Kappa Cephi
By Michael Marek
(This story takes place in 2368, about
a year after the Battle of Wolf 359.)
"Only three pips today, I see," said a woman's
voice, coming up behind me. "I'll
bet you got used to four."
Without
looking, I recognized the speaker as Moira, one of my Starfleet Academy classmates
from years past. She is an AI, artificial intelligence. We
were in a broad concourse on the south side of the sprawling Starfleet complex
overlooking San Francisco bay.
"Moira," I said, turning to meet her and taking in at a glance that she was using her organic simulacrum body, acquired at some expense during her academy years. She
was wearing a dress uniform, as was I.
"Thanks
again for your help on the Horizon," I said with a smile. "What
are you doing on Earth?"
"I
am here BECAUSE we collaborated on Horizon," she answered, nodding toward the departure lounge. "I
believe we are both directed to smile and shake hands at the opening of the
exhibit."
"'Grip and Grin' is right," I
smiled as we turned and walked together toward the lounge.
A
few months earlier, I had led an away team that located and, with Moira's impromptu assistance, returned the oldest surviving Daedalus Class starship to Earth. I had received a brevet to Captain for the duration of the voyage home. Moira
was right that I missed the extra rank, although at age 32, I expected it
would still be a little while before I was considered for permanent promotion.
Horizon was
now in permanent spacedock in lunar orbit, one of a fleet of historic ships
recommissioned as museum exhibits. The runabout was about to depart
for the exhibit carrying a couple of dozen dignitaries, most of whom I did
not recognize.
"Where's Crazy Horse?" I
asked.
"The Cardassian frontier," she replied. It had recently been revealed that the Cardassians were re-arming. Tensions were high and it was understandable that Starfleet wanted to put on a show of force. "Intrepid?" Moira
asked in turn.
"At Jupiter Station for
maintenance."
"Oh, you broke your ship again?" she
teased, but I ignored the question.
"How
soon do you have to get back to Crazy Horse?" I continued.
"There's a supply ship heading out in a few days. We sure could use a starbase out that way, or some friendly port," she
said, shaking her head.
We entered the passenger compartment of the runabout, the USS
Rhône, and I pointed toward a couple of unoccupied seats.
"Would you be interested in a...special project for Starfleet before you go back?" I
asked quietly, looking around as we seated ourselves.
"Like what?" she
replied, curiously.
"I've been asked to do a recon mission to...well, a place that needs recon. Temporary duty assignment with a very small team, out and back on the Q.T., undercover. You
would be...an asset to the mission."
"And where would we be going?" she
asked.
I
hesitated, but quickly realized that Moira has the highest security clearance
the Federation ever invented. You can't keep secrets from a
computer with volition.
"Download this," I said, slipping a small PADD from my pocket and entering my access code. Moira triggered the device to do a high-speed visual display of its entire contents, each screen showing for no more than a millisecond. She
held the PADD so that no one else in the runabout could see it.
What
she read was a briefing document about the Kappa Cephi sector, at the extreme
fringe of surveyed space toward the Beta Quadrant. A private ship had reported some magnetic resonance tracings in ruins on the ground that were all too familiar to Starfleet. They implied Borg weapon discharges in the vicinity, although no Borg ships had actually been sighted. If
they had been, the private ship might never have been able to report.
"Admiral Villanueva wants a very low key investigation of that system. We're also to acquire a ship that does not use any Federation technology," I said when the PADD stopped flickering. "The
admiral has this theory that if they run into a Federation ship, it might
goad them into a return match."
"Hum," Moira mused. "Maybe
we could pick something up on Minos Corva, if we had enough latinum."
"We'd want something that is pretty unimpressive, technologically," I added. "Nothing they'd
want to assimilate."
"So, who else will be going on this little joy ride of yours?" Moira
inquired.
"Haven't asked anybody else yet," I admitted. "One
of our engineers from Intrepid is also on Earth at the moment. You
remember Lt. Exwys, the Celentripod from Raga that was on Horizon with
us?" Moira nodded. "I was thinking of asking Exwys to volunteer. Paula L'Esperance was on my flying team at the Academy. She'd do fine at Ops and we could meet her ship at Vega. I'd plan to pilot myself, by the way. I
need to find somebody for tactical."
