I just thought it was time to check up on... someone... with this one.)
Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057
"The Borg don't do reverence," I protest. "Trust me on this. I know."
Tallasa glances at the image on the screen. "Nonetheless, sir -" she begins.
"Nonetheless, nothing. It's a mothballed Borg facility." I limp towards the viewer, studying the picture. "They do that, often enough."
The picture shows a roughly pyramidal structure of blackened metal and spidery girders, towering up from a rocky, barren plain, under the wan light of an M-class star. It's hard, at first, to get a sense of scale for the thing - until you look close, at a tiny, tiny white dot, and realise that's a Starfleet runabout, and do the math. Then you know that this thing is several kilometres tall, so tall that the tip sticks out of this world's thin troposphere....
"It only looks like a monument," I say in pettish tones. God, I can do pettish these days. Not to mention querulous. I'm beginning to wonder when I'll make it all the way to senile. I turn, and narrowly avoid stumbling as I make my way back to the centre seat. My Andorian exec stands up, starts to reach out a supporting hand, thinks better of it.
"Still reading one faint life sign." Saval's voice comes from my blind side. I still hate having a blind side. I turn my head. The bewhiskered Vulcan's face is completely impassive, as per usual, but I reckon I know what's going through his mind. Same thing as is going through Tallasa's, probably.
"Well, there you are, then," I say. "So much for One of One, Patient Zero for the Borg infection. I mean, they'd be how old, by now? Thousands. They'd be dead. The organic parts of drones, they age, they wear out, and when they've worn out, the Borg dispose of them." I slump in the command chair, feeling aged and worn out myself. The Borg pyramid on Pelsidia II is still on the screen, towering, enigmatic.... Not so long ago, I would have known what it was. I tap irritably at one of the remaining Borg implants in my temple, next to the patch over my left eye. Two of Twelve, the Borg voice that used to be in my head, says nothing.
Do I miss her? Do I honestly miss her?
"Dr. Ricardo's science team report they're about to penetrate the sub-levels," says Leo Madena from the comms station.
"I'll bet they are, the dirty little devils." I heave myself out of the chair again. "It's time for me to do my exercises. Keep me informed." I limp off towards the ready room.
---
I look in the mirror. Pale, gaunt, dark spiky hair, scars and Borg remnants, all present and correct. Unlikely to win Miss Universe this year either, I think. Cautiously, I raise the eyepatch.
My vision blurs immediately, and my new left eye fills with tears. The problem is, using it is the only way to integrate it into my nervous system, to get my visual cortex used to processing the input. But, until it does get integrated, the input is... confusing. To say the least.
I turn away from the mirror, grope across the ready room to my desk, and sit down heavily. I have about half a minute to regroup, before the door hisses open, and a blue and white Cubist nightmare comes into sight. In my exec's voice, it says, "Sir, are you all right?"
"Just dandy," I croak, leaning sideways as the visual scrambling affects my balance. Good thing I'm sitting down. Tallasa comes further into the room, so the door slides shut behind her.
"You shouldn't be here, sir," she says. "You're still... convalescing."
"I'll convalesce here a darn sight better than under Quinn's feet back at Spacedock," I growl. "Besides, I'm fine, damn it." It occurs to me, as I sit here listing fifteen degrees to starboard with tears running down my face, that that last sentence might not sound entirely convincing. Never mind.
"You don't have to prove anything, sir," says Tallasa. "If you're not physically up to things, no one would blame you -"
"Look. OK, I'm not at my best, but I need to be up and doing, right? Besides, I won't get over my current limitations unless I push them a bit. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
I think Tallasa might be nodding, it's hard to tell. "And who said that, sir?"
"Me, just then." I make an irritated gesture and knock something off the desk - don't know what, but it goes thump on the floor and not smash, so that's OK. "Look, I know what you're getting at. Yes, my memory's not what it was when it was... artificially augmented... but that's OK, everything still works, I can cope, dammit." I take a deep breath. "Also, Arthur C. Clarke. See? Still got it."
"I hope you're right, sir," says Tallasa. "For all our sakes."
"Of course I'm right. Arthur C. Clarke. Dead sure." She knows I'm deliberately misunderstanding, and I know she knows, and I don't know what difference it makes. I couldn't read the expression on her face now, I know, even if I could see it properly.
