Engines of Destiny

by Gene DeWeese

But these memories, unlike those involving his transformation into Locutus, were of things that had not happened, things that could not possibly have happened.

  In these, she remembered dying!

  She vividly remembered screaming in pain and frustration, something she hadn’t thought herself capable of, as the flesh-and-blood portions of her chosen body were literally eaten away. She remembered seeing her attendant drones disintegrating around her, remembered feeling her entire matrix going the way of her own body, dying with her.

  She remembered lying helpless yet still alive, still fully conscious and acutely aware that, even though she was reduced to nothing but a brain and spinal column encased in protective metal sheaths, she was still capable of being resurrected in a new body.

  She remembered this same Picard, drenched in sweat, looming over her. She remembered him picking up the thing she had become, remembered the mixture of revulsion and pity that filled his eyes and his mind as he held it briefly in his hands.

  She remembered the grisly metallic snap as he broke her spine in two, taking from her her last chance for true resurrection.

  She remembered her consciousness fading as he dropped the quivering segments to the deck. She even remembered accepting, in the final moments of that consciousness, the previously incomprehensible notion that she herself, not just her individual, replaceable bodies, could come to an end. The only form of resurrection now possible was to be duplicated from her stored memories, but it would not be her. It would be a being exactly like her, a being who remembered being her but in truth had never been.

  She herself would be no more.

  She remembered all that and more in disturbingly vivid detail.

  And yet she knew—knew without the slightest doubt—that none of what she remembered had happened.

  Yet!

  Suddenly, the truth exploded in her mind. These memories were not of what had happened but of what was yet to come!

  She neither knew nor cared which ability from which assimilated race had provided her with these premonitory “memories.” She knew only what she herself had to do.

  She had to cease her obsessive search for irrelevant details of Picard’s past, for meaningless clues as to how he could still exist and why he was here.

  All that mattered was that he be destroyed.

  Now!

  Before those “memories” became reality. If yet another Picard appeared out of nowhere, so be it. She would deal with it when and if the time came.

  Ignoring the physical limitations of her host’s frail body, she launched it toward Picard and the security detail that had followed him into the transporter room.

  Moments earlier, just outside the transporter room, Picard suppressed a grimace as Troi’s muted words came through his combadge: “It is worse than Mr. Scott suspected, Captain. I sense that the Narisian is not alone in her mind. Something is controlling her.”

  “Borg?”

  “Perhaps. It feels Borg, but there is far more emotion—”

  “Thank you, Counselor,” he said, cutting her off as his eyes met those of Worf, who led a security detail that included Ensigns Porfirio and Houarner. “You heard?”

  The lieutenant nodded. “If one of them is already possessed by the Borg, then anything we do will be known to the entire collective.”

  “Indeed.” Tapping his combadge again, Picard spoke to Data, still on the bridge. “Mr. Data, inform Sarek that the Narisian is apparently being actively monitored if not controlled, almost certainly by the Borg. Tell him we will do our best not to betray our suspicions and to learn as much as we can from our medical scans before returning her to the Wisdom along with the rest of the crew. With luck, the Borg won’t realize we suspect anything.”

  With Data’s acknowledgment, Picard returned his attention to Worf. “Put away your weapons but stay alert when you escort her to sickbay.”

  He waited a moment until the three officers holstered their phasers, then stepped forward as the doors to the transporter room opened. Two Romulans and the Narisian were still standing on the transporter platform, looking around uneasily, as Picard entered.

  The Romulans paid him no attention, but the Narisian froze the moment she saw him. Her face betrayed no emotion, but her vertically slitted eyes locked unwaveringly on him. Picard couldn’t be certain if it was an illusion, but the fur on her head seemed to bristle.

  Pretending not to notice, he turned toward Riker and Troi. The counselor, her eyes still riveted on the Narisian, gasped.