"I can scan the Starfleet Operations database to see who is between assignments, or who we could pick up en-route," suggested
Moira.
"Does this mean you're in?" I
asked.
Moira
paused briefly. "If you do meet the Borg, you'll need a computer system that can resist their probes without making it appear to be advanced technology. Sounds
like an interesting challenge."
Moira and I met with Admiral Villanueva a couple of days later to finalize our plans.
"Lieutenant Commander L'Esperance, and Lieutenants Vance and Exwys have all accepted the invitations to join your team," Villanueva recapped for us. "Their
captains know they are on special assignment, but only the six of us, plus
my chief of staff, know the details.
"Any rumor of the Borg anywhere near Federation space spooks a lot of people. We need good intelligence from Kappa Cephi -- much better than that transport ship gave us. If the Borg are there, then we have to deal with the situation. If they're not or are long gone, well that's
another thing."
"Yes, Sir," I acknowledged, although I wasn't convinced that public response to a Borg presence would be so extreme that a stealth mission was warranted. But that's
what the brass wanted.
Villanueva
handed me a PADD. "The two of you will head out in the morning
on Potemkin, picking up the rest of your team as you go. You'll
be dropped off in civilian clothes at Minos Corva to acquire a ship.
"You will be a private crew," Villanueva stressed. "No connection whatsoever is to be apparent with Starfleet or any official Federation agency."
The
credit figure mentioned on the PADD was significant, more than enough to
buy the kind of ship we needed, not to mention our incidental expenses. I gave Moira an "it's really happening" glance
as we stood to be dismissed.
---
Minos
Corva is almost a three week flight from Earth at moderate warp. By the end of the second week, all five members of the team were together. The
crew of Potemkin was curious, but her captain had received some
kind of briefing and covered for us.
It
was good seeing Paula again. It was only the second time since our
academy graduation, the other being her wedding.
"So when are you going to tie the knot yourself?" Paula
asked me during one break.
"I know this nice redhead you'd like," called Moira from across the room. I
muttered something unintelligible and changed the subject.
Vance
was a big bear of a man. He looked more like a bouncer at a bar than
a tactical officer, but his evaluations and accuracy scores showed him to
be an expert with ship-mounted weapons, as well as hand-to-hand combat.
"I've been letting myself get scruffy since the orders came in," he told me. I
decided he must usually go bald, since neither his hair nor beard was longer
than a half centimeter.
We
trained daily in a holodeck reserved for us. Moira randomly selected civilian starship designs and populated them with random problems. Each day we played out the scenario of walking onto a newly purchased ship and making her space worthy. It
was hard work, but by the time we reached the starbase, we were meshing well
as a team and felt confident of our abilities.
We
got used to civilian clothes, too. Moira, with her inimitable sense
of fashion, handled wardrobes, providing each of us with several sets of
clothes -- it was part of the disguise to suggest that we had little contact
with replicators.
We
all carried weapons of varying sizes, according to the personality we would
be projecting. Vance wore a huge Klingon disruptor that made him look even bigger. Moira and Paula also had obvious weapons at their hips. As leader of the group, I had the most modern, and thus the smallest phaser visible. Exwys
carried no obvious weapons, but one never knew what might be hidden at the
bases of all those tentacles.
---
Potemkin beamed
us down in a back alley of the city adjoining the primary spaceport of Minos
Corva and we made our way through ancient narrow streets. Moira, carried the entire plan of the city in memory, of course, but we moved slowly and casually, finally reaching the public sections of the spaceport at mid-morning, having left most of our gear in a bonded storage locker. At
the spaceport we met a man who fit the stereotype of used shuttle salesbeings
everywhere.
"Honest Ardge," he called himself happily. Ardge
was chubby and moderately boorish, but rapier sharp at identifying selling
points.
"You might say we came to a parting of ways with the captain of our last ship," I began our cover story with a conspiratorial smile to which my companions rolled their eyes as if I were making a radical understatement. "We're looking for a ship of our own. Big
enough to run some reasonable cargo, but fast."
"Fast," agreed
Vance jovially.
"We want a good, big computer, too," chimed in Moira, who hates cramped quarters. "Lots
of memory."
"Lots," stressed
Vance.
