Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins (55 page)

“We can’t. Not until he drops the firewall.”

“And what happens then?”

“What was always going to happen,” Reed told her. “We assimilate.”

Massey shivered inside the regeneration chamber, more scared and vulnerable than Reed had ever seen her. All the bravado, all the posturing that had made her the toughest privateer in Evan Walsh’s crew, was gone. She was just a woman now, exactly like Reed—human, but only in the present tense. What awaited beyond that, nobody could know.

As Reed strapped Massey in, the chamber’s circuitry began to hum and pulsate. The core matrix sensed Massey’s presence, matching her body’s rhythms in a display of eager anticipation, biometric fields cascading over her like water in a drowning pool. She reached out and touched Reed’s arm, pleading with her eyes.

“Will I still be me?” Massey asked. “Even if it’s just a piece.”

Reed smiled. “You can’t put out that kind of fire, Rayna.”

Massey nodded, preparing herself for what came next. Slowly, Reed closed the door and sealed her in, watching from behind the glass as Massey closed her eyes. Her features softened, assuming a kind of peace—or, at the very least, acceptance. Perhaps it was only what Reed wanted to see, but if so, she was grateful for the illusion.

She moved on to Locarno. He appeared the same as when she first met him, projecting that same reckless confidence. In that moment, Reed felt as if she had known him for years—and wondered if she would remember him the same way after they changed.

“It’s kind of fitting when you think about it,” Locarno said. “The man becomes machine. Not a bad way to go for a gridstalker.”

“We’ll find out who did this, Nick.”

He gave her a sympathetic look.

“I
mean
it,” she implored. “Promise me you’ll hold on to that.”

Locarno couldn’t refuse her.

“I promise,” he said. “We won’t let anybody stop us.”

Reed took his hand and squeezed it tight. She didn’t want to let go, but he was fading already, along with her capacity to connect with him on a flesh-and-blood level. For her, the world had narrowed to an interface, bits of data coalescing into a new reality. As Reed closed the door on him, severing her final human contact, she cast off the last of her emotions—except for her anger, which burned like a glowing ember in an endless night.

That was her anchor, her purpose. And she swore never to lose sight of it.

Stepping into her own chamber, Reed didn’t need to seal herself in. The others had gathered there, as she knew they would, to await her transcendence. Thayer and Casari did it with a care and precision akin to reverence, acknowledging Reed’s previous incarnation while ushering her into the next. And when the assimilation began, she borrowed their strength and made it her own, even as the core matrix ripped the consciousness from her body and merged it with the collective whole.

The agony spanned time and space, then collapsed in on itself.

And on the other side emerged
hunger,
the kind that devoured worlds.

Captain Rivellini saw past
Norfolk
’s viewscreen, probing the Spanse with his own instincts and taking measure of the wreckage that drifted past his ship. He already had the vessel identified by the time the sensor sweep was done, but waited for his people to confirm.

“Mass and dimensions match the merchant vessel we intercepted,” the ops officer reported. “So do the markings. It’s definitely
Celtic,
Captain.”

Rivellini maintained an outward detachment, but the destruction of any vessel—even one he was hunting—made him nervous. He stood up from the command chair, walking toward the screen while the bridge crew looked on. Blast patterns on the remains of
Celtic
’s hull indicated phaser fire, but not conclusively. The way the rest of the ship had broken apart, with entire sections separated from one another at the seams, could just as easily have been caused by a massive structural failure.

“What the hell happened here?” Rivellini muttered.

“Captain,” the tactical officer said, his panel beeping. “I just detected a stream of ionized gases. Could be a thruster trail.”

“Direction?”

“Off the starboard.”

“Defensive posture,” Rivellini ordered, returning to his chair as Yellow Alert sounded. “Full active sweep. If something’s out there, I want to see it.”

“Aye, sir,” tactical replied, and almost immediately his panel lit up. “Positive contact, bearing zero-four-zero—range, five hundred thousand kilometers.”

“Identify.”

The tactical officer looked at his display, eyes darting back and forth in confusion. “This can’t be right,” he said, running through the scan again—and coming up with the same result. “Captain, our sensors are picking up what appears to be a Federation starship. There’s some interference from the cloud . . . but it looks like a
Nebula
class, sir.”