  At the same moment, perhaps a split second earlier, the Narisian, in expressionless silence, leapt with startling speed, not at Picard but at the security detail two or three meters behind him. Her movements were so sudden and so blindingly fast that she had her hands on Porfirio’s loosely fastened phaser before he or any of the others could react.

  As if thoroughly familiar with the weapon, she had it set to full power in an instant, without having to even look at it. Even before the weapon was completely raised, she pressed the firing stud. The beam lashed out, charring the deck bare meters from Picard and starting to sweep toward him.

  At the same time, Worf fired his phaser at the Narisian.

  For a moment, the Narisian wobbled, her own deadly phaser beam twitching backward onto the already scarred area of the deck, but almost instantly it steadied.

  The split-second hesitation and retreat, however, had given Hovarner time to act, and a second phaser beam, set to heavy stun, staggered the Narisian.

  But it did not fell her.

  Worf and Houarner fired again until finally, with startling abruptness, the Narisian collapsed, thudding to the deck as if every muscle had gone flaccid simultaneously. For a moment that seemed to go on forever, the fingers that somehow still held Porfirio’s phaser twitched as if they had a mindless life of their own but could not manage the strength or coordination to press the firing stud. Finally the fingers were as still as the rest of her body, and Porfirio retrieved his weapon as Picard himself knelt next to the body.

  Troi grimaced as if in pain. “It is gone, Captain,” she said, her voice trembling.

  Picard scooped the Narisian up in his arms and said to the transporter chief, “Two to beam directly to sickbay.” He glanced briefly at the haggard-looking Troi. “Join us there, Counselor, immediately,” he said in the moment before the transporter beam enveloped him and Balitor.

  Without warning, agony engulfed Balitor, as if her entire body, inside and out, had burst into flames. In the same moment, that body literally collapsed, every muscle going limp as she thudded to the deck. Not one would respond. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t scream.

  She couldn’t even lose consciousness.

  She could only endure—and realize that the Wise One was gone.

  What madness, she wondered through the pain, had overcome the Wise One to produce such a burst of violence, to virtually destroy her own body in a vain attempt to kill one single person?

  Then the one called Picard was looming over her and she understood. A ghostly image of another Picard, an image that only the Wise One could possibly have sent, blotted out everything else, even softened the pain, as it came closer and reached down as if to strangle her and—

  Instead of strangling her, the real Picard picked her up even as he barked orders into the air. The transporter room vanished, replaced by another, unfamiliar room, and her pain-deadened nerves barely felt her body being laid on a soft, flat surface.

  Someone else, a female with long red hair, was standing over her then, running a small, hand-held device over her body, then holding it almost touching her head and—

  Her heart faltered, and she realized in dull horror that these beings were trying to kill her, probably in retaliation for the attack they had seen her body carry out.

  But the Wise Ones would protect her, she told herself. She had served them well. She knew they would not abandon her.

  Then the woman was doing something else, pressing another object against
her chest and someone else was fastening a small metallic object to her forehead. Behind them, she could still see the one called Picard, watching intently as he directed the efforts to kill her.

  Her heart faltered again, skipping a beat and another, and the edges of her vision began to draw in, and she couldn’t tell if her heart was still beating or not, if she was breathing or not. Suddenly she realized the Wise Ones could not—or would not—protect her after all, not from these creatures from another universe. But at the same time a voice spoke in her mind, a voice she recognized though she hadn’t heard it in years.

  You have done me honor, my daughter, it said. I would give anything to serve as you have served.

  The pain was gone, banished by her mother’s presence, by the words she had feared she would never hear.

  Her last thought as both vision and consciousness faded was one of gratefulness for the fact that her mother had been allowed to know of the service she had been privileged to give.

  She had failed!

  The Picard creature still lived, its terrifying features looming over her almost the way they had in the nightmarish pseudo-memories of her own death. For a moment it seemed to be looking through the Balitor creature’s eyes, through the Link directly to the Queen herself, warning her of what was still to come.

