by Gene DeWeese
And were the Borg themselves now coming to do what their Narisian surrogate had failed to do? Logic told him it was a virtual certainty, despite what he had told Picard. The only sliver of doubt came from the fact that the Borg could have sent a ship to make the first attempt. Instead, they had sent one of their spies, a most illogical action if the Borg’s only purpose was to kill Picard and/or destroy the Enterprise.
He watched as the Borg cube drew nearer. It would be within weapons range in less than ten minutes. He wished he could have told Picard the complete truth, but he had not dared, not as long as there was the slightest possibility that Picard’s link with the Borg was a two-way street.
He considered the logic of the decision he needed to make before those ten minutes were up. Should he destroy the Borg ship if it became certain that it would otherwise destroy the Enterprise? And the Wisdom?
Normally he wouldn’t hesitate to accept the loss of a single ship, even one which he himself was aboard, if the only alternative was to prematurely reveal the weapon that was their only hope to eventually destroy all the Borg vessels. But the Enterprise, if Kirk and Scott’s story of the so-called Guardian could be believed, provided a chance to do something far better than simply destroy the Borg fleet. They could, if successful, restore the “original” timeline and, in effect, destroy the Borg before they ever came to Alpha Quadrant, not at some nebulous future date that might never come. And if they were able to do that, they would not only eliminate the Borg from the Alpha Quadrant but restore to meaningful life all those billions the Borg had assimilated and turned into drones in the last two or more centuries. And give those same billions two centuries of time to prepare for when the Borg did cross into the Alpha Quadrant.
If…
For just an instant, Sarek’s “dreams” of that other universe flashed through his mind more vividly than ever before. It was obviously a universe infinitely preferable to the one that existed around him now.
And it was a universe that he would almost certainly be consigning to oblivion if, in the next few minutes, he allowed the Enterprise to be destroyed.
With implacable logic, he made his decision.
Kirk could no longer hold it in. For what seemed like an eternity, he had stood by silently while the Borg cube bore down on them, growing ever larger in the viewscreen.
“Picard,” he said, leaning close, his voice less than a whisper but knife-sharp, “I need to talk to you. Privately.”
Picard scowled briefly but nodded. “You have the bridge, Number One.”
Seconds later the captains of two different Enterprises entered the ready room.
“I don’t mean to step on another commander’s toes,” Kirk said the moment the door hissed shut behind them, “but don’t you think it’s about time to do something?”
“You heard Sarek as well as I.”
“I did. And I trust him—have trusted him—with my life. But what I heard him say was that, unless you count what the Borg do when they’re taking over a planet, they’ve never made an unprovoked attack on any Alliance ship. Yet! And that if we’re lucky as hell, they won’t start now, despite the fact that they’re already scanning us, which—correct me if I’m wrong—is also something they’ve never done before.”
Picard nodded grimly. “I am well aware of that.”
“And I assume that sending a spy to try to assassinate you isn’t something they do every day, either. A couple things strike me as being pretty obvious. First, the Borg have departed from their usual routine. And second, they’re out to get you.”
“What would you have me do, Captain?”
“For a start, how about doing whatever it was you did when you ‘intercepted’ whatever it was that told you the Borg had infiltrated the Wisdom. Intercept something that tells you why the devil they’re suddenly on a collision course with us.”
“Believe me, I’ve tried. I’m still trying, but the chance of success is remote.”
Kirk grimaced. “All right, then, Plan B: Get us the hell out of here as fast as possible.”
Picard shook his head. “Sarek was right. Trying to run would be futile. The Borg ship is already moving faster than the Enterprise could, even for an instant, even if Commander La Forge tuned every system in our warp drive to perfection and diverted every joule of energy from shields and life support. They would overtake us in minutes.”
“Even so, it’s better than sitting here doing nothing!”
“I am well aware of your reputation, Captain,” Picard said sharply, “and it is my considered judgment that Sarek was right. Unlike you, I am quite familiar with the Borg in my own time, and my experience tells me that, slim as it is, our only chance for survival is to follow Sarek’s advice.”
Kirk pulled in a deep breath that did nothing to calm him. “All right,” he said. “Maybe you can’t outrun them, but what about just evading them? They may be fast, but something that size has to have a pretty lousy turning circle. Can’t the Enterprise at least outmaneuver them?”
“Perhaps, but only for a short while.”
“How long? Long enough to get within transporter range of the so-called Vortex?”
Picard frowned. “Possible but not likely.”
“Then let’s do it, before it goes from unlikely to totally impossible.”
“To what purpose?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Picard? Beam me back in there, into the Vortex.”
“You’re willing to sacrifice yourself without being certain it will accomplish anything? You said you wanted to establish the facts before you—”
“That would be preferable, I’ll admit, but how do we establish them? I’m wide open for ideas.”
“The Guardian—”
“Forget the Guardian. We can’t get there unless we can outrun the Borg, which you say is impossible. And even if we could, there’s no guarantee it would help us. The very best we can hope for is to be able to outmaneuver that cube out there for a few minutes, which may be long enough to beam me into the Vortex. In any event, given the circumstances, I don’t see how letting you beam me into the Vortex is that much of a sacrifice on my part. Either we all get fried by that thing out there and accomplish nothing or I get fried by the Vortex and maybe save the Enterprise, not to mention Earth and a few other worlds. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing.”