Rivellini frowned. “That’s impossible.”

“Verified, sir. She’s the real deal.”

“One-half impulse power!” the captain snapped. “Plot an intercept course!”

A proximity alarm went off.

“Contact is already moving to intercept
us,
” the conn officer said. “Closing fast.”

“Raise shields!”

“Incoming!” tactical shouted—half a second before the first salvo hit.

Norfolk
rocked under the blunt force of impact, her frame groaning from stem to stern. As she began to roll, the starship roared past on the viewscreen, releasing aft torpedoes in her wake. One of them struck
Norfolk
amidships, while the others exploded fore and aft. The resulting shock wave shattered consoles across the bridge, gravity and inertia canceling each other out and tossing crewmen back and forth. Rivellini grabbed hold of his chair and hauled himself up, smoke burning his eyes as he tried to make sense of it all.

“Emergency power!” he ordered. “Give me some room to maneuver!”

“I can’t get engineering!” ops answered. “Nobody’s responding!”

“Then get me a weapons lock!”

“Fire control is down!” tactical replied. “I need a minute to bypass!”

Looking up through the static on the viewer, Rivellini knew they didn’t have that kind of time.
Reston
had swung around and now approached on a kill vector, her weapons locked. He kept going over the reasons why a Federation starship would want to destroy them—and it was only then that he noticed the starship’s true configuration.

“No,” he whispered, as the Borg ship coasted to a halt.

It hung there, suspended over them, as an abject quiet settled over the bridge. Everyone stared at that image, nobody daring to move or make a sound, as the seconds ticked into minutes. But still nothing happened. Rivellini picked himself up, straightening his uniform jacket while he cleared his throat, speaking the words no captain ever wanted to utter.

“Signal enemy vessel,” he said. “Is it their intention to discuss terms?”

The comm officer opened a channel, but received no response.

“Ask them what they want.”

Again, the Borg ship refused to answer. After a few moments,
however, it broke off from
Norfolk
and pushed into the debris field, where it drifted among the
Celtic
’s remains and collected all the pieces. One by one, it assimilated them all—and when it finished, the Borg ship turned about and withdrew. It shrank into the distance as it left the Korso Spanse, farther and farther until it was only a speck.

Then it disappeared into warp, gone in a relativistic shimmer.

“Alert Starfleet Command,” Rivellini intoned. “Inform them that the Borg are back.”

Greg Cox

Historian’s Note

This story takes place in the year 2370 (ACE) just after the discovery of the interphasic organisms infecting the
U.S.S. Enterprise
NCC-1701-D warp core (“Phantasms”) and before Ambassador Lwaxana Troi comes aboard the ship with the Cairn (“Dark Page”).

Captain’s book, today.
Went a long way. Will go more tomorrow. We are far from home.

Not right now.”

Aadnalurg, captain of the Pakled freighter
Rorpot,
waved away Snollicoob, his chief engineer. A comfy chair supported his ponderous bulk as he rested in his stateroom, adjacent to the bridge. The delta-shaped chamber was dominated by a squat, cluttered desk made of dull orange metal. Outside a metal porthole, distant stars streaked past at warp speed. The captain scowled at Snollicoob for intruding on his privacy; he did not feel like looking over any boring maintenance reports at the moment. It was time for his lunch and then maybe a nap. A tray of replicated leviathan blubber rested on top of his desk, next to a mug of steaming
raktajino.
The refreshing Klingon beverage was just one innovation that the Pakleds had adopted as their own. A nearby couch beckoned to him.

He stifled a yawn. It was hard work being a captain, telling people what to do. He would look at those reports tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that.

“But the reports are ready,” Snollicoob protested. He stood before the captain, holding out a padd full of data. Like the captain, he was a heavyset humanoid clad in a layered brown uniform made of thick, quilted fabric. Bushy brown eyebrows, meeting above his nose, climbed toward a receding hairline, giving him a perpetually bemused expression. What little hair he had was slicked back from his forehead. Squinty brown eyes were sunken beneath the heavy brows. Horizontal facial folds creased his cheeks. A tool belt girded his waist. Typical of Pakleds, his verbal abilities were distinctly limited. “You should read them. Now.”