  Spasmodically, before the Picard creature’s mind could reach through and take her own in its mental grip, she terminated the Link.

  And triggered the command she had long ago provided for, the mental command she had believed, until that moment, would never need to be given.

  She waited as it was wordlessly transmitted, as it touched countless minds all over the quadrant, bringing briefly to life the message that had lain buried there for much of their lives.

  One by one, she felt those minds lapse into unconsciousness and then death. Like Balitor, they had all done the jobs they had been conditioned to do, but now, suddenly, each one had become a potential danger, the magnitude of which she was no longer able to rationally estimate. Pure rationality, which she had until now adhered to in her every decision, was no longer possible, not as long as the Picard creature continued to exist.

  When the process was complete, when all the creatures that had served her were dead, she did what she now knew she should have done when she first became aware of the Picard creature’s presence in this era.

  She took direct control of the Borg vessel nearest to the Picard creature’s ship. With far less effort than had been required to take over Balitor, she insinuated herself into every aspect of the vessel until it literally became a part of her, much the way the cybernetic bodies that she routinely donned became a part of her.

  Dr. Beverly Crusher stepped back from the biobed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “She’s gone, Captain. I don’t understand why, but she’s gone.”

  “The phasers—”

  The doctor shook her head. “They don’t cause lasting physical damage even at heavy stun. In any event, all readings indicate virtually no physical damage at any level. I’m not familiar with Narisian physiology, of course, but everything in her body appears fully functional. It just isn’t functioning. It’s as if something in her mind simply overrode the body’s autonomic system and shut down her entire nervous system. Even neural stimulators had no effect.”

  “Could there be a symbiosis of some kind?” Picard asked. “Narisian and Borg?”

  Crusher shook her head. “I doubt it. She was obviously not a drone.”

  “Not the kind of drone we’re used to, but perhaps in this universe…” He turned to Troi and Riker, who had just entered sickbay. “You heard?”

  “A poison pill, Borg variety,” Riker said as Troi nodded her silent agreement. “Something in her mind. She was found out, so she had to die. The bastards couldn’t allow her to survive and spill their secrets.”

  Picard was silent a moment, looking down at the body, knowing that his first officer was right. One more victim of the Borg, one among the billions.

  Straightening, he nodded tersely to Riker and Troi as he tapped his combadge and headed for the nearest turbolift. “Mr. Data, we’re on our way to the bridge. Locate Guinan and—”

  “I’m here, Captain,” Guinan’s voice assured him. “At least I think I am.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you could decide for certain, Guinan. Data,” he continued as the turbolift doors slid open, “reestablish contact with the Wisdom and Arbiter Sarek.”

  The Vulcan’s unreadable face greeted them on the main viewscreen as they emerged onto the bridge. Picard ignored the questioning looks directed at him by Scott and Kirk, who had reluctantly remained on the bridge throughout the incident.

  “What is it, Picard?” Sarek asked. “Your android did not—”

  “The Narisian Balitor is dead,” Picard said as he strode to the captain’s chair, flanked by his first officer and counselor. Briskly and concisely, he summarized the events that had led up to the death. As he did so, Worf entered the bridge, having left the security of the transporter to Porfirio and Houarner.

  “The other Narisian is dead as well,” Sarek said when Picard finished. “I have also just now received word that the same is happening to the Narisians attached to Alliance Prime.”

  A sick feeling clutched at Picard’s stomach at the thought that his actions were what had somehow triggered not only Balitor’s death but that of these others—and who knew how many more throughout the Alliance—as well. Spies or not, the Narisians were victims of the Borg as much as any of the members of the thousands of fully assimilated races across the galaxy.

  “Only Narisians?” Picard asked.

  “Those are the only ones reported so far.” Sarek spoke emotionlessly.

  “Can someone familiar with Narisian physiology determine precisely what caused the deaths? We have so far been unable to find any cause for Balitor’s death.”

