Resistance

by J. M. Dillard

  Worf answered with a stern look.

  “I’d like to volunteer for the position of security chief, sir. We just lost our chief and three of the highest-ranking officers in security. Of anyone on this ship, I have the most experience for the job.”

  Worf considered this. “A security chief is critically necessary, especially in the emergency situation we are in. But we also require an experienced conn. Evasive maneuvers can often protect us better than armed officers.”

  “Ensign Nguyen is experienced,” Nave said, referring to the officer who was just leaving the seat vacant for her. “And there’s Lieutenant Krueger.” Both officers shared conn duty with Nave, each working different shifts.

  “I suppose, if our situation grows more dire, we could let you fill the position and ask Nguyen and Krueger to pull longer shifts of duty.” He paused. “Very well. If we have need of a chief of security, I will call upon you when the time comes.”

  “When the time comes . . . ?” Nave repeated, aghast. “Sir, the time is here. I’m volunteering to lead an away team now onto the Borg vessel.”

  Worf lowered his voice, though he had no doubt T’Lana, sitting nearby, would hear every word. “No away team is needed. I will be making an announcement to the crew shortly: the captain is beaming over to the Borg vessel.”

  “The captain?”

  “He will be safe,” Worf countered. “Doctor Crusher is transforming him into a Borg. But he will be wearing a neutralizer chip, which will protect him from being assimilated. The Borg will accept him, and he will be able to proceed unhindered to the queen and destroy her.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Nave asked outright.

  Worf felt the Vulcan’s disapproving gaze on him. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I will have the opportunity to consult the captain shortly and will ask him.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Nave said, clearly crushed. She turned away slowly and took her seat at the conn.

  “Lieutenant,” Worf said softly. He understood and liked Nave; she had a warrior’s heart. He wished very much that he could allow her to seek justice for her friends.

  Nave glanced over her shoulder at him.

  “If anyone else needs to beam over to the Borg vessel,” he said, “I shall make sure you accompany him.”

  Nave did not smile. “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  • • •

  Picard/Locutus walked through the corridors of the Enterprise with Beverly Crusher by his side. The world was gray, leaden, distorted — and cold, so very cold.

  “So this is how it looked,” he murmured, in the low, hoarse voice of Locutus; the sound of it still unsettled him.

  Beverly turned her face toward him. “How what looked?”

  “The ship. The way it appeared to the Borg when they invaded her. The deck, the bulkheads . . .”

  “How does it look?” Beverly asked. She was distracting him, Picard knew, distracting them both from the fear of what was about to happen.

  “Very odd. Without color; everything is varying shades of black, white, gray. And it’s rather like being in a fishbowl looking out. When I close in on something, it grows alarmingly large — it’s all I can see. And when it recedes, it’s gone immediately.” Speaking was an effort, yet he forced himself and was relieved when he could hear Jean-Luc’s intonation and choice of words assert themselves. Gray and immediate, he decided, that was the Borg world. There was no right or wrong here, only directives, only stimulus and response. He understood now how they could kill so easily, without compunction: action was simply mindless action. They saw no difference among nourishing themselves, building a cube, or killing.

  We are building a queen. Remain in your regeneration chambers and await the directive. He would have said more, but the single thunderous thought overrode all others, and he fell silent. The voices were tinged with emotion and an urgency that nearly overwhelmed him. It was different from the voices the last time he had been Locutus. Indeed, when Beverly spoke, he had to strain to make out the words.

  “It sounds hideous,” Beverly said softly.

  It is, he thought, but the words proved too difficult to form beneath the chorus of Borg voices. He turned away and focused on walking; his gait seemed stiff, clumsy, as if he wore another man’s body. Silently, he chided himself: he would have to adjust to the mental noise. If he could not speak quickly, coherently with his crew once he beamed over to the Borg vessel, all might be lost.

  Beverly glanced at him. He could see in her eyes that she noticed his struggle, but she said nothing.

