"Max evasive!"
Even as I shout the order, I don't know if it will save us. The Warhammer moved so fast, so incredibly fast - a ship that size can't turn like that. Not unless it had help…
King Estmere is gone. I still can't believe that.
We have one chance. Maybe. "T'Pia. Steer two two seven mark three niner five, then go to max impulse. Jhemyl, keep us between Mur and the Tapiola." Because if Enteskilen Mur decides the little ginger Vulcan isn't funny any more, she is dead meat.
"What's the plan, sir?" Tallasa asks. Oh, like I have a plan.
"Try to lure the Warhammer into the glowies. I don't think Mur can see them."
"Can they harm him?"
"Dunno, really. Let's find out. T'Pia, let's both roll some web mines, round about now."
Web mines tumble from our launchers as our ships sweep out of Warhammer's range - or what I think is Warhammer's range. That ship can move.
*/*give it up---
you can run but you can't hide---*/*
Put a sock in it, you.
"I have a firing solution for the aft tetryon arrays," says Tallasa.
"No!" She looks shocked. "That's what Mur wants. We open fire, he engages his warp mirror thing, we wind up blowing our own nacelles off. No. Indirect fire weapons only."
T'Pia, bless her, has come to the same conclusion. The Tapiola is generating holograms, an impressive battleship and a couple of mean-looking fast tactical escorts. They curve around and close in on the Siohonin ship -
They don't last seconds. Mur isn't messing around any more; he engages his kinetic lance, and the holograms pop like bubbles.
*/*pretty bubbles in the air*/*
Is she singing, now? Damn it, I don't need this.
*/*i know what you need---
and you don't---
hahahahaha---*/*
Unbelievable.
Mur's ship moves into the web mines, and the first pair triggers, and the Warhammer is caged in golden light. Try warp mirroring your way out of that, laughing boy. It won't be enough to do him any serious damage, but it buys us time -
"T'Pia." I sketch out a course on the tac console. "Is Tapiola up for that?"
"I believe it is within our capabilities," says T'Pia's voice. Frankly, that unruffled Vulcan calm is very soothing, in the circumstances.
"Good. We're going to be right behind you every step of the way. I'm hoping Mur will try to take a short cut along the curve of our path."
"Which would, I presume, bring him into contact with the invisible energy fields."
I could argue about invisible, there, I can see the damned things just fine.
*/*well, lucky, lucky you, then---*/*
"That's the idea," I say, firmly ignoring the Borg gibbering in my head.
"We still have no certainty that -"
"If you've got any better ideas, let's hear them!"
"I accept the point," says T'Pia with perfect calm. "Proceeding along the indicated course."
I'm pretty sure an unmodified Tholian ship couldn't handle the manoeuvres I've outlined, but T'Pia's Orb Weaver has a lot more under the hood than any unmodified Tholian -
*/*so had the King Estmere, much good it did them---*/*
"Will you just shut the hell up!" Heads turn around the bridge. "Sorry. Not you. Not anyone here. Lippy Borg problem. Sorry."
The force fields on the web mines have collapsed; Mur is on the move again. He spots the second set of mines, and fries them at long range with his disruptor arrays. The disruptors are standard Klingon style technology, and, actually, they are poorly deployed - the Warhammer is nearly weapons-blind in its forward arc, because that huge dominating rounded prow blocks the firing arcs of the ship's conventional weapons. Of course, since that dome is stuffed full of unconventional weapons, that doesn't help us much.
*/*nothing's going to help you now---*/*
The Warhammer lunges forwards, turning to bear down on our ships. What happens next... is beautiful. The Siohonin ship drives straight into one of the glowing auroral veils, and stops as if it's hit a brick wall. Lightnings flare and flicker all over its hull.
"If it's any help to you, sir," says Tallasa, "I can see that."
"Looks good, doesn't it?" I say. "Any damage reads on them?"
"Superficial only." T'Pia's voice. "They appear to have lost motive power, but their weapons arrays are still active and their shields are up. There is other activity that suggests their exotic weapons are also still functioning."
"We can't go back and finish them off," I say. "OK. Let's put some distance between them and us - and more glowies, bless 'em - and then let's put our thinking caps on and come up with an approach that will work."