“Later.” Aadnalurg disliked repeating himself; it was too much work. A medallion upon his chest proclaimed his rank. He took the
padd from Snollicoob and put it aside, atop a stack of navigational reports and sensor readings he was going to look at sometime soon. When he found the time. The padd teetered precariously atop the pile. “My eyes are tired.”

Maintenance reports always put him to sleep. Besides, he would rather play with his pet slug. Snirgli wriggled upon his lap. Its tentacles protruded over the edge of the desk, sniffing the captain’s lunch. Aadnalurg plucked a tiny morsel of blubber from the tray and fed it to the greedy mollusk. Its mottled yellow skin glistened wetly. Over ten centimeters long, from head to tail, Snirgli stretched eagerly for the treat. Aadnalurg chuckled at the slug’s appetite. He licked his greasy fingertips. The replicated blubber tasted almost as good as the real thing.

“You said that yesterday,” Snollicoob reminded him. “And the day before.”

Aadnalurg frowned. The engineer was smarter than average. Maybe too smart. He could be exhausting.

“I am worried about the warp engine,” Snollicoob persisted. He appeared to be in no hurry to leave the captain alone with his meal. “It is getting old. We should replace it.”

Warp technology was new to the Pakleds.
Rorpot
had stolen its engine from a derelict Cardassian scout ship abandoned during a border skirmish with the Federation. Aadnalurg did not really understand how the engine worked, but Snollicoob had always made it go before. Replacing it would be hard. The captain groaned at the prospect, but he supposed he would have to get around to it someday. Snollicoob was smart. He understood how the ship worked better than anyone. Aadnalurg wondered if maybe he should listen harder.

“Will it go?” he asked.

“Yes,” Snollicoob admitted. “But it is old. It needs repairs. And new parts.”

“Soon,” the captain promised. The tantalizing aroma of the raw blubber tickled his nostrils; he wanted to stop talking and eat. His stomach rumbled. “You think too much. Relax.” He gestured at the tray of food. “Sit down. Help yourself.”

Snollicoob hesitated. He glanced briefly at the ignored padd. But, as Aadnalurg had hoped, the generous offer—and the enticing odor of the fatty blubber—proved too tempting to resist. The engineer pulled
over a stool and sat down opposite his captain. He licked his lips. “Thank you. I
am
hungry.”

“Uh-huh.” Aadnalurg fed Snirgli another bite of leviathan. He grinned at the engineer, pleased to have changed the subject at last. Buck teeth protruded from his upper lip. “You are a good crewman, Snollicoob. Later we play a game of
broogola.
” The demanding board game, copied from a Terran game known as tic-tac-toe, was a favorite pastime aboard the ship. “All right?”

Snollicoob grinned back at him. “Yes. I will enjoy that.”

The captain looked forward to the game. Maybe he would even beat Snollicoob for once.

The two Pakleds dug into their meal. They tore lumps of blubber apart with their bare hands, disdaining utensils, and talked with their mouths full. Snirgli squirmed onto the table, leaving an adorable trail of mucus behind. Both men laughed at the pet.

The engine could wait. . . .

“Sub-captain?”

First officer Frojuhpwa awoke with a start upon the bridge. Disoriented, he looked about in confusion, momentarily uncertain where he was. He had been dreaming about a sunny beach on Risa, before the intrusive voice snatched him back to reality. His bleary eyes took in the familiar sights and sounds of
Rorpot.
A soothing orange light radiated from the glowing power column at the rear of the bridge, illuminating the rust-colored steel bulkheads. A low ceiling gave the bridge the feel of a cozy den. Arched doorways led to adjoining corridors and compartments. Crewmen huddled around scattered control pedestals, looking over each other’s shoulders as they stood at their stations. The only chair upon the bridge, which Frojuhpwa now occupied, was behind the command console in the center of the chamber. The forward viewscreen displayed the inky blackness of interstellar space. Stars and nebulae sparkled in the distance. They looked very far away.