"Do I have a ship for you!" Ardge gushed, waiving us out onto the ramp with him. "Only 50 years old, brand new injectors, and even transporters. This baby'll
make warp six easy."
He
directed our attention to a forlorn little ship at the far end of a line
of forlorn ships. It wasn't really little, of course, standing
three stories above the ramp, but it was a heck of a lot smaller than my Intrepid. To me, ships are always forlorn when they're
powered down and empty.
"It looks Orion," commented
Paula, playing the role of skeptic.
"Of course it's Orion," exclaimed Ardge happily. "The
ideal ship for a group of, well, traders like yourselves."
"Traders," nodded
Vance.
The
ship was wide and aerodynamic with twin weapons ports sticking far forward
from the main hull. I'd never seen the design, but it looked maneuverable. It
did not have nacelles, but instead spherical warp emitters embedded in each
wing.
We
entered the ship via a rear-facing ramp that led to a hold. I was
surprised to find that power was on.
Our
team divided up. My main job was to divert Ardge's attention while my people gave the little ship a Starfleet-thorough check. Exwys ran diagnostics in Engineering. Paula ran more tests at Ops. Vance crawled access tubes to the phaser batteries. Moira uploaded a compact version of herself into the computer to try it on for size (I think of that version of her as "Moira Lite," but I don't
tell her that).
I
did my own checks, too, under Ardge's eye on the bridge, so I didn't make them too sophisticated. I also slipped some red herrings into the conversation, like asking him if he knew anything about the spice trade. Eventually the others returned to the bridge and we made our way back out onto the tarmac. We excused ourselves and walked well out of Ardge's
hearing to compare notes.
"The engines are old, but can channel large amounts of power," reported Exwys. "It will do warp 5 continuously, and bursts to warp six without much work, I believe. With
some time, we can probably expect warp 6 continuously."
"Computers are multitronic, meaning slow, cramped, and quirky," said Moira with a look of resignation on her face. "I'll
have to mostly work in my simulacrum, but we can get by."
"Ditto for weapons," nodded Vance, dropping his "bubba" persona, for the moment. "No photon torpedoes at all. Phasers have about a quarter of the power we run on my ship. Good
tractor beam systems, though, and the transporter should be fine after it's
tuned up."
"The navigation database is 50 years old," said Paula. "And control over several of the systems is only modest. Life
support, for example, only has one zone for the entire ship."
I
returned to Ardge a few minutes later with an offer to buy the ship, but
listed several items we wanted him to "throw in," to make it sound like we weren't too eager. We dickered for a half hour, settling on a price somewhat below his original ask, but with all of the extras we needed included. Vance provided a bar of latinum he had been carrying in a belt pouch as a down payment. We
kept good our promise to return by sundown with all our gear, and our latinum,
to finalize the sale.
---
It
took three more days to clear all of the paperwork needed to register the
ship. We kept its original name, Urallea, which Moira reported
was a minor Orion deity. Finally, however, we were able to lift off,
provisioned and benefiting from three days of maintenance and repair.
Urallea handled
well enough as I piloted her out of the atmosphere and into a standard commercial
space lane departing Minos Corva. Once clear of the system, I set our course for Kappa Cephi and jumped to warp, slowly working our way up to warp 4.2, where we cruised for the first couple of days. Kappa Cephi Gamma, the star where the resonance tracings had been reported, was about ten light years away. Reaching
it would take forever at warp 4.2 -- close to 50 days, one way.
As soon as we were at a stable speed, Exwys and Moira went to work on the warp control circuitry and algorithms, tuning, adjusting, and in some cases, rewriting.
"I don't know who wrote this plasma flow control protocol," Moira commented to me at one point, "but we can improve on it substantially. It's
all brute force, no finesse."
By our third day out, Urallea was
zipping along at a crisp warp 6.7, dropping our transit time to ten days. We passed the time alternating between tactical training exercises and work on the ship's aging systems. We
were always conscious of the possibility that we could face a Borg ship in
combat and we wanted our systems in the best shape we could get.
It
had been nine years since I'd worked on a full-time engineering crew,
on the USS Berlin, but I found I had not lost all of my ability. I spent most of one day overhauling the transporter -- there was only one on the ship. The Heisenberg compensators were badly out of alignment and I largely rebuilt the scanning assembly. When
Exwys ran an independent diagnostic, it found nothing to fault in my work,
which pleased me.
