It was morning, in a crazy world. The dim lighting inside the giant ship didn't change at all. The inhabitants probably never imagined the concept that night should be darker than day, so we were left in perpetual gloom. All around us, there was rumbling and hissing, making it sound like we were in the bowels of a living ship. On reflection, perhaps we were. During the long night, we had gathered our strength, and wondered about the fate of the USS Crazy Horse.
     Every few minutes there had been sounds of whirring and clicking from the cat walk, as figures moved along it. As of yet, none of them had approached our position, but I knew the past could not insure the future.
     Moira stirred nearby. As an artificial intelligence inside an organic body she was least affected by the stress; she had programmed herself to awake at the slightest noise. (Moira sometimes operates as a hologram and occasionally even through a standard voice/data interface. On this trip, she had chosen to use her organic simulacrum.)
     Moira had great endurance, but even so, we knew that if we were attacked, there would be little we could do against the overwhelming numbers they could mobilize against us. The rest of us tried to sleep, using some rags we found for blankets. Bill, Dolores, Charlotte, and Brandon needed what rest they could get, and I didn't disturb them. I was their commanding officer, but we had long ago gotten to the point where we were on a first name basis, off duty, at least. I had managed to sleep earlier, but awoke early. When the others got up, they would expect me, as leader, to have a plan. I spent my time reflecting on how we had gotten to where we were, and trying to figure an angle that would get us to safety.


     The USS Crazy Horse had been surveying near the Sietra Nebula, at the edge of the Beta Quadrant. The work included extensive interferometric studies. To achieve a long baseline, a plan was developed to send two shuttles on 180 degree courses to points several light weeks away from the Crazy Horse. This would put the three ships at the very edge of sensor range from each other, and provide very high resolution for our survey teams.
     The Captain, on a brief visit back to the ship, saw the mission as an opportunity for training for junior officers. So Moira, the directors of operations, helm, security and sciences and I were all assigned to one sortie. That, the Captain said, would provide a leadership exercise for the junior officers by giving them senior level responsibilities while their nominal supervisors were off the ship. We actually took a runabout, the USS Platte, to give us additional room, as well as better sensing capability.

===__-+-        *--==/___

     "Have you ever listened to a Nebula sing?" asked Lieutenant Commander Charlotte Jerscheid. It was late afternoon, and we were sitting in the runabout lounge as the Platte headed for its destination point in space. Bill and Brandon were forward, piloting the ship. Moira was on the lower deck, in her stateroom--her simulacrum was, at least. Another version of her inhabited the runabout computer system, of course, but generally operated in low level mode while the simulacrum was active.
     "I can't say that I have," I answered Charlotte, with a skeptical smile. "How can a nebula sing?"
     Charlotte shrugged. "Sound is the result of changes in air density. A nebula is a million times thinner, but there are still changes in density that are like sound waves," she explained. "I recorded density readings when we were inside the Sietra Nebula, and programmed them for analog reproduction. Then I adjusted the speed and tone until it sounded right."
     Charlotte reached for the tricorder sitting on the table, and keyed it for audio playback. I can't exactly call it a melody, because there was no structure to the changes of pitch. The slow warble was somewhere between the songs of humpback whales of Earth and calls of the Harbanna eels of Deseneca VI.
     The result was intriguing and I told Charlotte so. We talked for several minutes more, but were interrupted by a red alert klaxon.
     "This is not a drill," announced LtC Brandon Campbell over the intercom, as Charlotte and I dashed for the bridge. "Borg ship, at 113 Mark 21, and closing. Intercept in one minute, thirty eight seconds."
     I had encountered the Borg once before, at Kappa Cephi, and those events flashed through my mind in the seconds it took to reach the bridge. "Evasive," I ordered as I almost dove through the door onto red-lit command deck.
     "I'm trying," answered Lieutenant Bill Willmerdinger, working intently over his console. "But there's no bloody place to go. They'll intercept before we can reach the nebula. No star systems close enough. Not even a comet to hide behind."
     "Transmit log entries--omnidirectional," I ordered. "Don't send any signal they could use as a directional fix to the Crazy Horse, but put enough power into it that we're sure the message gets delivered."