There is a pause in the conversation, broken by the entrance of a distorted blurry thing with Leo Madena's voice. "Trouble, sir," he says. "We've lost contact with the science team - and their life signs are no longer registering."
---
I've put the eyepatch back in place, but the console readout doesn't make a lot more sense that way anyway. "Transponders and remote vital signs monitoring both cut out here," says Saval, pointing to an abstract glowy thing that must mean something to him. "We read small increases in overall EM activity, but nothing definite - no high output energy discharges, no transporter signatures."
"Well, I won't say I told you so," I say, "but I told him so." Dr. Erwin Ricardo, up-and-coming expert on Borg history, now missing, presumed - well, when your life signs vanish inside an old Borg facility, presumptions start at "dead" and work upwards towards the really horrible. "Abandoned Borg whatsit, does not contain mythical progenitor of the Borg, does contain heaps of big trouble, stay the hell away. Why bother to call me in for an opinion if you don't listen to it?"
"I don't think you told him what he wanted to hear, sir," says Leo.
"Yeah, well, too bad," I say. "Something tells me he made a mistake he's not going to learn from.... Have we got any idea what that faint life sign is, down there?"
"Still unknown at this time, sir," says Saval.
"Mmm." I scratch pensively at the side of my eyepatch. "It might help to know what it is and how it's managing to stay alive down there. Because we need to send someone in and see if we can recover the science team, and it'd be a lot of use to know how to stay alive doing it."
"Indeed, sir." All of a sudden, Tallasa has her taking no nonsense from my commanding officer voice on, and her antennae are standing up very stiff and straight indeed. "We need to send in medically fit personnel as soon as we can, to effect a search and rescue if possible. I'm sure your directions and advice to the search team will be invaluable. Sir."
A good executive officer knows what her CO is thinking, and Tallasa is a good executive officer. Damn it. "All right," I say, trying to think a bit faster. "Let's get some assessment of what tools our team's going to need down there, and I'll work out what Borg countermeasures they're liable to run into. Meet in the morning at 0830, that OK with everyone?"
I'm sure Tallasa registers surprise, but it's quickly hidden behind the professional mask. "That sounds like a good move, sir. We'll be ready."
"Good to hear it." I pick up my cane and limp off towards the ready room. "If anyone needs me, I'll be burning the midnight oil in there, trying to figure out the Borg." God, that used to be easier. So did getting past Tallasa.
---
"Computer. Tell me the location of Commander Tallasa."
"Commander Tallasa is in her sleeping quarters."
"Hot diggity. At last." I stand up and stretch. I've been sitting behind that desk for hours, partly digging through files on Borg installation architecture, mostly waiting for this moment. Andorians have irregular sleep patterns, but they have to sleep sometimes, and Tallasa is going to be much less inclined to argue if she's tucked up in bed.
I stride to the ready room door, worry for a moment, then step out onto the bridge. It's quiet out there - lots of watch-standing types whom I don't see often, the reliable second-stringers who actually keep my ship running. The only regular there is Leo Madena, still on comms. So it's him I go up to. "Leo. With me."
"Sir?" He looks worried. And well he might.
"I have an idea or two. Come on, walk with me." He looks even more worried. "Oh, come on, it can't hurt to listen. I'm not a Drongidian screeching death-beetle, after all." I have no idea what one of those is, if it even exists, but it sounds good. "Turbolift, now."
He comes with me. His agitation, already marked, increases when I say "Transporter room three."
"Sir -" he begins.
"I've got an idea, Leo, and to check it out, I need to be down on the ground. And I need some backup, so you're elected."
"Does Commander Tallasa know -?"
"Leo. Who's in charge here?" He looks at me with kicked-puppy eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, Leo, this is still a military organization, it's not a multiple-choice question. Me. I'm in charge. Just me."
"Yes, sir." He swallows loudly. "Uh, are you going to tell Commander Tallasa that, sir?"
"Not if I can possibly avoid it." The turbolift doors hiss open. "Now come on. Let's dress for the occasion."