Paula
spent her time configuring cross circuits and backups in her Operations control
systems. While the Moira in the ship's computers worked with Exwys on the engines, her simulacrum worked on sensors, seeking to get the most out of systems that were mostly designed for navigation. Luckily, a large amount of the sophistication of Starfleet's
sensor systems lies in the analysis and interpretation of received sensor
data, and Moira could easily employ those analysis routines.
---
Part
way through the journey I called the crew together for a staff meeting, of
sorts, in the wardroom. We had all read the report from Kappa Cephi
and we knew the standard Starfleet reference texts and SOPs on the Borg by
heart.
"Moira, would you summarize what we know about the Kappa Cephi G. system?" I
requested.
"The star system has never been visited by a Federation survey ship, an indication that it has never attracted our attention," reported Moira. "Six
weeks ago, a trading ship, the Rosebud, passed near the system on
what the crew considered to be a shortcut. An automatic scan indicated
refined metals, so Rosebud dropped out of warp and investigated. They detected what may be an abandoned colony, but no humanoid life forms. Some structures appeared to be intact but others were heavily damaged. From close orbit, they also detected evidence of weapons fire. A retired Starfleet officer on board submitted a report on the planet to the Federation science directorate, which forwarded the data to Admiral Villanueva's office. Analysis indicated the magnetic resonance tracings that have come to be known as the 'Borg signature.'"
"So, was this a colony they tried to assimilate?" wondered
Paula.
"Not likely," said Vance shook his head. "Our best evidence is that when they assimilate, they take the entire cities, as well as the people. The
colony buildings are still there, in ruins."
"The Lieutenant's right," nodded Moira. "Starfleet's
best guess is that the cities serve as raw material for Borg constructs --
ships, possibly space stations and other facilities, not to mention appliances
for billions of drones."
"But the colony is still there," I mused. "Would
they take the people, but not the raw materials?"
"One of the reasons Starfleet wanted us to buy this klunker," Paula
said, looking around us at Urallea, "is so our level of technology would be low enough that the Borg might not be interested. Maybe the colony didn't have enough critical mass of people, since they don't
assimilate individuals."
"We can only hope," muttered
Vance.
"It seems to me that there are four possibilities for this mission," I said, counting them off on my fingers. "We find no evidence of the Borg at all; we confirm the resonance tracings, but the Borg are gone; the Borg are there and they attack us; or the Borg are there and they ignore us." The
others nodded.
"There are only two reports of Borg attacking a single ship," I continued. "In both cases, the crew of the ships resisted when drones beamed aboard to examine their technology. If
that happens to us, we let them look, unimpeded."
The others glanced back and forth, obviously uncomfortable with the idea.
"Moira," I
prompted.
"I've developed a firewall that will protect my various selves, as well as our critical data," she said. "If they download the computer, they will find only low-level binary functioning, crudely written software, and abysmally slow processing capacity. Think 'Atari.' Similarly, they will not discover our refinements in the warp flow regulator programs, which will also be sequestered. With
luck, they will find very little to interest them."
"It's our best shot, if they board us," I said. "If we find them and they do NOT attack us, well, we'll
have to play it by ear.
---
"We are .1 light years from Kappa Cephi G.," reported Paula a few days later from her station at Ops, at my left. "ETA
the outermost planet in two hours."
Urallea's bridge
was narrower at the front and broader at the back, sticking up from the ship's hull. It was the first time since my academy days that I had flown a ship that actually had windows surrounding the bridge. This
far out there was little to see, so most of us had our eyes on the small
viewscreens set here and there around us.
We'd all had a good night's sleep. Moira
Lite had kept the night watch by herself.
"We're scanning continuously," advised Moira's simulacrum from the computer console. There was no science station because the ship had been built for trade, not exploration. "Still a long way away for these sensors, but...yes, there ARE refined metals on one of the planets." She
frowned in concentration, applying all of Urallea's processing
capacity.
"I suggest course 110 Mark 27," she
added.
I brought Urallea to that heading, slowing us even more.
"No Borg ships?" I
asked, just to confirm, and Moira moved her head in the negative.