     "Aye, sir," answered Brandon, as his hands flew across the Ops panel. I could see he already had it programmed, and was just waiting for the formal order.
     Moira arrived on the bridge and stood beside me, monitoring systems through her data link to the runabout computer. The runabout bridge wasn't designed for command staff who aren't actually operating the controls; it was a bit crowded.
Charlotte had gone immediately to the sensor station.
     "The Borg ship," said Charlotte, eyes wide, "is moving at warp 9.73. No one's ever seen them go that fast before."
     "The ship is of traditional Borg design," added Moira, accessing the sensors remotely. As she spoke it came within visual scanning range. The Borg ship appeared on the screen as a menacing dark cube, racing to its encounter with us. "It has precisely the same measurements as the three other cubical Borg ships encountered by the Federation."
     "Twenty eight seconds to intercept," announced Brandon, his voice tense.
     "Random course, Bill," I said. "Don't let them lock on a tractor beam." He nodded, with the almost glazed expression on his face that good helm officers get when they are fully in tune with their controls. The ship was almost an extension of Bill's mind, as he got maximum performance out of the Platte. The little ship may have been the most maneuverable Starfleet ship to ever encounter the Borg. He was able to dodge seven tractor bursts from the Borg ship, but the eighth wrenched us sideways.
     "Shields have failed," reported Moira, almost immediately. Runabout shields are far too under-powered to resist the Borg tractors for more than a second or two. "We are being drawn to what appears to be a hangar bay."
      "I don't have a tenth the power I'd need to try to break away from that tractor beam, Sir," said Bill, turning from his console to look at me. "Range is decreasing rapidly."
     "Photon torpedoes," I called out. "Target the source of the beam." Weapons systems were already on, of course. Bill touched the half dozen contacts needed to set the targeting, and we felt the vibration as two tubes fired in series.
     "No damage," reported Charlotte, from the sensor station. "Range five kilometers."
     "Visual on that hangar bay, and magnify," I requested, and leaned forward in anticipation. We saw a chamber that reached deep into the side of the huge ship. It seemed to be open to space, but we knew it was protected from decompression by a force field. Toward the back were structures that might be other ships. The front areas were lined by humanoid figures, clad in black. Each had a different configuration of appliances--artificial arms and head gear plus various tubes and wires running here and there.
     There was a general gasp from everyone on the Platte.
     "They're waiting for us," added Brandon, clenching his fists. "One kilometer, speed ten meters per second."
     "They're not waiting for US," I contradicted. "They're waiting for the Platte. Remember -- they've been called the ultimate consumer. It's the technology they want, not us as individuals. I hope."
     I half-turned to Moira. "Grab the survival kit," I told her, pointing at the port kit storage bay. I pulled the starboard kit from its bay, as well.
     In later years, of course, the Borg put lots of effort into assimilation of humanoids. This, however, was in the early years -- only the fourth contact between the Federation and the Borg. Whatever made them change their method of operation hadn't happened yet.
     "This is a pretty big gamble," Charlotte was saying, anticipating me.
     "I know," I agreed, turning back to the view screen, "but it's the best we've got. Moira, activate transporter as soon as we're inside their shields. Omega Protocol. Pick a spot on that ship with a low density of Borg and beam us all there, including the survival kits." I motioned my people out of their seats with my fingers.
     "Energizing," said Moira a moment later, and the Platte dissolved around us.

===__-+-        *--==/___

     We materialized in an area of subdued light, deep inside the Borg ship. It was the second time I had been on a Borg ship, the first being the spherical Borg scout ship at Kappa Cephi. If I didn't know better, I would have thought from seeing the inside that it was the same ship. It had the typical cramped corridors, exposed electrical components, overhead power conduits and nodes. We were at the juncture of five corridors. Lining each of them were Borg drones in what I thought of as their "docking ports." Their minds were coupled with the Borg Collective and their bodies were passive--completely unmoving. The one in front of me was a male of middle age, from what I could tell behind the black appliances and pasty skin. The one eye I could see was brown, open and staring ahead vacantly.
