Star Trek - TNG - Vendetta

by Peter David

eyes. "There is a man in there who is screaming

  to get out."

  "I seriously doubt that," said Crusher, her

  arms folded.

  Picard's eyes narrowed as he said, "It's

  most unusual, Doctor, for you to be poorly

  stocked in the compassion department."

  "It has nothing to do with being stocked," she said.

  "There's no man in there screaming to get out."

  "You cannot say that for certain," Picard told

  her.

  "Yes, I can."

  "How?"

  "Because," said Crusher, pointing at the Borg

  soldier, "that's a woman."

  Captain Ariel Taggert, with her keen

  eyesight and unparalleled abilities of

  concentration, saw it first. She pointed and said,

  "Thar she blows. Magnification six, ops."

  The screen shimmered briefly and then reformed.

  The entity was now on their screen. It was huge.

  And it was hungry.

  And it was eating.

  There was a dead silence on the bridge, and the

  man at conn said finally, "Holy shit." Then,

  suddenly aware that his captain did not approve of

  such language, especially on the bridge, he

  added quickly, "Sorry, Captain."

  But Taggert just shook her head slowly. "No,

  it's okay, Mr. Seth. Frankly, I can't

  think of a better way to describe it." She

  leaned forward, trying not to remind herself that its

  immensity was frightening, considering the distance they still were

  from it. Part of her--the intelligent part, no doubt

  --dearly would have loved to increase that distance a

  hundredfold. "What in the blazes is it doing?

  It's ..."

  "Carving up that planet," said Seth slowly.

  "And ... and eating it. And it looks like it's got

  a big appetite."

  "Is it ... is it the Borg?" asked the

  tactical officer.

  Taggert studied them for a moment.

  "This thing," she said, finally, "makes the Borg

  look like tribbles."

  "A woman?" said Geordi in confusion. "But

  there are no Borg women! At least, no one's

  ever seen one."

  "When we first encountered the Borg, we found where

  they were ... grown," said Data. "Their nursery,

  so to speak, where Borgs are grown and affixed,

  almost immediately, with machine parts. There were no

  females."

  "Are you sure there's no mistake,

  Doctor?" asked Picard.

  "No mistake," said Crusher firmly.

  "They may have made hash of her DNA

  structure, but I can still see two x

  chromosomes with the best of them. I'm

  telling you, this Borg is female."

  "The point is," said Picard, "what do we do

  about it?"

  "I believe," said Data, "that I can

  restructure her neural motorways in a way

  that will reduce her interactive circuit to a

  simple, single pulse, generated on a steady

  basis. As it is, she keeps awaiting

  instructions that will not be forthcoming. It renders her

  immobile. By creating a continuous loop within her

  interactive circuitry, I would be providing

  her with the illusion that she is receiving a response from

  the Borg central mind. Her questioning pulse will, in

  essence, be rerouted and made into an answering

  pulse, retranslated into another question, another

  answer, and so on. It will maintain the status

  quo."

  "You mean she'll be talking to herself," said

  Crusher.

  Data nodded. "For all intents and

  purposes, yes."

  "What will she be saying?"

  "Initially, nothing," said Data. "She will not

  be receiving any instructions. She will simply be

  receiving an acknowledgment that the Borg mind, from which

  she was severed, is still in existence."

  "Can you give her instructions, Data?" asked

  Geordi. "Can you restore her and make her into a

  person again?"

  Data shook his head. "The most that I will be

  able to do, Geordi, is to institute the most

  rudimentary of commands. She would be able to walk.

  She would be able to see her surroundings, although I

  doubt she could understand. Every other function of a

  Borg is guided by their ship. She is, in

  human terms, highly retarded."

  "We don't know that," said Geordi. "We

  don't know anything about the person sitting in

  front of us. There may be a mind in there shouting,

  "Help me. Help me out of this living

  prison.""

  "I don't sense any such thoughts," Troi

  offered, "but we have no idea of the extent of Borg

  reprogramming. It could be buried so deep that not

  even I can touch it."

  "It sounds to me like it's a tremendous waste of

  time," said Riker. "With the amount of work we have cut

  out for us, I don't know if we should be wasting time

  and valuable manpower on an attempt that is, in

  all probability, going to be

  fruitless."

  Troi looked at Riker with mild

  surprise. There was an unexpected sharpness in his

  tone, bordering on anger. There was more to his

  response than just simple concerns about

  distribution of manpower.

  Picard considered everything that had been said and then

  turned to Data. "Do you think you can make the

  connection with this individual?"

  "It is possible, sir. Yes."

  "Then she deserves the chance to live again.

  Make it so." And then, unwilling to actually see

  matters proceeding any further, he walked out

  of the ready room, followed by Riker.

