Resistance

by J. M. Dillard

  He failed to respond to her humor; his expression remained stern, grim. “It has nothing to do with the Borg,” he said.

  “Really? There’s something worse than a Borg with a vendetta?” she joked. “Well, you certainly can’t go through something like that on your own. Come on, tell me what’s up.”

  Worf’s mood darkened visibly. “I do not wish to discuss it,” he said, in the lowest possible tone, the one approaching a growl, the one that indicated anger and hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” Nave said. It wasn’t the first time her lighthearted mood had been met with a chilly response. Yet there was something worse than coldness from the Klingon. “I didn’t mean anything by it . . .”

  But he had already disappeared from the doorway.

  • • •

  Nave finished her workout alone, then went, per custom, to relax at the Happy Bottom Riding Club, where she knew Lieutenant Lio Battaglia would be waiting for her. Commander Riker had christened the crew lounge shortly after the Enterprise–E had been commissioned. The name, she had since learned, hearkened back to the early days of Earth’s space exploration, when astronauts went to a similarly monikered watering hole. Nave liked the name, particularly because it seemed so out of place in the stately and modern starship.

  Much like the ship’s former first officer, Lio Battaglia also had a quirky sense of humor and entertaining eccentricities. His Italian mother had christened him Lionardo, using the original spelling of da Vinci’s name. He occasionally referred to the “artistic temperament” and “erratic moods” he’d inherited with the name — a comment that always made Sara laugh, since Lio was utterly good-natured and easygoing. He uttered such nonsense with a half-facetious air, as if realizing the silliness of such a claim; even so, he would continue, stating that his scattered mannerisms came from an artist’s way of focusing on so many things at once.

  But he had spoken so passionately of Italian art and literature that she had agreed to learn more about his birth country’s history with him. They had started out their exploration of the Italian culture by reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. Nave had found the work particularly interesting, having never before understood or bothered to examine any religious beliefs. The fact that Lio insisted they highlight their studies with the original texts was an interesting challenge that she believed he had instituted largely so they could spend more time together, but that was just a feeling and she had yet to come up with concrete proof.

  Now, in the Club, she walked toward their customary table and saw him waiting for her. His face lit up with recognition; she smiled in return. He was dark haired, olive complected, with eyes such a clear green they reminded Sara of the warm, pristine waters of the Mediterranean. He’d been sitting next to her at the bar one night, shortly after she’d been assigned to the Enterprise, when she was still head of security. They’d been formally introduced while on duty; at the bar, each of them had recognized a kindred spirit. Now they were at the point where their friendship was metamorphosing into something more. Nave allowed it because she was no longer Lio’s direct superior — in fact, he’d received a promotion and had taken over her position as security chief. There were no longer any concerns about a personal relationship getting in the way of their professional one.

  She stared down at the short glass in front of her, which held a few ice cubes, clear liquid, and a wedge of lime. “What is it tonight?” she asked. The first time he’d asked her what she wanted to drink, she’d said, “Surprise me.” And so he did, every night.

  “Gin and tonic,” he said. “Ever had one?”

  She shook her head, brought the glass of synthehol to her face, and sniffed. Her temptation was to wrinkle her nose, but she kept her expression noncommittal. The ritual was a contest of sorts; no matter what Lio ordered, she drank stoically.

  “What’s that smell?” she asked carefully.

  “Juniper berries.”

  “Like the tree?”

  “Exactly. Now squeeze the lime and put it in the glass,” Lio prompted.

  She did so, took a gulp, and managed, through pure will, not to grimace. Clearly, gin was not one of her favorites. Her preference, when it came to synthehol, was a nice, soft Merlot, nothing strong. But she was determined to handle anything Lio ordered for her.

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “You hate it.” Lio grinned, a perfect lunar crescent appearing beneath his long, prominent nose.

  “I didn’t say that.” She held the glass to the light, sniffed it again, and took another swig. “Gin and tonic it is tonight. Only the next time, more lime.”

