Strange New Worlds IX

by Dean Wesley Smith

  The pain, sudden and consuming, shot through Annika’s body. Her arms and legs fought to draw close against her, to protect her from the invasion. The pain came again, much stronger this time, going from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet simultaneously. She couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, and she screamed silently. Helplessly.

  It is all right, little one. A new voice; solitary; feminine.

  Mama? Questioning.

  No. But I will take care of you.

  Where’s my mother? Annika demanded.

  I am your mother now.

  No!

  You must rest.

  Those voices again. Always around. Always in my head. Why won’t they go away? she wondered.

  Because you are one of us now. You are Borg.

  I am Annika! she answered stubbornly.

  The pain came again.

  She remembers too much, the voices decided. We must increase the nanoprobes.

  If we do we may kill her, several answered back.

  If we do not she’ll continue to remember her human existence, the debate ensued.

  I have plans for this one, the solitary voice said. Do not damage her.

  Half a dose, then.

  Agreed.

  No! I don’t want…But even as she protested, Annika felt warmth take the place of the pain. She started to drift away, but refused to surrender without a final word.

  I am not Borg. I am Annika Hansen, and I love strawberries! she asserted.

  Time passed. Usually Annika remained only barely conscious, floating in her tank. The voices in her mind were constant; although rarely did they talk about—or to—her. Their main concerns seemed to be the day-to-day running of the ship, and assimilating anyone who had the misfortune to cross their path. Their appetite seemed insatiable; their quest to absorb knowledge and technology their only motive for existence, and Annika’s mind absorbed the knowledge right along with them.

  During the infrequent times that she was fully aware of the goings-on in the shadowy corridors beyond her chamber, she focused on her memories, aware they seemed to be eluding her now, like water racing away with a receding tide. Well aware of the disciplinary action to be directed her way once the Borg became aware of her thoughts, she forced herself to remember just the same.

  It is Annika’s sixth birthday. She is celebrating it on the Raven with just her parents to join the party. She’d always wondered what it would be like to have an actual birthday party. With presents and games and friends to play with.

  But then, she supposed, she’d have to have friends to invite over. They’ve never lived long enough in any one spot for Annika to make friends, and those children who might have become friends weren’t allowed to play with her once their parents realized who her father is. Annika doesn’t understand why the adults distrust her father so, but she knows it makes him angry and that, in turn, makes her mother cry. So they move. A lot. And go to space as often as her father can get some mysterious substance called funding. And they all pretend that space is where they want to be.

  But Annika doesn’t think her father is pretending. She thinks he is truly happiest out among the stars and away from people.

  So today Annika is six and Mama’s cooked her favorite dinner and made a chocolate cake for dessert. There are presents, including the latest adventure of Sarah Rowe, from her aunt Helen, smuggled aboard the ship by her mother. Music is furnished by the ship’s computer. Annika’s father twirls her mother across the deck in time to the music until both are breathless and her mother is laughing and flushed. The music ends, another, slower, song begins, and Annika’s father turns to her.

  “How ’bout a dance with your old dad?”

  Annika nods excitedly and they waltz around the floor, Annika’s feet resting atop her father’s boots in the way of father/daughter dances the universe over. How she adores him! In that moment she could dance with him forever, feeling safe within his arms. Her father is fearless and strong…but of course, in the end, he is not strong enough to protect her from the nightmare to come.

  Annika goes to bed that night with her new book on the bedside table and Rosie by her side. It’s been the best birthday party ever, and it will be the last.

  For in the night, the Borg come.

  Time passed. Annika grew, matured. Legs lengthened, waist narrowed, breasts formed and grew full. She never knew a classroom, never again tasted her aunt Helen’s strawberries, never felt the first inquisitive brush of a man’s lips against her own. She would be beautiful had not her left eye and one arm been removed, replaced by metal implants and a red piercing light of her own. She would be tall and graceful were it not for the heavy boots and metal armor that encased her. She would be a woman were she not part of the hive mind.