  They stepped into the turbolift and Picard said,

  "Bridge." As the lift began to move, he

  said, without looking at Riker, "You sounded somewhat

  aggressive in there, Number One."

  "I spoke my mind," said Riker. "I had

  thought that was standard operating procedure."

  "It is. And is that all there is to it?"

  Riker fixed him with an even stare. "Yes,

  sir."

  Picard pursed his lips a moment and then said,

  "You can't afford to lose your objectivity where the

  Borg are concerned, Commander."

  "I know that, sir."

  "Then no more need be said."

  "No sir."

  "Good."

  Taggert was standing and studying the object ahead of

  them, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Specs on the

  planet that's currently serving as that thing's main

  course," she said.

  "Planet Kalish IX," said Mr. Seth

  after a moment. "Class-B. High methane

  content, fierce arctic winds. Uninhabitable.

  No life forms."

  "Okay," said Taggert slowly. "So what we

  have to figure out is whether this thing destroyed a

  planet because it knew that the planet was lifeless

  ... or if the planet was simply the first one that

  it encountered. Slow to half impulse. Give me

  information, people."

  "We've been scanning it, Captain," said

  Seth. "The hull is neutronium, making

  detailed sensor rea
dings impossible."

  "Best guess?"

  "Mechanical device of some sort.

  Perhaps some sort of artificial intelligence,

  although for all we know, there's life forms aboard.

  Difficult to be certain."

  "Open a hailing frequency."

  "A hailing frequency," said the tactical

  officer, Goodman. "To that thing?"

  "If there's a humanoid mind or minds behind

  it, I want to talk to it," said Taggert

  firmly.

  She could understand her officer's surprise. This

  thing didn't look like a ship. This thing looked like

  nothing she had ever seen before.

  Foremost was a wide circular opening in the

  front, like a huge, gaping mouth. It was miles

  wide, like an entranceway to a tunnel that led

  straight down to hell. From within there were flickerings

  of some ungodly light, like unseen demons

  dancing around a towering pyre. The thing then immediately

  angled straight down, the mouth projecting forward

  while the rest of the body spiralled down at a

  ninety-degree angle to it. It twisted and

  turned all the way to the bottom, looking for all

  the world like some sort of spacegoing cyclone.

  The most noticeable feature, however, was the

  huge series of projections that extended from all

  over the exterior. They were longest and most

  densely packed around the maw, huge pointed

  towers miles high that came to points, packed so

  densely that they overlapped. Yet there was a

  symmetry to them, a sense of deadly beauty and

  purpose. With the combination of the flickering within the maw

  itself, and the dazzling projections so thickly set

  around the mouth, it gave the impression of a

  massive, moving, highly stylized starburst. A

  mobile sun, consuming whatever was in its path.

  Scattered along the rest of the cyclonic

  image were more of the huge, spike-like projections.

  They stuck out at odd angles, in all

  directions. Any one of them looked capable of

  skewering a planet through to the core, or smashing

  through starships with no trouble. It meant that an

  attacking ship couldn't even get in close.

  "Sir, having trouble getting through," reported

  Goodman. "We're getting some sort of

  subspace interference. It'll take me a

  minute to punch through."

  "Can you inform Starfleet of what's going on?"

  "Negative, sir. We have local

  communication, but there's too much interference to go beyond

  the solar system."

  Taggert sat back in the command chair, steepling

  her fingers. A planet-devouring ship.

  Neutronium hull. Subspace interference.

  Damn, it all sounded familiar somehow. "Mr.

  Seth," she began, "check Starfleet logs

  for--"

  "Captain, we're getting a response!"

  The surprise in Goodman's voice was clear.

  "On visual."

  "No visual transmission."

  "Audio, then."

  There was a pause, and then there was a voice ...

  a combination of voices. A symphony of

  voices.

  "Yes?" it said. Insanely, it sounded almost

  polite, as if going about consuming planets was

  simply standard operating procedure.

  Taggert licked her suddenly dry lips and

  said, "This is Captain Taggert of the starship

  Repulse." She paused, waiting for some

  response, some replying identification.

  Instead, the huge planet-destroyer simply

  hung there. Chunks of rubble were being hungrily

  scooped up by means of what appeared to be a

  tractor beam.

  "And?" said the voice finally. It seemed even

  vaguely amused somehow.

  "Identify yourself," said Taggert.

  "Why?"

  "Because," Taggert said, using annoyance to cover

  her deep-seated conviction that they were in way over

  their heads, "I wish to know the name of the

  individual, or individuals, who believe that

  they can just go about the galaxy, destroying planets

  with impunity."

  There was a silence. And then the voice spoke

  again. "You describe the Borg," it said.