"Nothing at all artificial in space," she said. "I won't
be able to resolve much the surface of the planet for a little while...except,
hum."
I
waited patiently. This was not a situation in which Moira would employ dramatic pauses. She
must have been doing a huge number of calculations to take so long before
continuing.
"I am detecting power signatures on the planet," she announced presently, frowning, which I took as an indication that she was continuing to process the sensor data. "Relatively low level but continuous, and confined to an area on the close order of a kilometer in radius around the colony town site. Nothing
else across the face of the planet toward us."
"Do Borg ships land?" asked
Paula.
"Unknown," answered
Moira.
"I'd bet they do," Vance interjected. "They carve whole cities out of the ground and carry them off into space. I can't imagine how they would do that without descending from orbit, even if the ships don't
physically make contact with the planet."
"From the range of subatomic particles it appears that there is a fusion reactor in operation on the planet," added Moira. "No indication of warp reactions in progress. Borg do not generally register on sensors as individuals. Life
sign scans are inconclusive."
I maneuvered Urallea so
that we approached the planet on the blind side from the installation on
the planet's surface, whatever it was. We took up a synchronous orbit below the installation's horizon, then adjusted orbital speed just enough to drift above that horizon. Wanting to be as inconspicuous as possible, Moira used passive sensors only. Luckily,
the ship had optical scanners good enough to provide resolution of a few
centimeters at this distance.
When
Moira first put the image on the view screens, it was indistinct due to atmospheric
turbulence. She quickly activated processing algorithms to stabilize and enhance the image. The picture cleared. We were looking at the ruins of a modest-sized community located alongside a modest river. In a clear area in the city's center, possibly a city park, was a large, black, spherical object. The exterior was irregular, although preserving the overall spherical shape, as if endless boxes and pipes crisscrossed the outside surface. A
chunk seemed to be missing, almost like an apple with a bite taken out of
it.
"A Borg ship," said Moira after a few moments, confirming our silent fears. "I suggest, Michael, that we get back below the horizon."
I agreed and adjusted our orbital speed to slip us out of their line of sight.
---
"We've never seen a spherical Borg ship before," Vance said as we talked a few minutes later. "There
are rumors going back decades before Enterprise made first contact
with the Borg three years ago, but there has never been a hint of anything
other than cube-shaped ships."
"Nevertheless it was Borg," replied Moira, looking around at us. "All
readings are consistent with Borg design and power signatures."
"Could they have been damaged and landed for repairs?" asked
Paula.
"Maybe," I mused. "Moira,
analyze the city around the Borg ship."
"OK," Moira said, looking off into space. "What
am I looking for?"
"Could
they be building the ship from scratch?"
She
scowled. "I can't tell much from this distance with only passive scans. Metal is missing from significant places in the city that I would expect to find it, such as a bridge where only pilings remain. The central colony power plant is cold, and in shambles. The power I detected is coming from a wooden building adjacent to the ship, if I haven't
mentioned it."
"Prepare a detailed report for Starfleet and transmit it as per our orders," I directed. "Then
I think we should go down and take a look."
"Yah?" asked
Vance.
"Yah," I
repeated slowly, studying the aerial shots of the city.
---
I brought Urallea into
the atmosphere far away from the Borg ship, cruising lower and slower as
we neared the city. I landed a few kilometers away, behind a row of rugged hills that completely masked our approach. At least I hoped it did.
Moira,
Vance, and I fanned out to scout the area and, we hoped, sneak up on the
Borg facility; Paula, Exwys, and Moira Lite remained behind to guard the
ship and keep it ready for action. The three of us planned to each approach the Borg facility from a different direction. If the Borg attacked, three together would stand no better chance than a single person would alone. On the other hand, working separately, we had an increased chance of finding something interesting. We
checked in with each other by communicator once every twenty minutes, using
a frequency and modulation type that Moira claimed the Borg were unlikely
to notice.
In
spite of the circumstances, I was happy to be on the trail. I was raised in mountainous country, often hiking and camping on my own. While the woodcraft of Earth doesn't automatically translate to every other world that has forests and mountains, I felt comfortable and in my element. I had even taken advantage of being in "civilian mode" to dress for the trail as I would back home -- boots, denim pants, a flannel shirt, waist-length jacket, and a "fanny pack" for my gear. I
also had my favorite knife in a pouch on my belt.