  Eventually, even her name eludes her. And shortly after that the tank is drained. She opens her eye, discovers that she can see, and glances around her at the ship she’s been riding in all these years. The halls are lined with coffin-like structures, each filled with a Borg taking rest, yet many more machines roam the halls, attending to the functions assigned them. The door of the chamber opens, is pressurized with a rush of air, and she steps from the chamber onto the floor.

  A trio of drones stand in a semicircle before her.

  You will come with us.

  They turn up the hall, expecting obedience, and she does not hesitate, falling into step behind one, while the remaining two fall in behind her.

  They walk down several corridors before turning into a large shadowy room. She knows without having to be told that this is the center of the ship, the Queen’s lair. And there, facing a computer screen that shows where they are in space and where the closest ships are, stands the Queen herself. The Queen turns, wordlessly dismisses the drones, and approaches her.

  The Queen stops, studies her intently. She does not flinch, studies the Queen in turn, finds her the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, even more beautiful than…what? An image comes to her from a great corridor of distance, from a time when she was different. But when was that? I’ve always been Borg! Haven’t I? Why wasn’t she sure?

  Be sure, the Queen’s voice answers. You are Borg.

  Yes, she thinks. I am Borg. She instantly gives her Queen her loyalty.

  The Queen smiles.

  So. You have matured.

  Yes, Annika answers silently. Matured from what? she wonders, but the answer isn’t there.

  And what is your name?

  It is a test. Annika searches. There is a small, dying, part of her that seeks to provide the defiant answer, despite the pain and certain death that will follow. For an instant she tastes something warm and sweet, feels juice running down her chin…remembers in a flash a large garden and a brown-and-white dog…and then, as quickly as it has arrived, it is gone forever and her name is lost with it.

  I…have no name…she thinks, and feels saddened by the realization.

  No. But you have a designation. I anoint you Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One. You will be one of my chosen circle. I have great plans for you, Seven of Nine.

  The woman, once Annika Hansen, nods, accepting both the role and the designation.

  Come. We have much work to do.

  The Queen turns and Seven follows. Finally, she is home.

  —Star Trek®—

  Enterprise

  Rounding a Corner

  Already Turned

  Allison Cain

  “Sometimes I will…forget things, and, in going back to retrieve them, half expect to meet myself rounding a corner I’ve already turned…”

  —Rupert Holmes

  Lieutenant Malcolm Reed swore under his breath and vowed to himself that he would never, ever, as long as he lived, no matter how many court-martials he was threatened with, let Captain Jonathan Archer go on another away mission. Ever.

  He ducked another energy blast and dove sideways, hoping that Trip wouldn’t bombard him with Mission: Impossible comments for the
next week. A glance to his left confirmed his initial guess of their location, and he motioned for the other three members of the team to bring them up to date.

  Captain Archer, to his credit, followed Malcolm’s gaze and saw immediately what his armory officer had in mind. A few quick hand movements from Malcolm had Commander Trip Tucker nodding silently. Ensign Hoshi Sato afforded him a nervous glance, but also nodded in calm understanding. He was proud of her; she had looked terrified when their seemingly friendly hosts had first opened fire on them, but she had taken the last few minutes in stride, and never once made a sound.

  Now Archer motioned for Malcolm to cover them and silently offered his arms to Hoshi. She reached out to take the small animal he held in them. Porthos stared back at his master from the safety of the linguist’s arms. The two Kintarra had seemed most enthralled by the beagle on their brief sojourn to Enterprise, and the captain had thought that having the dog along would help negotiations run more smoothly. After spending fifteen minutes dodging alien gunshots, he was now regretting the decision.

  Malcolm hissed quietly, and Trip and Hoshi made a dash for the doorway leading to their shuttle. Malcolm had managed to maneuver the battle around so that neither Kintarra stood between them and their only means of escape. When Hoshi and Trip were halfway there, Malcolm motioned for the captain to follow them.