  "You are not one of the Borg," said Taggert.

  "No. But they are the destroyers. They

  operate with impunity. We will stop them, though.

  I will stop them."

  "You just destroyed a planet!" said Taggert.

  "What makes you any better?"

  "There was no life. We needed the fuel.

  I needed the fuel. We are hungry. Hungry

  for fuel. Vengeance fuels our hatred, but the

  body needs fuel of a different sort."

  "And if there had been life?"

  "There was none."

  "But if there were?" Taggert said, this

  time with increased urgency.

  "Then they would die. It does not matter.

  Nothing matters except stopping the Borg. The

  soulless ones. For if they are not stopped, then

  truly nothing will matter."

  "I must ask you," said Taggert firmly, "as

  a duly authorized representative of

  Starfleet, to remain where you are. We cannot permit

  you to continue on your present course."

  "You cannot stop me."

  "We will do what we have to."

  "If what you have to do is die, then that is

  what you will do. We would regret that. But if it is

  necessary, then it is necessary. Nothing must stop me from

  destroying the Borg."

  "Captain, communications have been cut off,"

  said Goodman.

  "It's finished consuming the planet," said

  Seth. "It's ... it's heading for the next one."

  He looked up in alarm. "Captain ... there's

  a small colony on Kalish VIII--THREE

  hundred people."

  Taggert bolted to her feet. "Hard about,

  Mr. Seth. Alert all transporter rooms.

  Emergency evacuation about to commence. Raise the

  colonists."

  "They hailed us, Captain. They're coming on

  now."

  On the screen appeared the panicked face of a

  colonist. His skin had turned as white as the thin

  hair on his head. "Repulse, come in!" he

  was saying urgently. They could see, behind him, people

  running about frantically, screaming, waving their

  arms. "This is Astra colony on Kalish

  VIII. Come in!"

  "We're reading you, Astra," said Taggert, the

  voice and picture of calm.

  "Our planetary sensors are reading--"

  "We know," she said. "We'll be there in no

  time. Get your people together--transportation will go

  faster if we can do you in large masses. And

  pray," she added, "that what's coming toward you is

  full from its most recent meal."

  The Borg soldier lay in the biobed, the

  implants glistening metal all over her skin

  and, insanely, the knife still sticking out of her arm.

  Dr. Crusher was studying the implants

  carefully, shaking her head. "Machine parts,

  attached to people against their will," she was

  muttering. "Tapping into your body and soul. It's />
  like cybernetic rape."

  Data had finished putting the connectors from his

  own positronic mind to the appropriate

  connections on the Borg. La Forge stood

  nearby, making some last-minute adjustments.

  "Data, you sure about this?" he asked.

  Data looked at him with as close

  to puzzlement as he could muster. "Of course not,

  Geordi," he said. "One can only be sure if

  there is no possibility of error, and all

  factors are known. With the Borg, neither condition

  is met."

  "You sure know how to instill a sense of

  security," mumbled Geordi, going back to his

  work.

  Deanna Troi stood nearby, feeling

  helpless and useless. She was reaching out as much as she

  could to the helpless woman in the biobed, but there was

  simply nothing there. Troi was perceiving no sense

  of awareness, no sense of self, no nothing. It

  was as if the biobed were empty.

  "I am ready to proceed," said Data

  quietly.

  Crusher stepped aside to keep a close eye

  on the life signs. "Ready on this end," she

  said.

  "Proceeding," said Data, and he lapsed

  into silence.

  No one spoke, and there was no sound except

  for a soft, gentle humming of circuitry. All

  the normal sounds of sickbay abruptly seem

  magnified beyond all proportion. Troi looked

  at Crusher, who glanced at her and then looked

  at Geordi. La Forge, for his part, kept a

  steady watch on all the important

  circuitry.

  "I have located the neural path that maintains

  contact with the Borg central mind," Data said

  finally. "It appears to be generating a steady flow

  of electrons which, due to the disruption in the

  circuitry, are being rerouted and returned to the

  programming center. It will be necessary to continue this

  loop, or else the immediate destruction of the soldier

  will result." He suddenly paused and then said,

  "She is aware of my presence."

  "Vitals are fluctuating," said Beverly.

  "I still sense nothing," Troi commented.

  "She is aware," said Data. "On a

  rudimentary level, she senses that I

  am within her frame of reference."

  "Does she know she's severed from the Borg?"

  said Geordi.

  "No, and she must not find out. Not at this point

  in the procedure," Data said. "Otherwise, it

  would trigger her self-destruct mechanism ...

  as would any attempt by you, Geordi, to remove

  her self-destruct mechanism. There are enough

  redundant fail-safes within her that you could never