     "Form a circle, backs together," said Dolores, in a hushed voice. At this prompting from LtC Scott, our chief of Security, our training took over. The circle formation, with each of us facing outward, weapons drawn, is a prime defensive posture when facing unknown danger. We crouched, literally backing each other up.
     Charlotte had her tricorder out, and was tinkering with it.
     "The Borg aren't registering as ordinary life forms," she said quietly, with a grimace, poking a few more contacts. "Based on air flow through the ventilation system, I'd say there are thousands of humanoid bodies on this ship."
     It may have been subconscious, but we all spoke quietly, almost in whispers, as if to avoid attracting attention.
     I looked at Moira.
     "My Self in the runabout computer is transmitting a running commentary, but I have not replied," she said. "I don't believe it would be safe to make the attempt. It might make the Borg . . . curious . . . if they notice my subspace transmissions." As an artificial intelligence, Moira can reside in one or more memory domains at once. Moira was still on the Crazy Horse, but she had replicated herself into the runabout's computer. Her simulacrum had a significant amount of its own processing capability, but disconnection from shipboard computers leaves her with only nanosecond processing speed, and much more limited data storage. She pouts when this happens.
     (Moira maintains herself as a single personality by constantly performing updates among the memory domains she inhabits. On ship, her simulacrum and the master computer banks are on-line, updating each other several times a microsecond. She uses the same routine on the runabout. When one of the Moiras is out of subspace contact with her other selves, she operates independently. As soon contact is reestablished, they cross file memories to bring each other up to date.)
     "They don't seem to have noticed us," observed Bill, looking around. He is a head taller than any of the rest of us, and had a clear view up each corridor.
     "No, they haven't," agreed Dolores, scanning with her own tricorder, containing its own specialized tactical components. "We need to find a place we can defend. That way," she pointed, "about 100 meters is a chamber that doesn't seem to have anything in it. If we had to, we could block off the entry . . . " It was obvious to all of us that if we had to defend ourselves, we would ultimately be overwhelmed.
     "Let's go," I approved, because we had to keep our spirits up. "At least we won't be out here in the open."
     "Ready?" asked Dolores, looking around the group. "Stay together."
     Dolores led, Bill and Brandon carried the survival kits, followed by Moira and myself. Charlotte followed closely behind, covering our back trail, and scanning continuously. I was amazed to see Dolores holding her rapier in front of her - I didn't realize she'd had it when we transported. I guess she's rarely without it, but it gave new meaning to the term "taking point."
     We reached the chamber without major incident, although three times we had to stand aside to allow individual Borg to pass. They moved by as if they didn't even notice our existence. I was just as happy about that; if the Borg were once triggered to attack, the battle would probably not end until we were dead -- or captured, which might be worse.
     The chamber was roughly hexagonal in shape, just off a cat walk. From the entry we could see down a hundred stories, although why the Borg ships have open balconies like that, I've never determined. Around the sides of the chamber, drawers were built into the circuitry paneling. They were empty, and the equipment powered down.
     "This chamber is similar to a room described by the Enterprise boarding party four years ago," observed Moira. "They believed that the compartment they visited was a Borg nursery. It contained infants who had been partially altered."
     "Well, there are no children here now," I said, looking around. "Maybe the area's powered down until the next time they, uh, need it." Moira shrugged.
     "Since they're not using it," said Dolores, confidently, "we'll be OK here, if we don't interfere with the operations of their ship. I'll prepare a watch schedule, so we can guard ourselves, and I'll scout our perimeter."
     I nodded my approval. "We need to do some electronic scouting, too." The crew members with tricorders gathered around.
     "Moira," I instructed. "See if you can monitor Borg intra-ship communications. Don't transmit, but learn anything you can from eavesdropping. Charlotte, study the ship layout. Borg ships we've studied have always been decentralized, but there have got to be some key locations--warp core, sensors, tractor field generators. See if you can locate the Platte, too. If anything's left of it, we might find something we can use."