  He forced out some words. “You were right — they will protect the queen at any cost. They will kill. It is not a directive. It springs from something . . . deeper.”

  They arrived at last at the transporter room. Commander Worf and Counselor T’Lana stood side by side at the transporter console. It was growing increasingly harder for Picard to judge expressions. He could not read T’Lana’s reaction to the appearance of Locutus at all, but he caught a flicker in the Klingon’s eyes.

  Picard turned his attention first to the Vulcan. He could only imagine that she had come in order to make a final argument against his course of action. “Counselor T’Lana?” He forced himself not to react to the sound of his own voice rendered haunt-ingly alien, and he forced himself, too, to ignore the mental chatter and speak fluidly, without halting. “I presume you’re here because you wished to have a word with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” T’Lana said. She stepped from behind the console in order to face the captain directly. While such body language was generally ignored by Vulcans, T’Lana had come to realize that humans valued it. Her action hinted at respect and directness.

  She wanted to show him such things. While she did not approve of his choices, he was still her captain. And she could not look on him thus, as Locutus, and not consider his loyalty to his crew — a value equally prized by Vulcans and humans. It was difficult even for her to see him so changed: she had never stood in the presence of a Borg drone, though she had seen many images, and the experience was unsettling. One of his eyes was completely obscured by an optical device; the other was dulled, devoid of emotion, of the spark that had made it human. His skin was as alarmingly pale as that of a bloodless corpse, and the black prosthesis fitted to his arm was equipped with an ominous and deadly looking metal blade.

  T’Lana of course did not react outwardly to the change in his appearance, but Doctor Crusher and Commander Worf could not entirely hide the keen distress they felt. It must have been extremely difficult for them, given their experiences with Locutus. T’Lana was impressed that Picard was willing to endure what to him must be a horrific experience — again to become part of the Borg. Most important, he was willing to sacrifice himself in order to spare his crew and — he believed — the rest of humanoid civilization.

  Captain Wozniak would have done such a thing. She drew a breath and pushed the image of the dying Wozniak from her mind.

  “I have come for two reasons, Captain,” T’Lana said. “First, I wish to tell you that I regret I was unable to be of use to you in my role as counselor —”

  Picard interrupted immediately, in the grating, unsettlingly inhuman voice of the Borg, though the mere act of forming the words seemed to require enormous effort. “But you were of service. You gave your opinion. I value that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And the second reason you have come?” Picard asked.

  T’Lana drew a breath. Whether the captain was right or wrong was, at this moment, immaterial. “To wish you success in your mission, sir.”

  The Borg face could not quite smile, but she saw the very humanlike glint in the single exposed eye. “I appreciate that, Counselor. It is definitely something to be wished for.”

  As T’Lana exited, Picard turned to his second-in-command. “Commander Worf.” His words came out harsh, stilted, uninflected, Borg. “You are now in command of this vessel.”

  He paused, meaning to say more, but the Kl
ingon spoke first. “Aye, Captain. I will do my best, sir. As an emergency backup, I am assembling another away team —”

  Picard cut him off, gesturing with the prosthetic arm, an action that made Worf and Beverly wince. “There will be no more away teams, even if I fail.” It was nearly impossible to speak quietly while someone else was shouting in his brain, but he forced himself to maintain his focus, to make the words come. “Now that I am fully part of the Collective, I understand that the Borg’s entire arsenal is almost online. And their engines will be ready in just under seven hours. Do you understand?” He paused. “If I am unable to neutralize the queen, your orders are to take the ship out of here and warn Starfleet Command immediately. We will risk no further lives.”

  Worf’s expression grew stoic. He gave a single, curt nod. “Aye, sir.”

  “I’ll stay in constant contact. If for any reason my communicator fails, or the Borg taps into my comlink, you’ll be able to get my coordinates from the transponder. If we lose contact, notify Doctor Crusher immediately; she will be monitoring the neutralizer chip to be sure it is functioning properly. I want you to remain just within transporter range. No closer.” He let go a small gasp, drained by the effort of so much speech.