“If that were truly the choice, of course, but—”
“Come on, Picard, we’re wasting time,” Kirk said, brushing past him toward the ready room door. “That cube will be all over us in a few minutes, and then we won’t have any choice at all.”
His DNA and neural scans completed and his identity verified by the computer-controlled neurobiosensor he had attached loosely to his forehead, Sarek carefully entered the code that only he and four of his most trusted advisors—Vulcans all—knew. The Enterprise and the starfield behind it vanished from the viewscreen before him but not from the one on the Wisdom’s bridge. There, the viewscreen would continue to operate normally under the control of the bridge crew, totally unaware of Sarek’s activities.
He watched patiently as a new image built up: nearly three thousand tiny specks of light, each representing a hyper-powerful, interphase-cloaked photon torpedo attached to a warp drive that could outrace even the Borg. Most were in clusters of a few hundred. One cluster, he knew, surrounded Andor, another Alpha Centuari. The largest cluster by far surrounded the Borg sensor shield that in turn surrounded the entire Terran system.
After the recent example of Cardassian treachery, even Sarek’s Vulcan mental discipline was hard pressed to keep him from shivering inwardly at the sight of so much destructive power. No one, not Cardassian, not Klingon, not any Alliance race, had found a way around the security system he had designed and now controlled, but they had tried, just as Zarcot had tried to destroy the Wisdom and kill Sarek for his own short-term gains. If Zarcot or someone else of his ilk did gain control of them—
“Vortex,” he said, wrenching his tho
ughts back to the task at hand. As he spoke, the major clusters vanished as the screen zoomed in on two tiny clusters of only five specks each. One cluster, he saw, was moving rapidly away from the other.
“Targets.” At his word, a pair of ghostly Borg cubes appeared. One was in the midst of the more distant, comparatively motionless cluster of lights. The other was a short distance ahead of the moving cluster, as if being pursued by it. Which was, in truth, precisely what was happening.
Like every other known Borg ship, this one was constantly accompanied by a small cluster of the cloaked torpedoes, each one equipped with sensors that could track the Borg even while cloaked. The next time the Borg lowered the sensor shield around the Terran system, every interphase-cloaked photon torpedo would, at the command of Sarek or one of the four trusted advisors, maneuver inside the nearest Borg cube, de-cloak, and detonate. Those surrounding the Terran system would attempt to do the same with the unknown number of Borg vessels that would suddenly be revealed to their sensors. The energy leakage that was an unavoidable part of the decloaking process would inflict major damage itself. The photon torpedoes, it was hoped, would finish the job, reducing the cubes to metal scraps and vapor.
If every aspect of the plan were executed perfectly, a few minutes after the Terran shield went down, the quadrant would be free of Borg ships for the first time in more than two centuries.
But even then there would still be the billions of planet-bound drones, the drones that once had been humans and Andorians and Alpha Centaurians.
But if Kirk and Picard and Scott were telling the truth, as he was gambling they were, if they survived long enough to reach the Guardian’s World, if the Guardian agreed to help them—
Without warning, the Enterprise darted away, first under full impulse, then going to warp.
Kirk, pacing the bridge nervously, winced as the pursuing Borg ship once again changed course far more sharply than anything that massive had any right to do. Not as sharply as the Enterprise, but there wasn’t nearly the difference in maneuverability he had hoped for. No matter how many times the Enterprise zigged and zagged, no matter what kind of evasive maneuvers Picard ordered the computer to execute, the cube followed, never once losing ground for more than a few seconds. They weren’t being overtaken as fast as they would’ve been in a straight flight, but the cube was steadily closing the gap.
And they were little closer to the Vortex than when they had started.
“Four minutes to weapons range, Captain,” Worf announced. Over the last twenty minutes the distance to the Borg ship had been cut in half. Unless they found an evasive pattern that worked better than the ones they had been using, it would be cut to zero in another twenty or less.
As the computer angled the Enterprise into another sharp turn, something caught Kirk’s eye as the star field swept across the viewscreen.
“There,” he said, pointing to a smudge that had appeared near the left edge of the screen, “is that a nebula?”
“It appears to be,” Data agreed as the Enterprise once again hit maximum warp on its new course. “It is not, however, large enough to allow us to elude the Borg. Even if it were entirely sensor-opaque, which it is not, it would be useless to attempt to hide there. The range of Borg weapons is such that if the Borg were to station themselves just outside the nebula, they would need only to sweep the entire nebula, and—”
“Picard,” Kirk said sharply, his voice suddenly filled with hope, “I know my last suggestion hasn’t worked out all that well so far, but that nebula gives me another idea.”
“Explain, Captain.”
“No time. Just take us in there, quickly. I’ll explain as we go. Please.”
Picard scowled at him for a moment, then glanced at the figures streaming across the viewscreen, quantifying the overall rate at which the Borg ship was overtaking them.