---
The Dyson combat armour feels good. Since half my Borg implants got burned out and pulled out during the final conflict with the Rift entity, I've had to get used to being slower, weaker - more basic human - than I used to be. But the power-assist in the converted Voth battlesuit makes up for the loss of my Borg wiring, lets me move with smooth power and efficiency. I settle the helmet into place. It still has space at the back for an elongated Voth crest; I keep trying to figure some way to fit a hip flask or something in there, but Engineering won't let me.
Leo is armoured up in standard polyalloy weave, hugging a phaser rifle that looks as big as he is. "Coordinates locked," I say, fiddling with the transporter panel. "Ten seconds to energize. Get on the pad, Leo, 'cause I'm taking at least some of you with me no matter what." Leo looks miserable. I don't know why, when he's at the comms station the bridge is usually exploding all around him, you'd think he'd be glad to see some different explosions at least.
The warning light on the console blinks. "Energizing," I say, and blue light sparkles all around us -
- and we're down. It's dim and dark and metallic, a corridor of black metal gridwork, sunlight filtering down through myriads of tiny holes, giving us just enough light to see by. I raise my proton beam rifle to the ready position. "Give me a quick tricorder scan," I say. The air is thin and dry, just about adequate to breathe.
"Yes, sir." The whine of the tricorder is the only sound. Except my own pulse... and a vague, staticky whispering, somewhere at the edge of hearing, that feels like it might be whatever's left of Two of Twelve. Well, if anything's going to bring her out of retirement, being in a Borg facility will do the job.
"Nothing much registering, sir," says Leo. "The Borg machinery appears to be inactive... I'm not reading that life sign anywhere near... wait." The whine changes in tone. "I think I have something. Might be the automatic distress call from a Federation combadge."
"Ricardo's team. All right. We go in that direction, but carefully." We shuffle off down the corridor. It's at something of an angle... I think the ground must have shifted since this place was put into mothballs.
We're trying to be cautious, but the sound of our booted feet on the metal grating... carries. It's the only sound. There isn't even a wind. I don't think I've ever been anywhere that felt so dead.
Then, as we advance, we see it. Ahead of us, the floor of the corridor ends. A line of blackness cuts across the metal, a chasm that I can't see the far side of. I shuffle forwards cautiously, peer over the rim. Below, a tangle of broken metal, and an irregular hole... going down, far, far down, towards a dim red glow.
"I don't know how far that goes, sir," says Leo. He's come up beside me and is fiddling with his tricorder.
"I do," I mutter. Things are starting to fall into place, half-shredded memories of Borg technology. "All the way down. Through the crust. This is a mantle mine. Hoovering up, I dunno, some rare mineral, topaline, maybe."
"Why's it so tall, sir?"
"In operation, it'll be taller. The thing must open up and the machinery rises up, sticking right out of the planetary atmosphere, blowing the stuff out into space for passing Borg ships to pick up. Then, the stuff ran out, so they closed down the facility. Left it here, in case they needed the planet for anything else."
"The science team -?"
I point. Downwards. "Must've fallen through the floor. They checked for power sources, Borg technology, force fields, transporters, whatever. They didn't check for a simple booby trap."
"I'm reading... one combadge, sir," says Leo quietly. "Down among that debris. It must have... come off. When they fell." He looks at me. "Booby trap?"
I point to one of the support struts. "That's been cut. Not recently, but a hell of a long time after this place was abandoned. I think we need to have words with that one life sign down here." I look around. "No way I'm doing a Tarzan of the apes over that pit. Let's find another way in."
"There's a cross corridor through the machinery over to our right, sir, but I don't know how we'll get to it -"
I get my bearings, cross to the wall, raise a power-assisted Voth boot, and kick. The metal groans and shudders. I kick again. And again. At the third blow, the panel caves in, revealing a narrow maintenance passageway beyond. The staticky whispering in my auditory nerves gets louder. I ignore it.
"After all this time," I say as I heave the panel aside, "smashing up Borg stuff still gives me a kick."
The accessway is narrow, very narrow. The hollow crest on my helmet keeps bumping into things. Never mind. After a while, we reach the cross-corridor, and I kick out another access panel and stick my head out - cautiously - to look around.
"Leo. Scan stuff. Paying particular attention to structural soundness." I'm beginning to wish I'd brought one of the engineers along for this junket.
"Scanning.... Sir, there's a pressure plate and what looks like some sort of deadfall ahead."