     That left Bill and Brandon, who hadn't been carrying tricorders when we did our abrupt beamout from the Platte. "We'll need power eventually," Brandon observed. "We'll find a way to recharge tricorders and phasers, at least. With luck we'll figure out how we can tap their power conduits without triggering their fault detection systems." They moved off, and soon had their heads in an access panel, inspecting the circuitry.
     That gave me a few minutes to sit and think. Our situation was not good. The survival kits held food concentrates that would last us quite a while. We might feel hungry, but wouldn't suffer from malnutrition soon. Water would be a problem. Learning if and how the Borg took in calories and water needed to be an early priority. For that matter, Borg waste disposal would soon be a relevant question, as well. Luckily, we had all taken survival training that included Klingon techniques. Klingon ships, of course, don't have bathrooms, and their alternatives have been a
benefit to many a member of Starfleet who has become temporarily marooned without normal facilities.
     But even if our lives were not threatened, there seemed to be little opportunity for escape. We certainly couldn't count on rescue. Our own resourcefulness would determine the future.
     In a few minutes, Moira joined me.
     "There's very little on the EM bands, other than my other Self. Apparently on board their own ships, the Borg areeither hard wired or use short-distance subspace links," she reported. "I am getting a better feel for how the Collective works. I think the Borg are fully interconnected all the time. They may literally hear millions of other drones in their minds, as has been reported. What they hear must be pretty boring, though, because there is no individualism. The nanites and microcircuitry in each Borg suppress individualism and keep the drone locked into the programmed task. When a drone is assigned a task the Collective monitors, instant by instant."
     "They really are like insects," I observed. "If we could interrupt enough of those neural connections, they'd be unable to coordinate among themselves?"
     "Yes, in theory, but remember, Michael," Moira cautioned, "there may be thousands or more Borg on this ship. If even a FEW of them were still linked together, they could probably operate the primary ship's functions."
     Charlotte joined us.
     "I've located the runabout," she announced. "It's been secured in the hangar bay we saw. The Borg are cutting into the crew cabin."
     I heard a low growl from Moira. "My Self won't like that. Why couldn't they use the bloody doorway?
     "She certainly doesn't," confirmed Charlotte. "That's how I'm keeping track. The Moira who's still in the runabout computer is broadcasting a commentary on everything that happens, so we can keep track. She's using some, uh, very colorful
language."
     Moira frowned. "Wouldn't you?"

     At 2000 hours, we paused to bring each other up to date on our various investigations. Dolores also handed out food concentrates -- large tablets of what tasted for all the world like rich dark chocolate, but was really about 800 calories of fully balanced diet. It was even engineered to expand somewhat in the stomach, to give a feeling of fullness. Not a replicated steak dinner, maybe, but there are worse things than an exclusive diet of chocolate.
     Brandon and Bill had a power tap set, and had two phasers topping off their charges. Charlotte had scouted part way to the hangar bay, where the Platte was impounded. She reported a difficult climb but no obstructions. Dolores had inventoried the supplies and established a rationing plan for food and water. (I noticed that Moira almost immediately checked out an emergency makeup pack from the survival kit, containing mascara, eyeliner and lipstick with auto-adjusting color.)
     Dolores had also set up a security perimeter with the button-sized remote sensors packed in the survival kits, and stocked "hip packs" of supplies for the following days' explorations. Moira reported her findings also, which triggered Brandon to study one of the unused Borg stalls nearby.
     I called for an early "lights out," although there were really no lights to extinguish. Mild sedatives were handed out, that would ease our sleep, yet allow us to awake fully alert and ready for action, if need be. Bill scrounged a rather large pile of rags from a chamber nearby. It made us a little queasy wondering who might have been wearing them on a Borg ship, but they were clean and provided a bit of a cushion, which was better than sleeping on the hard metal deck.
     Even so, it took me time to get to sleep. Every few minutes I could hear whirring and clicking from the cat walk, as a Borg moved along it. After a while, I got up and followed one of them for several minutes.
     Have you ever watched an ant? Ants always seem intent on what they are doing, rushing along with determination, but what an ant does rarely makes much sense to someone observing. I felt that way about the creature I was following. The Borg was a young female, a head shorter than me and quite slender beneath the appliances. She moved at the stumbling pace Borg always do, stopping here and there, doing obscure things to obscure control panels.