  “So,” Lio said. “Petrarch. What did you think?”

  Nave allowed herself a smile. “Talk about your artistic temperament,” she said. “Though I’d like to meet this Laura woman he wrote about.”

  Lio took a sip of his usual glass of amaretto, then set it down emphatically. “Petrarch probably would have as well. Many people believe he had little or no real contact with the woman, because she was married, possibly to an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade.”

  “As good a reason as any to stay away from a woman,” Nave said. Though she was enjoying the thinly veiled flirtation on romantic characters from the fourteenth century, her mind was focused on darker themes. Instead of continuing down the path of the mysterious Laura, she began, very tentatively, “You were here, on the Enterprise, when the crew encountered the Borg and their queen.”

  She didn’t want to dwell in a negative way on whatever the encounter with the Borg might bring, and she had no intention of allowing herself to become afraid, although even reading through the dry texts of the Enterprise’s, and especially Captain Picard’s, battles with the Borg had been harrowing enough. But Lio had survived that, Lio had seen and fought the Borg, and Sara felt it would be useful to learn from someone who had personal knowledge of the enemy.

  Lio quickly pulled his head back, as if he’d been slapped; pain flashed in his eyes, so brightly Nave was sorry she’d asked the question. For the second time that evening, she had overstepped her bounds without meaning to.

  But Lio composed himself with admirable speed, although he cast his gaze downward at his glass. In his expression Nave saw at last some of the dark, brooding temperament he had always claimed.

  “I fought against the Borg.” He steepled his hands around his glass, framing it in a triangle composed of his fingers. “I was an ensign. I had no clue what I was doing then. But now, I’ll be leading any away team that boards their ship. I spoke to the captain after the briefing.” He glanced up at her, all the humor gone from his tone. “What do you want to know?”

  That gave her pause; she had assumed any combat involved would be ship-to-ship. She hadn’t considered that Lio himself might be put directly in jeopardy. Even so, it was too late to back out of the conversation gracefully. “I want to know what they’re like, in case . . . in case things escalate.”

  “If things escalate,” Lio countered, “then I’ll have failed at my job.”

  “You won’t fail,” Nave said firmly. “I just wanted . . . any tips you have, as someone who’s been there before.”

  “Tips,” Lio said, and his lips twisted with infinite irony. “Stay the hell away from them. That’s the best tip I can give you.”

  “Lio . . .” She was gentle in her exasperation.

  He threw back his glass of amaretto and emptied it in a single swallow, then slammed it down on the table. “What are the Borg like?” he asked rhetorically, gazing out one of the ports. “They’re soulless. Mindless. Bent on taking from you everything that makes you a unique individual. If you’re lucky, they’ll simply kill you. If you’re not, they’ll assimilate you.”

  “How did you fight them?” Nave asked softly.

  “We used phaser rifles, which killed a few, slowed down the rest — then they adapted. We had to keep changing the frequency . . . and each time, they adapted and took more of our people. You’ve seen the pictures, how their bodies, their limbs a
re fitted with prosthetic weapons. Razor-sharp hooks, vibrating saws, rotating blades . . .” He looked down at the empty glass, his expression bleak. “I had a friend. Another ensign, a buddy of mine in engineering. We were assigned to the Enterprise the same year. Joel Azaria from Delios VII, a great guy. He was . . .” Lio paused, ran a hand over his face.

  “It’s all right,” Nave said. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

  Lio recovered and continued. “We were with Commander Worf in one of the corridors, and the Borg just swarmed us. We kept firing the rifles; they kept adapting. I was standing next to Joel — he was on the outside flank. One of the Borg had a retracted blade built into his wrist. Joel was firing at him one second, the next he was down. The Borg advanced one step, and before any of us realized it, the blade had gone straight through Joel’s midsection.” He lowered his head and shook it slowly. “I wanted to take him with us, even though he was already gone . . . but we couldn’t. They had us cornered. The only thing we could do was retreat. We had to leave Joel lying where he was . . .”