  “I have already ordered a thorough examination of the other Narisian. Transport Balitor’s body to the Wisdom and we will examine it as well.”

  “I don’t want to stick my nose in your business, Picard,” Kirk said, “but isn’t it more important to find out why she tried to kill you than how she died?”

  “Obviously the Borg were controlling her,” Picard said.

  “As you say, that’s obvious. The real question is, what set them off? Why did they suddenly decide to kill you, particularly in such an inefficient way? And what can you do if they try again, maybe with a little more efficiency?”

  “He’s right, Captain,” Riker said quietly. “And unless—”

  “Captain,” Data broke in, “the chronometric radiation is decreasing rapidly. It has dropped fifty percent in the past thirty seconds.”

  Automatically, Picard darted a look at Guinan as the level of chronometric radiation continued to drop. “It isn’t me this time, Captain,” she said, all traces of her usual cryptic smile gone.

  “Sarek?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, Picard, we have done nothing that could logically result in such a decrease.”

  “Hail the D’Zidran, Mr. Worf,” Picard snapped. “Perhaps Guinan’s local counterpart has some ideas.”

  “No response, sir,” Worf announced moments later.

  “Chronometric radiation has leveled off at twenty-two-point-seven percent of the previous level, Captain,” Data said.

  A sinking feeling gripped Picard. “The timeline is stabilizing?”

  “That is what theory suggests, Captain,” Data responded, his fingers continuing to dart across the control panel as he spoke. “However, I would point out that, even after this decrease, the radiation level is still more than five times what one would expect to find in a stable timeline.”

  “Keep trying to reach the D’Zidran, Mr. Worf. Meanwhile, I’m open to any and all ideas.” He glanced briefly at Kirk before going on. “Captain Kirk was right when he said our immediate concern should be why the Borg have decided to come after me, and what measures we can take if they
do try again. Sarek, you’re more familiar than any of us with these particular Borg. Do you—”

  “Captain,” Data broke in, “one of the Borg cubes following the Vortex has broken away. It is now on an intercept course with the Enterprise. And we are being scanned.”

  A chill washed over Picard. Vivid images of the warren-like interiors of other Borg ships, swarming with thousands upon thousands of grotesque cybernetic zombies, threatened to push everything else out of his mind.

  “It appears,” he said after a moment, “that at least one of our questions has been answered. They are going to try again.”

  Twenty-Two

  “PICARD,” Sarek said abruptly, “attempting to flee will be futile. Additionally, there is as yet no firm indication that the Borg ship means you harm. Except during assimilation of a world, no Borg ship has ever attacked an Alliance ship unless that Alliance ship attacked the Borg ship first.”

  Without waiting for an acknowledgment, Sarek cut the connection to the Enterprise and stood up from Varkan’s command chair.

  “Do not move from our current position without my direct authorization, Commander Varkan,” he said. “Do not follow the Enterprise if it unwisely attempts to flee the Borg ship. Do not respond to their hails. There is much I must consider. I will be in my quarters.”

  Turning from an uneasy and puzzled Varkan, Sarek strode from the bridge. Less than a minute later he was seated before the viewscreen and control panel in his quarters. The screen still showed the unmoving image of the Enterprise.

  At least they appeared to be heeding his warning and were not making a vain attempt to flee. Any such attempt would only make the situation even more perilous than it already was. And there was a chance, no matter how small, that the Borg ship would not attack despite the fact that the Enterprise—and the Wisdom, he now noted—were being scanned. The Borg had finally “noticed” them both.

  The question was: Why?

  Obviously, something fundamental had changed in the last few hours. The most disturbing possibility was that Picard’s claimed link with the Borg had been a two-way affair. When Picard had learned of the existence of the spies, perhaps the Borg had learned of something in return, perhaps even Picard’s intent to “restore” the timeline to what he considered Borg-free normalcy. Was that why one of their spies had tried to assassinate him?