     As an experiment, I stepped directly in front of her, causing her to bump into me. She paused, and for the first time, looked directly at me. It may have been my imagination, but I think her eyebrows rose a bit. Was there some message in her expression? But then her eyes blanked again, she stepped around me and moved off. I walked back to our camp, and lay down again.
     Moira was keeping watch, a few feet away. She smiled at me and asked in a low voice, "out for your evening constitutional, Michael?"
     "Sort of a blind date," I said cryptically. This time I fell asleep quickly.

===__-+-        *--==/___

     So, as I said, it was a morning without a dawn. Our prospects were limited. Discussion was muted as we ate breakfast, and planned our day. Brandon, Bill and Charlotte would look for, but not interfere with, the warp core of the Borg ship. They also would attempt to locate a source of water from the various pipes snaking along the cat walks. Moira, Dolores and I planned to scout the hangar bay housing the Platte wreckage.
     Ominously, the Moira on-board the runabout had fallen silent while we slept. I knew this upset our Moira more than she let on to the others. She knew she might never be able to update the memories and experiences of the runabout Moira between the time we abandoned ship and the time the Borg deactivated the system. This left her feeling a bit like she had amnesia. She knew that one of her Selves had lived experiences she probably would never be able to remember.
     As a result, Moira was subdued but businesslike as our party made its way to the hangar bay. I carried the type one phaser I had worn when we evacuated the Platte. Moira had a type two phaser at her waist and was constantly scanning with her tricorder. Dolores was armed to the teeth, with a holstered phaser and her rapier in plain view. I knew she also had several other concealed weapons here and there around her uniform.
     I was also carrying a tricorder, checked out from a survival kit. I liked to be able to do my own scanning.
     We had to work our way down several levels, climbing from balcony to balcony. Moira speculated that the Borg may rarely change levels in their ship. We certainly found no stairs or ramps, and ladders would be difficult for the Borg to negotiate, with their rigid gate. Could a single Borg really be born, live and die on a single level of one of their giant ships? Maybe. Maybe they have so much power to spare that they use intra-ship transporters routinely.
     We finally reached the level that would lead us to the hangar bay. Each time we actually met a Borg drone, we tensed, but we were ignored. As time passed, we got more used to the experience, but never comfortable with it.
     The hangar was huge - eight or ten times the size of the main hangar on the Crazy Horse - and completely empty of Borg, for some reason. The front was as we had first seen it from the Platte -- open to space, but protected from loss of atmosphere by force fields. At the back of the chamber was a collection of miscellaneous spacecraft. Besides our runabout, I saw portions of Romulan and Klingon ships. Several other designs were not familiar.
     "The Platte is inoperable," reported Moira, aiming her tricorder at the hulk of the ship. "The entire control cabin has been removed. The engines are intact, for the moment. Most of the other ships in the hangar bay are nothing more than scrap metal. Most advanced technology has been removed."
     She turned and pointed to three spherical craft along one side of the bay. "Those appear to be Borg shuttles." They were much smaller than the spherical scout ship I had once encountered -- only about 30 meters in diameter.
     Dolores had walked directly to the center of the hangar, and was standing with her fists on her hips, looking around with an expression of disgust on her face. Moira and I walked out to join her.
     "They have no security at all!" she commented. "We could march our people in here, and take any one of these ships that could fly. If the Borg ship didn't have those tractor beams and cutting beams, we could be out of here right now."
     "Unfortunately they do have tractor and cutting beams," observed Moira, dryly. It was an interesting thought, however. I have never understood why the Borg ignore boarding parties. Their programming must have never conceived of the term "sabotage."
     "What do you think about our communicators?" I asked. "Can we use them without provoking the Borg?"
     "This is the fourth time on record that a Starfleet party has been on-board a Borg ship," Moira replied. "On the previous occasions, it was things like phaser fire that triggered the Borg soldiers, not communicators."
     I nodded and tapped my communicator. "Marek to Jerscheid." Charlotte, the ranking officer with her party, acknowledged my call.