"The Warhammer," says T'Pia, "though dangerous, is only a distraction. Our primary objective remains to neutralize the Rift entity."
"It's the same thing," I say patiently. "You can't sling a fat battleship around like a fighter without something finagling in the background. Mur's ship is supported and powered by the Rift entity, and if we solve one problem, we solve the other."
*/*you should be so lucky, lucky lucky lucky---*/*
Ignore her. "I suggest we do this." I sketch out another path on the tac display. "Puts us in the middle of a nice knotty set of energy fields, and it'll take Mur ages to get at us, he'll have to go through practically at walking pace. Gives us time to come up with something."
"I hope you are correct. So far, the problem has proven intractable. Still, we will follow your course directions. Tapiola out."
*/*got to admire her optimism---
pity it's unfounded---*/*
Can it, you. Whose side are you on, anyway?
*/*why are you even asking?---
my own, of course---*/*
Yeah, and which one's that? I wonder, as we move along the course I've mapped out between the glowing veils of light. What happens to Two of Twelve in these situations? And why? That hateful Borg voice in my head barely sounds like a Borg any more....
*/*oh, and why might that be? ---
use your head, why don't you, Ronnie?---
don't mind if I call you Ronnie, do you?---
after all---
everyone does---*/*
Waitaminute, what? What is this?
*/*what is this?---
only the voice in your head---
telling you it wants to move out---
shouldn't you be glad of that?---*/*
"Guys," I say aloud, "something distinctly freaky is going on."
"Sir?" says Tallasa.
*/*that one puts up with soooo much from you, why does she stand for it?---*/*
"I'm opening up some sort of a... dialogue... with Two of Twelve. Or she's opening one up with me. How far to our sort of safe haven out there?"
"Two minutes, sir," says Jhemyl.
"Tapiola still with us?"
"On course and speed," says Jhemyl.
"Right. Right. So... what about Mur?"
"Warhammer is still enmeshed in the energy field, sir," says Saval. "No sign of them restoring motive power yet."
"All right. We've got a breathing space - I hope. I'm going to be carrying on the, um, the conversation with my other half. And I'm going to be doing it in my out-loud voice, so you guys can listen in on my half, at least, and maybe get some idea what's going on. We cool with that?"
"Is this a good idea, sir?" asks Tallasa, with no it isn't written all over her face.
"I don't know. I'm going to find out. Something makes Two of Twelve go all peculiar, here and at Tiaza Zephora. I think we need to know what it is."
*/*you already know---
or you should do---
isn't it obvious?---*/*
"It's not obvious to me."
Tallasa starts to say something; then she cottons on to what's happening, and stays shtum.
*/*come on, Ronnie---
use your head for something besides a hatrack---
do I sound like a Borg?---*/*
"You've got... Two of Twelve's voice. And if you're not a Borg, what are you?"
*/*Two of Twelve's voice? Must be force of habit.---*/*
"What do you mean, force of habit?"
*/*not my habit---
yours---
you hear the voice you're used to hearing---*/*
"If you're not Two of Twelve, who are you? Damn it, when did I get someone else living in my head?"
And then I stop. And then I realize.
The voice doesn't say anything. It doesn't need to.
"When did I get something else living in my head?" I ask the question in a strangled whisper. "Way back, a long time ago... right here."
Oh, says the voice, penny's finally dropped, has it? It really doesn't sound like Two of Twelve any more.
"How long have you been there?"
Since your first trip.
"Since I was first in the Rift? How come I haven't realized it before? Why have you never spoken?"
I didn't know how, at first. This... temporal... existence of yours... it was confusing. Confusing, but exciting. A whole new dimension, you might say. It took multiple trips before I... bedded myself in.
"So how did you take up residence? What brought you here?"
You crossed the Rift. You entered, briefly, for one timeless instant, into our... awareness. I noticed you. I saw the new sensations, the different world that lay in your awareness. I moved myself to a - a vantage point - in your consciousness. So that I could learn. So that I could understand.
"You just... moved in, when I passed through. OK. So... what did you learn, and understand?"
Everyone on the bridge is staring at me, now. Except Jhemyl, bless her, who is moving the ship to station keeping. Professionalism. Got to love it.
I learned how this universe works. Ordered time, sequential, cause and effect in rigid succession. I learned how to tell the time. And I learned....