“Very well,” he said abruptly. “Give Ensign Raeger the details of what you need.”
At least, Sarek thought as he watched the ultra-secure viewscreen in his quarters on the Wisdom, Picard’s unwise attempt to flee had proven one thing: It was the Enterprise the Borg were after, not the Wisdom. Unless it meant only that the Enterprise had attracted attention by moving, and the Wisdom had not. But whatever the reason, the Wisdom had not been touched by the Borg sensors since the Enterprise had launched itself into flight.
Sarek was uncertain what he would do if the Enterprise, in its increasingly desperate maneuvers, took itself and its pursuer out of sensor range. While the cloaked torpedoes could—and would—easily keep pace with the Borg ship, the Wisdom could not. He was also uncertain—puzzled—as to what Picard was thinking. He was buying a little time, but to what end? He couldn’t keep the Enterprise out of range of the Borg weapons forever, not even for another hour.
If it weren’t for the real possibility that Picard was permanently linked to the Borg, he would have answered the Enterprise’s hail long ago, letting Picard know that the Borg ship could be destroyed at any time, but—
His puzzled frown deepened. What was Picard doing now? The Enterprise had entered one of the tiny nebula that dotted the region of space the Vortex was passing through.
And it wasn’t coming out, not if the Wisdom’s sensors could be trusted. They could distinguish only vague shadows within the nebula, but the surrounding space was crystal clear. And empty.
Was it time? he wondered. With the Enterprise motionless, the Borg ship would be within weapons range in less than a minute. Its weapons were fully charged and ready. Certainly Picard could not be foolish enough to think that the nebula would provide a safe hiding place. Not only was it far too small, but there were numerous voids, some running through it like meandering river canyons. All the Borg ship needed to do—
Suddenly, a set of symbols flashed on the viewscreen and vanished. Calling them back onto the screen, Sarek saw that a ship, presumably the Enterprise, had just passed through one of the narrow, canyon-like voids, exposing itself to the outside world for a fraction of a second. But that fraction of a second was enough for the Wisdom’s sensors—and, almost certainly, for the Borg’s. The Enterprise was moving, Sarek saw, at full impulse on a course that was only a few hundredths of a degree from being a collision course with the oncoming Borg ship.
For an instant he thought that Picard must have realized he couldn’t escape and was planning to do as much damage to the cube as he could—by attempting to ram it.
A foolish maneuver at best, but then Sarek saw the true endpoint of the Enterprise’s present course: the Vortex. And he realized what Picard was attempting. If the Enterprise went from full impulse to maximum warp the moment it emerged from the nebula, it would pass well within weapons range. But at that speed, with the cube moving at an even greater speed in the opposite direction, the Enterprise would be through that range in too short a time for the cube to react effectively.
By the time the cube was able to make a complete one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, the Enterprise would have gained enough time to reach the Vortex before the cube could catch up.
They would then have time—at least a few seconds—to do what Sarek should have realized they were planning from the start of the evasive maneuvers: transport Kirk into the Vortex.
Which might restore the timeline without the help or advice of the Guardian.
Perhaps it would not be necessary to give away the Alliance’s secret weapon after all.
Despite the urgency that was driving the Borg Queen’s actions, a kind of exhilaration she had forgotten the very existence of gripped her as she raced after the Picard creature’s ship. Like the capacity for fear, it was something that must have, all unknown, lain dormant in some vestigial corner of her still-largely-organic brain, only to be resurrected by her more-than-intimate contact with the Balitor creature and its out-of-control emotions.
One small part of her was disappointed that the chase would soon be over. The Picard creature’s ship, while agile, was steadily losing ground. Soon it would
be within weapons range, and that would be the end of it. The concentrated firepower of her ship would reduce the entire structure and all its occupants to a spreading cloud of plasma in a matter of seconds.
Ahead, the fleeing ship made an abrupt turn, nearly ninety degrees, but it would do the Picard creature no good. No matter how maneuverable the tiny craft was, it would be—
Abruptly, the Enterprise slowed. A moment later, it began to fade from the sensors. But even as it did, something else was revealed to her through the visual interface: a nebula, a small cloud of interstellar dust.
She watched in disbelief as the Enterprise, now on impulse power, faded entirely from the sensors as it crept into the heart of the nebula. Surely Picard couldn’t think he could hide in such an obvious way?
At her current speed, she would be in weapons range in less than thirty seconds, at the nebula itself in little more. Once there, she could simply sweep the entire nebula. It might be largely opaque to her sensors, but it would present little obstacle to her weapons.
But then, for just an instant, the Enterprise reappeared as it moved—still on impulse power—through one of the voids in the nebula. In that instant, she saw the projected course of the Enterprise, showing precisely where it would re-enter open space. It had essentially made a U-turn and was on a near-collision course with her ship.
If she had not been in direct control of the ship, that piece of information would have been noted and used only to pinpoint the spot where the Enterprise would most likely emerge from the nebula. Without her guidance, the ship would have continued racing toward the nebula, altering its course just enough to bring it even closer to that exit point than its present course would. And its sensors would continue to monitor all space surrounding the nebula in case the fleeing ship reappeared at some other point.