     "I'd like you all to come to the hangar bay," I said. "There are some things here we all need to take a serious look at." It took them some time to reach us, and they were understandably curious.
     "If we have even a chance of making it off this ship on our own power," I told them, "it will have to be on one of the ships in this hangar bay. We need a full survey of what's left on board them."
     "Brandon - you know Runabout systems better than anyone else here. Check out the engines. Even though the control cabin has been removed, are the engines functional? Can we control them?" He nodded to acknowledge his assignment. Although his specialty is Ops, he has an extensive engineering background from earlier in his Starfleet career.
     "Bill, Charlotte - check out the wreckage along the back wall. Are any of the ships serviceable? If not, are any of their systems functioning?" They stepped aside and Charlotte began organizing the task.
     Dolores, of course, would continue as watchdog, continually scanning entrances to the hangar.
     "Moira." She inclined her head toward me. "You're with me."
     "We're going to examine the Borg shuttles," she said, anticipating me as she fell into step to my left, "because they're the most likely to be fully functional."
     I nodded in the affirmative.
     "A Borg shuttle, however, is not likely to be completely independent," she pointed out. "Even if we did escape, the mother ship could probably override and bring us back. Stealing one of their ships might be enough to stimulate their -
unfavorable attention."
     "I know," I muttered. "I'm still working on angles."
     She was politely quiet as we walked the last hundred feet. I did have an idea, but I was uncomfortable with it.
     The hatch to the first ship we approached was open, with a sloping ramp leading to it. The stumble-gaited Borg didn't seem to use stairs anywhere. The black outer surface of the shuttle was faced with a maze of conduits, tubing, and boxy components. The crew cabin had no chairs but rather contained four of the docking ports that were so common around the mother ship. The four Borg crew members apparently installed themselves in these slots to fully integrate with the ship systems. They were located on three sides of the chamber. The fourth featured a large viewscreen. In the middle of the area was a control console.
     Moira, of course, was the computer expert. While she examined the primary systems, I poked around with my tricorder.
     The cabin had enough room for our entire party. We'd have to stand, or sit on the floor, but ship had inertial compensators. Environmental systems were satisfactory. We'd have to get by.
     Moira was on her back, with her head buried inside the console.      "There's no way we'll fly this sucker on manual," she exclaimed, throwing in an unprintable curse.
     "Can YOU fly it?" I asked.
     Moira looked down at herself, with a wry, humorless smile. "This body doesn't have hardware connections, you may have noticed."
     "Then can you cobble up some kind of interface? All we need is something that will put out the digital signals this equipment wants."
     "Maybe I can," she said, standing and tugging on her jumpsuit to straighten it. "Basic commands, at least. I have access to the protocols decoded by Commander Data in Earth orbit, including everything he downloaded after putting the Borg to sleep. I can probably hack my way into the flight control systems. Don't count on offensive weapons. No comment yet on shields . . . "
     She stared off into space for a few seconds. "I'd better see what Charlotte's team came up with for spare hardware."
     While Moira headed for the back of the hangar, I walked forward to confer with Brandon. I found him sitting hunched over in an access tunnel near the warp core of the USS Platte.
     "The safeguards are still in place," he reported, "with enough power to preserve containment. I can use the backup field strength monitor over there as a processor to control the engine. Without a crew cabin, though, that doesn't help much."
     I told him what I had in mind.
     "That wouldn't be hard," he said, tentatively.
     "...but?" I asked.
     "It's just, well, I wonder what Professor Talley would say about it." The professor was the Ethics instructor at Starfleet Academy.
     "I've been thinking about that myself," I replied, without enthusiasm. "Quite a bit. Our lives aren't particularly threatened here, but the Borg have proven themselves to be the enemies of the Federation."
     "They don't think they're evil," Brandon observed.
     "Ya," I said quietly. "Set up what we talked about, and key it to activate through my communicator. Code it 'Marek Omega One.'"
     Brandon gave me an "Aye, sir," and I crawled back out of the runabout.