  If Worf saw, he did not show it. “Yes, Captain.”

  That’s it then, Picard told himself silently — a small, barely discernible thought amid the collective’s babble, phrase layered over phrase layered over phrase.

  Nutrient uptake successful.

  Prosthetic body now available for use by the queen . . .

  The queen’s gestation is nearing completion. Prepare for the coming directive.

  Maintain ninety-five percent humidity in gestation chamber. Construction completed on Levels Three through Twenty-one Alpha. Raising internal temperature . . .

  Picard lumbered to the transporter pad, then turned and faced Worf and Beverly, both of whom stood at the console.

  How distant they looked, how gray; how cold and grim and lifeless the Enterprise herself seemed. Weighed down by the cacophony of the collective, Picard made himself a silent, solemn promise: he would return again to a world warm and vivid and bright.

  “Mister Worf,” he said, “beam me over to the Borg vessel.”

  The world shimmered, sparks of light illuminating the gray. The edges of reality softened, melted into each other, then abruptly, relentlessly dissolved.

  8

  Even as Picard materialized on the Borg vessel, he gratefully sucked in air. The atmosphere aboard the Enterprise had become so cold and dry to him that it pained his throat and lungs. Here it was obligingly hot and so moist a fine mist veiled his surroundings.

  The voice of the Collective was clearer here, utterly pervasive yet somehow less intrusive, as quietly a part of him as his own breathing or the beating of his heart. The part of him that was Locutus found it welcoming. At the same time, he felt his level of anger increase. At first, he thought it was a natural reaction to being back aboard a cube. But slowly he came to realize that Jean-Luc Picard wasn’t angry. It was the Borg.

  Emotion was not typical of his connection to the Collective. The Borg were systematic. Even with all the added voices, Picard remembered that the last time he was Locutus there was an overall sense of calm. Of reason. The Borg did not see themselves as evil. They were merely performing a function of their superior biology. They had never attacked with malice; they were simply fulfilling their natural prerogative to expand their race. The sense of preservation was still there, but now it was mixed with a need for vengeance. And a feeling of satisfaction.

  The queen’s gestation is nearing completion. Prepare to receive a directive . . .

  He found himself on the uppermost deck. Overhead hung exposed circuitry and conduits. Beneath his feet lay exposed metal scaffolding above a hundred other scaffoldings just the same, spiraling downward into infinity, and row after row of honeycomb alcoves filled with inanimate drones. To the human Picard, the sight was dizzying. To Locutus, it was unremarkable; the Borg’s vision focused on what was closest to him, the better to detect intruders or beings to be immediately assimilated. Distant objects receded into near invisibility: height meant nothing. Only an individual could be afraid of falling.

  Only individuals would desire to see colors, to appreciate aesthetics; Borg vision detected shades of gray because those were the functional colors of the Borg cube.

  Levels Twenty-two A through Thirty-nine A now at acceptable life-support levels, ready for habitation.

  Picard began to move slowly, deliberately, at the Collective’s steady pace. He was keenly aware that he had beamed onto the precise spot where Battaglia and his search party had started out. Unlike them, he needed no coordinates to guide him.

  He had grown sufficiently accustomed to the Collective’s steady patter in his mind to focus on his own thoughts. He let Locutus guide his feet and let his mind recall each individual of the lost away team. He wanted to remember them separately; it fell to his responsibility to notify their families when he returned to the Enterprise.

  If he returned, the thought whispered, and he corrected it quickly, firmly. When.

  He could not let himself forget the cost of his own reluctance to face the Borg alone. The lost were not faceless officers, aware of the dangers of service aboard a starship. Each one had a history, loved ones, dreams. And Picard fought against the Collective to remember them as such.

  There was Lionardo Battaglia, of course — a sharp, ambitious young man, but one with depth. When duty had brought him to the captain’s quarters, Battaglia had immediately recognized the music Picard had been listening to: Puccini. He had spoken knowledgeably of the composer’s life.