  It was at this point, he later reflected, that things started to go wrong.

  Hoshi suddenly stumbled, managing to stay upright, but knocking into Trip. He somehow kept moving through an amazing feat of balance, but the impact was enough to knock the dog from Hoshi’s arms. Porthos, being a very young beagle, did the most logical thing his canine brain could come up with. He headed for his pack leader to protect him.

  Archer, however, had not stopped moving, and didn’t notice the dog hurtling at him until it was too late.

  “Porthos!” he shouted, trying to imitate Trip’s gymnastic maneuvers and twist around without falling. Malcolm swore out loud at this, and turned toward his captain.

  “Keep moving!” he bellowed, beginning to run himself. He bent and scooped up the beagle without slowing, sparing a glance over his shoulder at his pursuers as he saw the other three from his party make it safely through the doorway. Damn, they were close.

  “Start closing the door! Hit the locking sequence!” he called. Thankfully they heard him; the doors began to slide shut. He was preparing to dive through the rapidly dwindling opening, the dog still cradled in his arms, when he heard an energy blast that sounded much closer than any of the others.

  The pain that shot abruptly up his back was overwhelming, and threw him to his knees. As the world started to go black, he looked up to see his crewmates’ horrified faces staring at him through the still closing doors. With his last bit of strength, he hurled Porthos in what he hoped was the general direction of the others, though his orientation had been the first thing to go. Then he sank into blessed numbness.

  His head hurt.

  That was the first thing that crossed Malcolm’s mind as he began to fight his way back to consciousness. On the plus side, his back felt fine, but that didn’t really help his headache.

  Another thing that wasn’t helping his headache was the worried voices of Hoshi, Trip, Archer, and Doctor Phlox. They were much too loud, he decided. Also, why had he never noticed how noisy sickbay really was? All those alien animals made a terrible racket. And the smell. You’d think he had never been there before.

  He was grateful, however, for the smell, and even the loud noises. At least, they told him that he was back on Enterprise, among friends, rather than still on the alien ship. Or worse, dead. As he began to awaken, his mind registered more sensations. He was lying on his side, on a biobed. The doctor must have rolled him over to take care of his back. He was grateful that there were no longer tongues of fire shooting up his spine.

  “Do you think Malcolm’s okay?” The worry that filled Hoshi’s voice made him frown. He was still groggy, but he needed to let his crewmates know he was all right, so he struggled momentarily to open his eyes, sit up, do something.

  “I believe he’s waking up,” Phlox commented cheerfully. Malcolm heard the rustle of cloth as four people hurried over to his bed. This encouraged him to finally open his eyes and look up at the quartet that was staring anxiously down at him. They look much larger from down here, he thought, bemused, and had that blast messed with my head? For some reason the whole world looks less…colorful. Or maybe that’s the headache.

  “Is he going to be all right, Doc?” Archer asked, frowning worriedly. Malcolm wanted to roll his eyes, but decided that wouldn’t be good for his headache. Just ask me, he thought exasperatedly.

  “Of course,” the doctor replied calmly, “he should have suffered no ill effects. He wasn’t hit, after all.”

  What the…not…? What was Phlox talking about?

  “About Malcolm, Captain,” Trip began.

  “When can he return home?” Archer asked, gesturing toward him.

  “Oh, he’s ready to go now, Captain,” Phlox assured him. Archer nodded.

  “Don’t worry,” he told his crewmates, “we’ll get Malcolm back, I promise.”

  Back? From where? I’m right here! Malcolm tried to shout, but for some reason his vocal cords weren’t working properly. All he got out was a—

  “Raarf!” Archer glanced at him.

  “Ok, boy, we’re going. Why don’t you come with me to drop Porthos off at my quarters and we’ll go to the bridge together?” he asked Hoshi and Trip. “We’ll find Malcolm,” he added firmly, “we won’t leave without him.”

  They nodded and the captain reached down and lifted Malcolm easily. Hoshi smiled at him.