  “I’m so sorry,” Nave whispered.

  “I wish that had been the end of it,” Lio said. “Because we had to fight them again later, in another corridor. And Joel . . . Joel was there. But it wasn’t really Joel. They’d taken him, changed him, defiled his body with these . . . these weapons and cybernetic attachments to his head, his eyes, his arms. He was no longer human.” He drew in a long breath. “And the worst part was . . . I fired my rifle at him, again and again, but I couldn’t take him down. I couldn’t destroy the monster they’d made of him. I know he went on to kill his own crew-mates . . . He would have wanted me to stop him from doing that.”

  Nave leaned forward and rested a hand on his forearm. He looked up at her, a hint of gratitude showing in his grim expression.

  “That’s what it’s like to fight the Borg,” he said tonelessly. “They’re relentless. The only way we could stop them from taking our souls was to take theirs — to kill their queen. Captain Picard did it once; we’ll do it again.” He sighed. The darkness eased, and he gave her one of his wry Lio grins. “Look, I don’t mean to scare you, Sara. I’m going to be fine this time. My team will be fine, because now we have the advantage. This time we’ll get there before they have a new queen. Without her, the captain believes they’re incapable of moving against us. We’ll go in, get out . . . it’ll all be over and we’ll be on our way to Repok again.”

  Nave took two large swallows of the gin and tonic, and waited for the synthehol to produce the familiar tingling in her feet. “Promise me,” she said. “Promise me that’s exactly how it’s going to happen.”

  “I promise.” Lio took her hand and clasped it firmly in his own. “Look, I was a jerk even to mention all that other stuff. That’s all over now. I just . . . this stuff brings up a lot of unpleasant memories. But nothing like that is ever going to happen again.” His tone turned mildly sarcastic. “Just my Italian sense of drama acting up.”

  “I’m sorry for what you went through, Lio.”

  For a long moment, they simply looked at each other. His eyes were so green, so clear, she thought again about the Mediterranean, about being pulled beneath the water by strong currents.

  “Do you want another drink?” Lio asked suddenly. It was a simple question on the face of it, but Sara knew he was asking something more. She felt herself sliding, pleasantly, over the edge of a precipice. Things were different tonight: in the morning, he would be leaving to go to the Borg vessel.

  She shook her head and rose. Without a word, he rose as well, and they walked arm in arm from the room.

  • • •

  In his quarters, Worf sat cross-legged on his bed, with the orange tabby, Spot, curled contentedly on his lap.

  He still could not think of the cat as his own. Spot would always be Data’s pet, a living reminder of the friend who had sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise crew. Yet Worf and the animal had come to understand each other, even though the concept of a pet — at least, the way humans interpreted it — was foreign to the Klingon. To his surprise, Spot had required more than just food and shelter; in fact, Spot had demanded more. It had taken Worf a good week to understand why Spot persisted in rubbing herself against his ankles, his hands, and called out plaintively in her strange little voice.

  He had consulted Geordi about the phenomenon. The engineer had laughingly explained it to him. “She wants to be petted, Worf. That’s all.”

  “Petted?”

  “You know, stroked, with your hands. She just wants a little affection. She’ll let you know where.”

  “Affection?” Worf was aghast. This was something to be shared with a lover, a child; he could not imagine showing it to an animal.

  But Spot was insistent. Worf was clumsy at first and received small scratches and bites as a result, but he remembered how Jadzia had taught him to be gentle. He applied the same principle to Spot, who showed her approval by purring loudly.

  Now she sat with her eyes closed, her expression one of pure bliss as she purred, featherweight and warm, on his lap. He stroked her with a practiced hand, but he did not look down at her. His gaze was on the holograph of Jadzia beside his bed. It was his favorite image of her, captured shortly after she had challenged him with the bat’leth — and won. There was victory and a hint of fierceness in her smile; her eyes were shining, exhilarated, her face flushed.

  She looked like a warrior.

  “I cannot be what the captain wants me to be,” Worf told her softly. “I am not worthy to command a starship. You remember what Captain Sisko told me, after Lasaran was killed.”