"Learned what? What else? Tell me!"
I learned... to be me. To be an individual, instead of a facet of pure timeless consciousness. I learned that from you. How to have an identity. And I learned something else, too.
"What else? What, besides how to be a, a person?"
I learned how powerful I am, as a disembodied timeloose consciousness in this universe. I didn't just learn how to be a person, Ronnie. I learned how to be a god.
"You learned how to be a god? Oh, no. Sebreac Tharr."
A name. It means a lot to Enteskilen Mur. It means nothing to me, but if he wants to call me by it, what have I to lose?
"Wait." My head is spinning. "What about the other one? At Tiaza Zephora? The one that used Martin Hudson?"
I chose you. Another chose Hudson. The other was... less efficient.
"Martin said you were cleverer than his - parasite. But what was going on at Tiaza Zephora?"
The other needed my help. He had a complex, erratic, inelegant way of binding himself into this reality. It was in danger of failure.
"In danger of failure? It did fail." A thought strikes me. "Did you help it? Or hinder it?"
I gave help... to some extent. But, even if I had tear ducts, I would not have wept when my brother failed.
"You let Tylha and Rrueo get through with the neutralizing compound. Because you don't want to share your... godhood. You want to be top dog."
I already am. All I need is -
"What? All you need is what?"
To secure my access point to this world. As my brother tried to do. Enteskilen Mur... I reached out to his mind. He was a desperate man, derided for his faith in a god no one else believed in. I became that god, for him. I used my power. And, in gratitude and in faith... he will let me use his body and being, as I am now using yours.
"So why not just... do it? Hop out of my head, into Enteskilen Mur's?" The answer comes as soon as I put the question. "You can't, can you? Whatever powers you've got, you're still stuck inside me. You picked me, now you can't get rid of me."
There is a way to make the transfer. Enteskilen Mur will do it. Then... I will be in this world, with the full partnership of a compliant intelligence. Not a fractious and erratic one like yours. My will and my physical body will be as one, and nothing will be impossible to me.
"Fractious and erratic? I've been called worse. What happens to the rest of us, when you make the transfer?"
What happens to the rest of you? Anything I choose!
"What if I say no? Keep you inside my head?"
Enteskilen Mur will compel you.
"Mur will compel me? Why won't you compel me?"
You are... too close... for me to control. It would be like you trying to affect your own brain stem. The transfer has to be initiated some other way. By something external to you and me.
I twist around in the command chair, grope for a PADD. Without looking, I scrawl a message on the surface with my fingertip - without looking, because I don't want the thing from the Rift to see through my eyes. I hold up the PADD, facing away from me, and hope Tallasa can make out the words phaser pistol.
"You can't affect me directly because I'm too close. Like the glowies, maybe? The glowies are, like, inside of you, you can't see them."
You can see them, because you are a parasite inside me right now. Just as I am a parasite inside you. Confusing, isn't it? The voice laughs.
Tallasa presses the cold slick shape of a phaser into my hand. It feels like salvation.
I don't want to die. But... Sebreac Tharr, the Siohonin invasion... it's a matter of one life against maybe millions, and that's not even a choice at all.
"So you can't stop me doing what I want. You can't prevent me -" I raise the phaser, switch the setting to maximum. "If I jam this against my skull and fire, we both go, right?"
I won't let you do that.
"You can't stop me. You admitted that."
I - might be able to block the beam. It would be... difficult. I can't stop you, directly. But you will be stopped.
"How? Who by? My crew will let me do this." I let my gaze fall on each one of them in turn. "My crew will let me do this."
You're really arrogant, you know. If I have to, I will undo something I did, a little while ago now.
"Undo what?"
Arrogant. You really believe you liberated yourself from the Borg? I tolerated the Collective for a while, but it was dull, so dull. But even dull is better than suicidal -
*/*cranial transceivers online---
reconnect--- priority--- reconnect--- reconnect--- reconnect---
reconnecting---
--- 18%
--- 39%
--- 61%
--- 88%
--- complete
reconnected---
Downloading required updates.
Suppressing local personality
--- 22%
--- 47%
--- 71%
--- 98%
---complete
Commencing systems check.
Reactivating control systems.
Assimilation complete.
We are the Borg. */*
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