernandez’s elbow to guide her. “Captain,” he said. “We should go. Lieutenant Leishman is waiting for us.”

  “Of course,” Hernandez said. She followed him out of the transporter room into the corridor. Security personnel, attired in padded and reinforced all-black uniforms, moved past her and Helkara in groups. Most of them were armed with the same rifles that she had seen in the hands of the officers who had beamed in after her. A few carried stockier weapons with wide barrels. As she and Helkara turned a corner, they passed a squad of security personnel who were field-stripping their weapons, making modifications to them, and reassembling them.

  She and Helkara stepped inside a turbolift. “Main engineering,” he said as the doors closed. A high-pitched pulsing hum accompanied their descent.

  “Your people look pretty confident with those rifles,” she said. “But how’re they going to fire them once they’re inside a dampening field?”

  “TR-116s fire chemical-propellant projectiles ignited by a mechanical firing pin,” Helkara said. “Gas-capture recoil drives the reloader at a rate of nine hundred rounds per minute. No power needed except a pull on the trigger.”

  “In other words, they’re primitive firearms.”

  “I wouldn’t call them primitive. More like a modern update of a classic idea. They were designed during the Dominion War for use against the Jem’Hadar, but they didn’t make it much past the testing phase until the Tezwa conflict.” He caught her quizzical glance and reacted sheepishly. “None of what I’m saying means anything to you, does it?”

  Hernandez shook her head. �
��Not really, no.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Maybe when this mess is over, we can hook you up with some light reading to bring you up to speed.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” she said.

  The turbolift stopped, and the doors opened on the manic activity of the Aventine’s main engineering deck. Helkara led Hernandez into the middle of the commotion. Sparks fell from upper levels around the warp core as critical components were welded back into place, and the bulkheads were lit by infrequent flashes of acetylene light. A dozen discussions—some between people in the compartment, some over the comms—overlapped beneath the low-frequency throbbing of the antimatter reactor.

  In an alcove opposite the warp core, a group of engineers were gathered around a hip-height table of control consoles. At the far end was a young, brown-haired human woman doling out assignments. “Selidok, tell your team they have ten minutes to finish adjusting the yields on the warheads,” she said to an alien who wore a mist-producing apparatus in front of his nostrils. To a diminutive lieutenant who resembled an upright pill bug, she continued, “P7-Red, we need at least twenty more of those energy dampeners replicated and distributed, on the double.” Turning toward a looming Vulcan man—Hernandez guessed the ensign was at least 193 centimeters tall—the chief engineer said, “Navok, what’s the status of the slipstream drive?”

  “All components are operating within expected parameters,” Navok said. “However, we continue to have difficulty predicting the phase variances.”

  Hernandez blurted out, “You can control the pattern of the phase variance by projecting soliton pulses ahead of you, inside the slipstream.”

  Everyone at the table looked in Hernandez’s direction, and Helkara said to the woman at the end of the table, “Lieutenant Leishman, allow me to introduce Captain Erika Hernandez, our new technical adviser.”

  Leishman’s reaction was barely noticeable. “All right,” she said to her team. “You have your assignments. Navok, see if you can apply Captain Hernandez’s suggestion for a soliton pulse.”