Two
hours after leaving the ship I was looking down on the former colony from
a low ridge, shortly before sunset. The colony had avenues radiating out from a central square or park. All but one of the structures closest to the square was rubble, with buildings further away in progressively better shape. In the middle of the park sat a spherical craft that was clearly of Borg construction. It bore the Borg trademark exterior relief of conduit and circuitry. Here and there, Borg drones were working on devices inside open hull panels. Neatly organized piles of...things, probably raw materials, surrounded the base of the craft. The
one standing building near the ship was a center of activity, with drones
constantly coming and going and light spilling from the doors and windows
in the gathering dark.
"Are you both in position?" I radioed to Moira and Vance. Both
acknowledged.
"This ship is under construction," Moira reported her conclusion. "The
section that appeared to be missing when we saw it from orbit is much smaller
now -- almost closed."
"They could be making repairs, Sir, like Paula suggested," said
Vance.
"If they were making repairs, they would most likely continue to inhabit the ship," rebutted Moira. "There is a fusion reactor signature from that building. I
can also see at least one regeneration node through a window of the building."
"If they're building the ship from scratch," I mused, "that is very interesting. Starfleet intelligence has never had a hint about how the Borg fabricate their ships. Another
ship may have dropped off this crew of drones to build the ship from the
ruins of the colony -- maybe after they assimilated the residents."
"Well, they are nearly finished," said
Moira.
I thought for a moment.
"You two hold position," I instructed. "I'm
going to move in closer."
"Sir," Vance began, "I
am the Tactical Officer..."
"But I am the commander. It's my risk to take," I answered, not completely in keeping with Starfleet regulations, but trusting that they would not argue. "Moira,
if anything happens to me, see to the safety of all hands and make reporting
to Starfleet top priority."
"Aye, Sir," she
said, noncommittally.
---
It
was near dark now and I put on a night vision kit before making my way down
the slope. I was putting a lot of faith in the reports about the Borg ignoring individuals, unless they pose threats. It
took all my resolve, however, to move out into the square.
I
moved slowly but steadily forward, scanning with my tricorder and transmitting
the signals to Moira. Vance gave me a running commentary on the positions of drones nearest me. The
square was highly illuminated; it was as bright as day and I cast several
shadows in different directions.
Presently,
a drone approached me, moving in that curious zombie-like gait, which was
probably not far off the mark. I paused, ready to run, hoping that I could outdistance any Borg pursuit. There
was so much we did not know about them, but nobody had ever reported Borg
drones moving faster than a moderate walking speed.
I
stood still as the drone neared me. It was starting straight ahead and as intent on its mission as any ant in a garden. It passed within ten feet of me, moving in a straight line and not even looking at me. I scanned with my tricorder. The
drone was female, and to my surprise, human.
"Moira..." I
began.
"I see the readings," she replied. "Apparently
she either was assimilated at Wolf 359 and some drones escaped, or we're
not aware of all contacts between humans and the Borg."
"Starfleet was out of contact with the Borg cube in the Wolf system for several hours after the battle," Vance added. "If
they had smaller ships like this sphere inside the cube..."
"She's heading toward the ship," I interrupted. "I'm
going to follow."
"Do be careful, Michael," said
Moira.
"You bet," I
murmured.
The
sphere had seemed deceptively small from a distance. Up close it dwarfed everything around it. A cable thicker than my arm snaked from the reactor building to the ship, presumably feeding it power. Maybe ten percent of the ship was below ground level, as if in some sort of construction cradle. A
broad ramp was open, sloping up into what, on a normal ship, would be a cargo
bay.
I
stood at the bottom of the ramp for several minutes, watching drones come
and go. None took any notice of me.
The night air was cool, but warm, humid air was turning to mist as it flowed out of the sphere, giving the lights across the square a foggy glow.
"You'd be crazy to enter the sphere, you know," radioed Moira. She
wasn't exactly reading my mind, but we've known each other for a long time
and she knows how I think.
"Do you agree, Vance?" I
asked.
"Uhhhhh..." he temporized. "Part of the tactical officer's job is keeping the commanding officer safe, Sir. You've already risked more than I like. If
it was me and not you..."