"Gotcha." I pick the panel up and throw it. Got to love this battle armour. The panel lands on the floor and clangs, and something clicks and rumbles, and all of a sudden several hundredweight of junk falls out of the ceiling. "That is so not the way the Borg work," I say.
Then something goes whang off the wall behind me, and I duck and dive for cover on general principles. Another whang. "I think we've found our life sign," says Leo, cowering sensibly behind a chunk of machinery. Whang. Solid-shot projectiles, nothing fancy... kinetic damage. Stuff the Borg can't adapt to. Good choice of gun, if you're expecting the Borg. Whang. I squint around, trying to work out where the shooting's coming from. Somewhere above us - can't get the angle to return fire -
"Uh, bad news, sir," says Leo.
"What? There's more than one up there?" I look around. I'm starting to get the hang of this place, and I have an idea -
"No, sir. Really bad news."
"Oh, hell." I cut in the suit's comms. "Tallasa? Can't talk now, being shot at." I draw off one glove.
"Transmit your coordinates for the strike team to beam in," Tallasa's frigid voice says in my ear.
"No way. This place is lousy with booby traps, and anyway, I am on the case." I flex the fingers of my still-Borgified hand. The actuators whine, and below the skin, I can feel the charge building up in the neural capacitors. "Still got some Borg junk in my system, I'm going to use it. Leo. Expect an earthquake."
"What are you going to do?" They both ask it. Hell, they even harmonize.
I spot a likely-looking conduit, and jab my fingers into it. "Wake this place up," I say, and I let the capacitors go.
For a moment, nothing happens, except another slug whanging rather too close to my head. Then -
Green lights glow, and the floor shudders, and for a second or two my Borg circuits light up from the induction. I can feel the whole tower, feel the circuits running through it, the flickers of not-quite-sentience in the ancient computers....
Feel something in me, something buried deep but not quite dead, yearning to be a part of all this, yearning to mesh with it and serve its needs.
The floor bucks beneath my feet; the entire building is starting to change shape. There is a wail from nearby, and it's not Leo. A humanoid figure is descending from the ceiling, fleeing the clashing jaws of Borg machines as they spring to life. The noise of the massive engines is overpowering as they strain against centuries of disuse.
Then the circuits register that there's nothing to mine, and filter out the small power surge I created, and the mine remembers that it's supposed to be dead, and shuts down again. The roar of machinery dwindles to a rumble, a mutter, and finally to silence again.
The humanoid is on the floor, scrabbling for his gun, which he's dropped amid the debris of the deadfall. I raise the proton rifle and fire a single warning shot. The blue beam screeches over his head, and he freezes.
"One of One, I presume," I say. "I'm Admiral Veronika Grau. Call me Ronnie, everyone does."
---
After all that, the conference room of the Falcon seems quite peaceful and homey. Or it would, but for the baleful presence of a fuming Andorian.
"He's a Pelcodian petty criminal," Tallasa says. "Apparently, he explored the structure a number of years ago, and he's been using it as a sort of base. First exporting bootleg Borg salvage, then as a sort of drop-point for a number of smuggling endeavours."
"And he spread the rumours about it being the last resting place of One of One, to make sure people kept the hell away." I nod sagely. "And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their dog."
Tallasa glares. "He seems to have spent years living there alone - setting up those traps, among other things. Frankly, I think he's more than a little deranged. Perhaps you should handle the interrogation, sir, since you obviously speak his language."
"Oh, hell, a little deranged is a completely different dialect from stark staring bonkers. Never mind." I give her my very best superior smile. "See? It all worked out all right in the end."
"Except for Dr. Ricardo, sir."
"Yes, well. The lesson to be learned from that is, always listen to Auntie Ronnie, she gives good advice."
Tallasa's mouth is compressed into a thin line. "I'll go handle the rest of the interrogation, and coordinate with Delta Command on our next step, sir," she says.
"Great idea. I'll just get on with my exercises, then." I reach for the eyepatch.
Tallasa glares at me again, looks as if she's about to speak, evidently thinks better of it. She stalks out of the conference room. A few seconds later, there comes a loud bang, as of a very angry Andorian boot hitting the wall very hard.
I lean back in my chair, and contemplate the ceiling through teary eyes.
"Yep," I say to the world at large, "still got it."
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