  “I’m glad you’re all right, Porthos,” she said, “you have Malcolm to thank for that.”

  Behind the beagle’s bright eyes, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed’s mind screamed in horror.

  Sometime later, Malcolm had managed to regain his composure. It wasn’t an easy feat. The others had dropped him off in the captain’s quarters and headed to the bridge. Malcolm spent the next several minutes running frantically in circles, disoriented and inwardly shrieking about the injustice and unfairness of the universe as a whole. Not a very professional way to behave, no, but really, what training had he ever had—what indication had he ever had—that would prepare him for switching bodies with his captain’s puppy?

  Malcolm was not used to being a dog, however, and there were some things that he took for granted as a human that Porthos did not have. For example, traction. Malcolm had never worried about his boots slipping and sliding over the smooth decks of the Enterprise, simply because they never had. They were Starfleet-issue, and had been specially made to deal with all types of terrain. Dogs, on the other hand, are not made for racing around on slippery surfaces. After over a year on board Enterprise, Porthos had adapted to deal with the deck plating. After over an hour in Porthos’s body, Malcolm had not.

  Have you ever seen a dog race into the kitchen at top speed, hit the linoleum, and slide headfirst into the fridge? That gives the general idea of what happened to Malcolm. Except it wasn’t linoleum, it was the deck, and it wasn’t a fridge, it was the captain’s desk.

  The crash did accomplish something good, though. Malcolm found himself on his side, little lungs heaving, staring up at the ceiling. Think! he told himself furiously. You are a Starfleet officer. Now calm the hell down!!

  It took a few more minutes, but he was eventually able to stop panting desperately, climb to his feet, and shake himself off. Once he had accomplished the task of pulling himself together, he mentally “sat back” and took stock of his situation. Obviously, his first priority was to try to figure out some way of communicating with his crew—mainly Doctor Phlox—so that they could figure out some way to reunite him with his body. Scratch that, he thought after a hasty look around the cabin confirmed his suspicions that there was no one here to attempt communication with. So his new first priority was
getting out of the captain’s quarters…as soon as he figured out how to reach the door panel.

  The captain did not sleep that night. He spent the night in his ready room, reviewing and discarding countless ways of rescuing his armory officer—once said officer was found, and if it was discovered he needed rescuing after being found. Tired and distracted as he was, he didn’t spare a second thought for the lonely dog in his quarters until late the next morning.

  Malcolm had not given Archer a second thought. He had briefly tried to discover an escape route, but the events of the day had taken their toll, and he soon collapsed into an exhausted sleep. He awoke early the next morning, however, feeling much better and ready to try out an idea from the night before.

  Captain Archer had never worried about his dog escaping his quarters, mainly because Porthos was neither intelligent enough, nor tall enough to work the locking mechanism. Malcolm, though saddled with Porthos’s height, was not limited by the beagle’s intelligence. After a thoughtful survey of the room, he concluded that the easiest piece of furniture to move would be the desk chair; hopefully, it would give him enough height to reach the keypad.

  Having done dog-walking duty for the captain before, Malcolm knew exactly where all of Porthos’s things were stored. After several attempts, he finally managed to knock the door of the small cabinet open. Then it was just a small matter of tugging the worn leash down from its hook. Leash acquired, Malcolm trotted over to the chair. He painstakingly wound the leash around the front two chair legs; then patiently worked the clip end through the hand loop at the opposite end of the leash. That accomplished, he grasped the leash firmly in his jaws and began to slowly back up.

  Moving the chair across the room took much longer than Malcolm had anticipated. The desk chairs, so easy for a human to pick up, were extremely heavy and bulky for a small dog to handle. Eventually, however, Malcolm managed to drag the chair close enough to the door for him to reach the keypad. He dropped the leash and leapt up onto the seat of the chair. By placing his front paws on the chair back, he was just able to reach the keypad with his nose. Carefully (so as not to bruise himself) he tapped in his security override and was rewarded with the gentle whoosh as the doors slid open.