"If it was you and not me," I interrupted, completing the thought for him, "you'd
jump at the chance."
"Well,
yah, Sir..."
"And Moira," I continued. "If
you were standing where I am, would you enter the ship?"
"Go ahead and do whatever you want, dammit," she said dourly. "But
I reserve the right to say 'I told you so.'"
I
stepped onto the ramp, half expecting alarms to go off. None did and
I continued up, scanning as I went.
It
wasn't long before I had to loosen my jacket. It was HOT in there
-- my tricorder said 39.1 degrees with a relative humidity of 80%.
The
chamber at the top of the ramp was smaller than I expected and branched into
several avenues. They weren't exactly corridors. The sides were irregular and often branched at odd angles to adjoining passages. I
counted over 200 of the Borg regeneration stations before I gave up keeping
track.
My
tricorder mapped the path I took as I moved deeper into the maze. I
wanted to be able to get out efficiently, when the time came.
I
read once about how ants sometimes have other insects living in their anthills
with them. That's how I felt as I roamed the Borg ship. They ignored me and I had no clue about what they were up to. The
movements of the individual drones seemed random.
The
few ships that have had direct contact with the Borg and survived have reported
the ships to be decentralized, with no specific bridge, engineering, or subunits
found on a typical ship.
"Because it is a relatively small ship," Moira radioed, when it became clear that I could move around unimpeded, "we
might be able to make more sense of its organization than we would on one
of their monster cubes."
"Right," I said. "Vance,
rendezvous with Moira and keep her location secure."
Moira
and I collaborated, my tricorder sending her a continuous stream of data,
which she continually integrated. In an hour, we had built up a fair
3-D map of the ship.
"There are meta-patterns not obvious to superficial analysis," she reported. "Ship's systems are decentralized, 'distributed' is the engineering term, with multiple backups. I believe, however, that you are nearing a major node of the ship's
integrated system."
"I see it," I said, observing an unusually large juncture of several corridors. There was...I'll call it an "assembly" in the middle, stretching above and below the deck on which I stood. A handful of greenish lights glowed here and there on the assembly. "The tricorder says there are shields around it," I
added, knowing that Moira had already received the tricorder signals."
"I strongly recommend against trying to break through the shield," Moira cautioned. "Such
an act would be very likely to attract their...oops."
"What 'oops?'" I
answered, looking around for trouble, but even as I spoke, more green panels
flicked to light in the central node and I sensed a throbbing of power from
the device.
"Sir," called Vance. "They've
disconnected the umbilical from the building."
"The ship is powering up," added
Moira with equal urgency in her voice.
"Get out," continued Vance. "Go,
go, go."
I
touched the stud in the tricorder to show me my exit route and made tracks,
dashing down corridors and dodging around drones.
Vance
gave a running commentary. "All of the drones have left the building. They're carrying some components. Lights around the square are shutting off, too. There goes the last one up the ramp. I can't see any others. The ramp's
rising..."
I burst into the hold at the top of the ramp just in time to hear it clamp shut and seal itself.
"You're lifting off," reported Moira, although artificial gravity must have come on, because I couldn't feel any vibration from the launch. "I'm trying to hack their command pathways but every gorram one is encrypted with fractal codes. I can't
stop you."
"See to the safety of all hands, Moira, and report to Starfleet," I panted, looking around. "I doubt I'm
going to find an escape pod."
---
When
caught in enemy territory, find a concealed, defensible position and take
stock of your supplies and resources. Proceed only after careful
planning.
That's been standard strategy in military and quasi-military training on many planets for thousands of years. I'd
learned it in classes a dozen years earlier at the Academy, applied it during
the Cardassian War (the first Cardassian war, that is), and taught it to
my team as Tactical/Security officer on the Berlin.
I
didn't pause longer than it takes for a couple of breaths before I was looking for an unobtrusive corner. Was my dash through the ship enough to attract attention? None of the drones in the immediate vicinity seemed to be looking at me, but I had no idea how they thought, made decisions, and acted on them. My first goal was to get out of the hold and away from places I'd been recently. Picking
a nearby corridor, I moved off, slowly and deliberately, keeping with the
flow of drones.