  She would have remembered, of course. He had gone to her afterward, bitter, full of regret, and confessed everything that Sisko had said. Their bond was far too strong for him to have hidden such a thing from her.

  She had agreed that Sisko had been right — in a way. But she had also asked, Knowing what you know now — that Lasaran would be killed, that many people would die — would you have acted the same? Would you have come back for me?

  No, Worf had answered firmly, then paused. I don’t think so. He sighed. I don’t know . . .

  None of us knows for certain how our actions will affect others. She had looked on him with infinite kindness; she knew how deep and bitter his guilt was. We can only do what we judge to be right at the time. You acted from your heart. You couldn’t have done anything else and remained true to yourself.

  “I had to be Klingon,” Worf said aloud, then fell silent again, remembering what Doctor Crusher had told him. And he knew that, so long as he had been bound to Jadzia, he would have acted in the same manner. He would have gone back to her. “And I am still Klingon, so I cannot be trusted with a command.”

  That’s ridiculous, Jadzia retorted in his imagination. Are you saying, then, that no Klingon is ever fit for command?

  Worf considered the question, then heard himself echo what he had told his wife long ago: “No. I don’t think so . . . I don’t know . . .” Had he never bonded with a woman, the choice between love and duty would never have arisen. Perhaps now that he was again alone . . .

  He thought of the startlingly attractive Vulcan counselor and flushed, unable suddenly to look into his wife’s holographic eyes.

  In the end, the answer again escaped him, as haunting and elusive as Jadzia’s ghost.

  • • •

  In her quarters, T’Lana sat cross-legged on the cool deck, meditating.

  Memories often surfaced during such times. She had learned not to suppress them, merely to observe, then let them go, without reaction or analysis.

  The ones that emerged now in her consciousness were no doubt triggered by the meeting today with Picard. They came in singular, vivid images:

  Aboard the Federation Starship Indefatigable, the face of Captain Karina Wozniak — intensely determined, framed by short silver curls. T’Lana had greatly admired and respected her. Wozniak had been deliberate, cautious, receptive to her co
unselor’s advice.

  But the first time they had met, Wozniak had been anything but receptive; she had, in fact, been challenging.

  Less than an hour after T’Lana’s arrival on the Indefatigable, she had been summoned to the captain’s ready room, where Wozniak sat, waiting. Her skin was dark bronze, contrasting sharply with her ice-colored eyes, her pale hair.

  The captain was keenly blunt. It was a trait T’Lana admired, one that most humans failed to appreciate. Wozniak’s tone was good-natured but forceful. “I had requested a Betazoid counselor. I got you instead. Your people are not renowned for their interpersonal skills, yet Command sends me a Vulcan counselor.”

  “True. However a Vulcan counselor gives you a distinct advantage,” T’Lana had replied.

  Her answer had the intended effect: Wozniak did a slight double take, then lifted a brow and opened her mouth to pose a question.

  T’Lana did not give her time to ask it. “I am a talented touch-telepath, of course,” she said. “My ability is so strong that I can sometimes sense the presence of minds even without direct physical contact — though I cannot decipher any thoughts. But it is not to that skill I refer. I know that in most cases, your ‘enemy’ will be standing on the bridge of another vessel, separated from you by space. They will see what you see: a Vulcan, giving you the ‘upper hand.’

  “I have years of diplomatic experience. I have worked with beings from many cultures . . . and as a result, I have developed a skill that most Vulcans despise but that you humans seem to prize.”

  “Which is?” Wozniak interjected, her gaze intense but also amused, curious.

  “Intuition.”

  Wozniak broke into a broad grin. “Finally . . . a truly honest Vulcan. I like you, T’Lana. I think we’ll do well together.”

  Back on the Enterprise, the image in T’Lana’s mind shifted: The Indefatigable’s bridge viewscreen, filled with Jem’Hadar warships — three tiered, evoking bugs with head, body, wings.