===__-+-        *--==/___

     I spent the next hour talking ethics with Dolores, refreshing my memory. As chief of security, she naturally is an expert in the ethics of deadly force. There are lots of fancy terms, but theories about ethics, she said, break down into two main categories. One says that concepts of good and bad are all a matter of perspective. The other says there is an absolute scale of good and bad and any particular situation can be judged against that absolute.
     The Borg Collective is a perfect case study. By their value system, as enunciated on board the Enterprise by Locutus/Picard, humanoids benefit from assimilation. As a result, the Collective sees the destruction and death that surrounds assimilation efforts as justified.
     The United Federation of Planets, on the other hand, is based on the principle that there is a basic value system common to all species. As a result, it is Federation policy that the Collective does not have the right to wantonly assimilate whoever it feels like assimilating. The rules of engagement for the Borg are very liberal. Starfleet officers have authority, and in fact are expected, to do whatever they can to inflict damage on Borg ships.
     In thinking about that doctrine, I also thought about the young woman I had watched the night before, held in the iron embrace of the Collective. There were thousands of entities on this ship who had the potential, at least, to become rational, productive individuals.

===__-+-        *--==/___

     As Dolores and I discussed these matters, most of our party was clustered at the far end of the hangar bay, extracting various pieces of equipment from the dunsel ships. I eventually walked over to them for a report. Moira, Charlotte and Bill had their heads together, working on an ungainly box on the deck beside the scout ship.
     "We've salvaged an old com panel from that freighter over there," Charlotte informed me. "Our study shows we should be able to tap into their flight and engineering control circuits. Moira will have to enter all of the digital commands manually, though. None of the rest of us is near fast enough on the keyboard to maintain the data throughput the ship wants. We shouldn't install the com panels until the last minute, by the way. Interrupting the circuit could trigger the Borg to attack us."
     "It will be touch and go," added Bill. "It's never a good idea to fly a new ship without plenty of simulator time first. We don't have any idea of what the flight dynamics of this ship are." He shrugged. "Of course, we have to fly it anyway, so Moira and I will, uh, collaborate."
     "Actually, we do that all the time," chimed in Moira, without looking up from the circuit she was wiring. "On the Crazy Horse, he does the discretionary piloting, because somebody wrote the regulations to assume that a computer can't fly a starship by herself. If Bill ever tries something stupid, I can inhibit the command until we talk it over."
     "How often have you had to do that?" I couldn't resist asking.
     "There's always a first time."
     Bill was about to offer a retort when the entire Borg ship shuddered. I didn't lose my balance -- quite.
     "What was that?" I asked, pulling out my tricorder. Across the hangar bay, Brandon popped out of the remains of the Platte. Dolores was not far away, and the two of them came trotting to join us.
     "I'm reading Borg weapons systems active," said Charlotte tensely, her eyes boring holes in her tricorder. "Maneuvering at warp speed. Now we're back on impulse. Tractor beam bursts . . . "
     "Michael, look," said Moira, pointing out the hangar bay aperture. I saw a dazzling light fickering a few kilometers away. It was the shield envelope of a starship, fighting off the Borg tractor beams.
     We all stared intently, and I said to Moira, "What ship is it?" Her eyes are organic, but she has sophisticated image processing at her command.
     "It's our ship, the Crazy Horse," she said quietly. I immediately tapped my combadge.
     "Marek to Crazy Horse." It took a few seconds, but when the reply came, it was the Captain's voice.
     "Commander, this is a pleasant surprise, but I'm afraid the junior officers and I are a bit busy right now." I could hear explosions through the com link. It didn't take much imagination to understand what kind of beating the Crazy Horse was taking.
     "I know, sir," I said. My doubts had just evaporated. My ship was in danger, and I had a means to assist. "We're on board the Borg ship, Captain, preparing a counter attack. Whatever you do, keep your shields up."
     "We're running out of time, Commander. Do your best. Crazy Horse out."
     "Everybody on board the scout ship," I ordered, shoving the air with my hands although none of them were slow to react. "Brandon, Bill, carry the com panel, if you please. Moira, get us ready to launch."
     I was the last to board the ship. Moira already had the central console open and was making connections. In seconds, the scout ship airlock closed, sealing us in. The view screen activated and changed perspective slightly.