It
took me several minutes, but I found a cubbyhole into which I crawled. It was formed where two large beams met, intersecting the deck at 45 degree angles. I could see drones' legs
as they passed, but it seemed unlikely that they would stoop to look where
I was huddled.
A fine mess this is ,
I thought to myself as I took a sip of water from my pack. My tricorder
and communicator had been functioning on board for over an hour, so I hoped
they would continue to be ignored, or concealed in the electronic background
noise.
The
heat and humidity were oppressive, too. I had no idea if I would be able to find water or food on the ship, but I rated the odds as low. However
the Borg drones took nourishment to sustain their bodies, I doubted that
it was taken by mouth.
I
was still trying to formulate a strategy when my communicator squawked, "Urallea to
Marek." It was Moira's voice.
"We're in pursuit and closing," she said after I'd replied. "What's
your status?"
"No immediate problems," I answered, looking around. "Report."
"The Borg apparently don't intend to go to warp within the star system, which is surprisingly polite of them. Estimate we'll
be within transporter range in 55 seconds."
"Moira," I said, with mixed feelings, "I
told you to..."
"To 'see to the safety of all hands and report to Starfleet,'" she quoted. "Given that you are off the ship, I am in command and you're one of my hands. Forty
seconds to transporter range."
"I don't believe I'll argue the point with you," I said, smiling to myself. I slipped my water bag back in my pack then stood, hunched over in the cramped space, to provide an optimum target for the transporter. I
knew that Urallea would have remotely triggered my communicator
into transponder mode which would give a satisfactory transporter lock, in
spite of the ship and equipment that surrounded me.
"Ready for transport," I
acknowledged and a few moments later the sparkling transporter effect built
up around me.
---
"Transport
complete," Paula, both to me and to the bridge and grinning. "Welcome
back, Mike."
I
hustled up to the bridge a short distance away. As I entered, Moira
glanced at me from the helm position.
"We've
reduced speed and are falling behind," she reported. "They
appear to be ignoring us completely."
"Good," I
said, "and
thanks, everybody."
"Urallea took
off less than ten seconds after the Borg ship and beamed up the Lieutenant
Commander and me as it went by," explained Vance with a grin.
We
dawdled along until we tracked the Borg ship going into warp, on a direct
course for the heart of the Beta Quadrant. Then we set course for
Earth where Urallea would eventually become another Academy training
ship.
Moira
and I ate breakfast together the next morning and I asked for a summary of the
data she had collected about the Borg.
"Admiral
Villanueva's people are going to love this stuff," she said, after
detailing some of the high points. "But
there is something else, too."
I
raised my eyebrows at her remark.
"I
spent a lot of time monitoring their communications," she said. "Both
intra ship and from that ship outbound. The intra ship traffic is a massive jumble.
It's going to take me a long time to sort it out. But the outbound circuit
appeared to use a packet forwarding protocol. A huge amount of data was flowing,
but in precisely managed chunks. I can't
tell whether the other end was another ship or some other kind of facility,
but this ship was being called to a rendezvous point."
"Could
you tell why?" I
asked and Moira shook her head in uncertainty.
"There
were references to something called 'fluidic space' and
an implication of a major offensive requiring many, many ships, but no
details."
"They
only used one ship to attack Earth," I said. "What
kind of target would take all those ships?"
"It's
not clear," she shrugged. "But here's the thing -- underneath
all of the cacophony of the thoughts of the individual drones, there is...something
else. The collective is more than just an aggregate of minds. There is a single
presence underlying the structure."
"What
do you mean?" I
asked, frowning.
"Uncompromising
volition and an insatiable desire to grow," Moira said slowly, with that
faraway look in her eyes that said she was sorting through huge amounts of data. "It
is powerfully rationalist -- it thinks it has all the answers and it sees questions
in supremely black and white terms. This...entity...cannot accept failure, and
the attack on Earth last year failed big time. Whatever 'fluidic space' is
may delay them. But the memory of Earth eats at it..." Moira's
eyes narrowed. "...at her,
and she sees the victory over humanity as simply...incomplete.
"The
next time, the Borg will have learned and adapted, and they will have a new strategy." Moira
pursed her lips and shrugged. "Oh, yes. They will be
back. Count on it."
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