  Though Battaglia was still alive, Picard had to think of him as lost. He could not cloud his mission with thoughts of rescue. Saving Battaglia could mean the loss of more than just Picard.

  Instead, he focused on the dead — the truly lost. There was Amrita Satchitanand, whom he had met only briefly when she had first reported to duty aboard the Enterprise. He remembered her as a lithe, diminutive woman with skin the color of coffee with cream and an elegance to her movements that reminded him of Hindu temple dancers.

  There was Jorge Costas, tall, dark eyed, and proud, who had come from a large family in Starfleet, all of whom would feel his loss. There was Noel DeVrie from Holland, painfully young, with an eager attitude and hair the color of sunlight, as pale as Costas was dark.

  He moved past a row of darkened chambers, each one housing the silhouette of an upright, sleeping Borg. The sleep that is not sleep, he thought. The Borg did not dream. Their presence made him wary, but as he passed by, they remained silent and still, adrift in mindless existence.

  Footsteps coming toward him. Locutus took no notice, but Picard tensed at the sight of a drone looming swiftly in his vision — coming, he knew with Collective instinct, from the birthplace of the queen. The drone had once been humanoid, though its original sex and species had been so long submerged that they had been washed away, like the tide wearing down stone, leaving smooth, bland features in its wake.

  No alarm was sounded in the group consciousness, no call to action given, but Picard froze nonetheless, remembering how swiftly Battaglia and the others had been taken. The drone neared and lifted an arm terminating in a single, viciously sharp blade. Picard rested a finger on his communicator badge, ready to touch it if need be, to warn those on the Enterprise, just as Battaglia had done with his last breath.

  The Borg moved within an arm’s length, the arm still raised. And then he walked on, brushing against Picard as he passed.

  Picard let go a long breath, then stilled his human mind. He allowed the Collective to become ascendant and resumed his steady pace.

  He let the mind of the Borg draw him over the metal scaffold, beneath pulsing lights that might have dazzled human eyes. In the ship, all was silent. Locutus felt safe, nestled in the bosom of the Collective, a part of hundreds of others. Picard felt horribly alon
e.

  It was not far to the single enclosed chamber on the ship. Picard paused in the open entryway and stood in the pulsing light — a longer wavelength than that in the rest of the ship, though his Borg’s eyes could not identify the color.

  The chamber was vast, high ceilinged, fogged with humidity; in the far misting shadows, an exoskeleton of conduits hung on the walls, pumping in specially warmed and dampened air, filtering the environment. Small, slickly shining nutrient tubes dangled down unused, a tangle of black snakes.

  Captain Picard, Battaglia had whispered, we have found the queen . . .

  • • •

  T’Lana had just boarded the lift that would take her up to the bridge when she spotted Commander Worf in the corridor. He caught her eye and lifted a finger, a signal, she decided, for her to wait for him.

  Out of courtesy, she did so, though she did not relish the opportunity to be alone in his presence.

  He entered the lift and gave her a nod in thanks as the doors closed behind him.

  “Bridge.” For a few seconds, they rode in silence. And then Commander Worf said, “That was most gracious, Counselor. What you said to Captain Picard.”

  The remark caught her off guard, but she realized that the Klingon was attempting to be professional, courteous. To his credit, he was trying to establish a good working relationship. He had made the comment because he was loyal to Captain Picard, and he wished to show his support of T’Lana’s sentiment.

  Even flawed instruments, she told herself, could sometimes give correct readings.

  She knew that she ought to respond positively; it was paramount, at such a critical time, that the crew function together effectively. But something in his demeanor made her hesitate to reply. He broke off eye contact a bit too quickly, and his tone bore a hint of shyness; he even took a step back, failing to maintain the normal physical distance between colleagues.

  He was behaving so, T’Lana realized, because as a male he had noticed that she was a female. He was attracted to her and attempting to suppress it.