     "We are now hovering," announced Moira.
     "Move us to the center of the bay, twenty meters back from the aperture." The spherical ship glided forward. Bill had scratched basic helm controls into the surface of the com panel. Moira watched the spaces he touched, and instantly translated them into digital code for the scout ship processors.
     "On my command, launch on full impulse," I ordered.
     "Acknowledged," said Bill.
     I touched my combadge. "Marek to USS Platte."
     "USS Platte, emergency control," answered the ship, with a flat artificial voice.
     "Execute code Marek Omega One, thirty second countdown. MARK!"
     "30...29...28..." began the computer, and I pointed at Moira and Bill.
     "Engage," I ordered, and the spherical Borg ship squirted through the hangar bay opening like a watermelon seed through wet fingers.
     We were only out of the hangar for an instant, though, when the scout ship shuddered.
     "Borg tractors have locked on," reported Charlotte, still scanning with her tricorder.
     "No luck breaking free," reported both Bill and Moira, simultaneously.
     "Distance from the Borg ship?" I snapped.
     "Only about three thousand kilometers," Charlotte answered.
     "Range and heading to the Crazy Horse," I inquired.
     "216 kilometers, course 133 Mark 59. Their shields are weakening."
     "Do *WE* have shields?" I asked. The Platte com signal was no longer reaching us, but my tricorder said the countdown was at eleven seconds.
     "That's a good question," mused Moira, working over the console. "I think . . . yes, there. Shields up, holding for the moment but power is dropping."
     "You might want to dim the view screen as far as possible, Moira," suggested Brandon, helpfully.
     My tricorder clicked off "2" then "1."
     The warp engines of the USS Platte deactivated their containment fields, as programmed, allowing the uncontrolled mixing of matter and antimatter. The result, of course, was a huge explosion. Even a milligram of antimatter makes for a huge explosion, and there were many kilograms on board the Platte.
     We never saw the Borg ship again. We never even saw wreckage. All we saw was the fireball, so unimaginably ferocious that the Borg ship flashed to pure energy in an instant.
     Of course, there are no shock waves in space. The outrush of subatomic particles, however, caused the shields of the scout ship to sparkle.
     "Crazy Horse to Marek," said the Captain from my communicator, in a voice that was rather more calm that a couple of minutes earlier.
     "Marek here."
     "Glad to see you're still with us, Commander. I trust that was your handiwork we just witnessed?"
     "Yes, Captain," I said. "All crewmembers assigned to the Platte are present and accounted for, on board a Borg scout ship about 200 kilometers from you." I heard a smattering of applause in the background over the com link.
     "Request permission to rendezvous with the Crazy Horse. I don't think this Borg ship will fit in our biggest shuttle bay, but we'll probably want to tow it home," I suggested.
     "No doubt, Commander," laughed the Captain. "When you get here, beam directly to the victory celebration in Roddenberry's."
     "Aye, Sir," I acknowledged. "Don't wait for us to get started."
     "We won't."

===__-+-        *--==/___

     It was a good party. They always are on the Crazy Horse.
     About six hours later, things were winding down. I was sitting with Moira in Pam's Place, our favorite "bar within a bar" in a corner of Roddenberry's, when Brandon joined us.
     "I have something for you," he told Moira.
     "And what would that be . . . ?" Moira said in that certain voice of hers that always seems half-sarcastic.
     Brandon held out an isolinear chip.
     "How lovely," she crooned, taking it between a thumb and forefinger and looking at is closely. "So what is it?"
     "After I programmed the warp engines to explode, I had a little time on the Platte," Brandon explained. "So I hooked power back up to the computer. Your program was too far crashed to run, Moira, but I recovered your 'temp' memory files. You should be able to decrypt and do a full update from this chip."
     "Brandon," Moira whooped. "You're wonderful."
     With that, she gave him one of her "GRADE A NUMBER ONE" hugs. Looking over his shoulder at the chip, her expression softened and what I would have suspected in anyone else was a tear seemed to form in her eye. The hug lasted quite some time.