eyes. "There is a man in there who is screaming
to get out."
"I seriously doubt that," said Crusher, her
arms folded.
Picard's eyes narrowed as he said, "It's
most unusual, Doctor, for you to be poorly
stocked in the compassion department."
"It has nothing to do with being stocked," she said.
"There's no man in there screaming to get out."
"You cannot say that for certain," Picard told
her.
"Yes, I can."
"How?"
"Because," said Crusher, pointing at the Borg
soldier, "that's a woman."
Captain Ariel Taggert, with her keen
eyesight and unparalleled abilities of
concentration, saw it first. She pointed and said,
"Thar she blows. Magnification six, ops."
The screen shimmered briefly and then reformed.
The entity was now on their screen. It was huge.
And it was hungry.
And it was eating.
There was a dead silence on the bridge, and the
man at conn said finally, "Holy shit." Then,
suddenly aware that his captain did not approve of
such language, especially on the bridge, he
added quickly, "Sorry, Captain."
But Taggert just shook her head slowly. "No,
it's okay, Mr. Seth. Frankly, I can't
think of a better way to describe it." She
leaned forward, trying not to remind herself that its
immensity was frightening, considering the distance they still were
from it. Part of her--the intelligent part, no doubt
--dearly would have loved to increase that distance a
hundredfold. "What in the blazes is it doing?
It's ..."
"Carving up that planet," said Seth slowly.
"And ... and eating it. And it looks like it's got
a big appetite."
"Is it ... is it the Borg?" asked the
tactical officer.
Taggert studied them for a moment.
"This thing," she said, finally, "makes the Borg
look like tribbles."
"A woman?" said Geordi in confusion. "But
there are no Borg women! At least, no one's
ever seen one."
"When we first encountered the Borg, we found where
they were ... grown," said Data. "Their nursery,
so to speak, where Borgs are grown and affixed,
almost immediately, with machine parts. There were no
females."
"Are you sure there's no mistake,
Doctor?" asked Picard.
"No mistake," said Crusher firmly.
"They may have made hash of her DNA
structure, but I can still see two x
chromosomes with the best of them. I'm
telling you, this Borg is female."
"The point is," said Picard, "what do we do
about it?"
"I believe," said Data, "that I can
restructure her neural motorways in a way
that will reduce her interactive circuit to a
simple, single pulse, generated on a steady
basis. As it is, she keeps awaiting
instructions that will not be forthcoming. It renders her
immobile. By creating a continuous loop within her
interactive circuitry, I would be providing
her with the illusion that she is receiving a response from
the Borg central mind. Her questioning pulse will, in
essence, be rerouted and made into an answering
pulse, retranslated into another question, another
answer, and so on. It will maintain the status
quo."
"You mean she'll be talking to herself," said
Crusher.
Data nodded. "For all intents and
purposes, yes."
"What will she be saying?"
"Initially, nothing," said Data. "She will not
be receiving any instructions. She will simply be
receiving an acknowledgment that the Borg mind, from which
she was severed, is still in existence."
"Can you give her instructions, Data?" asked
Geordi. "Can you restore her and make her into a
person again?"
Data shook his head. "The most that I will be
able to do, Geordi, is to institute the most
rudimentary of commands. She would be able to walk.
She would be able to see her surroundings, although I
doubt she could understand. Every other function of a
Borg is guided by their ship. She is, in
human terms, highly retarded."
"We don't know that," said Geordi. "We
don't know anything about the person sitting in
front of us. There may be a mind in there shouting,
"Help me. Help me out of this living
prison.""
"I don't sense any such thoughts," Troi
offered, "but we have no idea of the extent of Borg
reprogramming. It could be buried so deep that not
even I can touch it."
"It sounds to me like it's a tremendous waste of
time," said Riker. "With the amount of work we have cut
out for us, I don't know if we should be wasting time
and valuable manpower on an attempt that is, in
all probability, going to be
fruitless."
Troi looked at Riker with mild
surprise. There was an unexpected sharpness in his
tone, bordering on anger. There was more to his
response than just simple concerns about
distribution of manpower.
Picard considered everything that had been said and then
turned to Data. "Do you think you can make the
connection with this individual?"
"It is possible, sir. Yes."
"Then she deserves the chance to live again.
Make it so." And then, unwilling to actually see
matters proceeding any further, he walked out
of the ready room, followed by Riker.
They stepped into the turbolift and Picard said,
"Bridge." As the lift began to move, he
said, without looking at Riker, "You sounded somewhat
aggressive in there, Number One."
"I spoke my mind," said Riker. "I had
thought that was standard operating procedure."
"It is. And is that all there is to it?"
Riker fixed him with an even stare. "Yes,
sir."
Picard pursed his lips a moment and then said,
"You can't afford to lose your objectivity where the
Borg are concerned, Commander."
"I know that, sir."
"Then no more need be said."
"No sir."
"Good."
Taggert was standing and studying the object ahead of
them, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Specs on the
planet that's currently serving as that thing's main
course," she said.
"Planet Kalish IX," said Mr. Seth
after a moment. "Class-B. High methane
content, fierce arctic winds. Uninhabitable.
No life forms."
"Okay," said Taggert slowly. "So what we
have to figure out is whether this thing destroyed a
planet because it knew that the planet was lifeless
... or if the planet was simply the first one that
it encountered. Slow to half impulse. Give me
information, people."
"We've been scanning it, Captain," said
Seth. "The hull is neutronium, making
detailed sensor rea
dings impossible."
"Best guess?"
"Mechanical device of some sort.
Perhaps some sort of artificial intelligence,
although for all we know, there's life forms aboard.
Difficult to be certain."
"Open a hailing frequency."
"A hailing frequency," said the tactical
officer, Goodman. "To that thing?"
"If there's a humanoid mind or minds behind
it, I want to talk to it," said Taggert
firmly.
She could understand her officer's surprise. This
thing didn't look like a ship. This thing looked like
nothing she had ever seen before.
Foremost was a wide circular opening in the
front, like a huge, gaping mouth. It was miles
wide, like an entranceway to a tunnel that led
straight down to hell. From within there were flickerings
of some ungodly light, like unseen demons
dancing around a towering pyre. The thing then immediately
angled straight down, the mouth projecting forward
while the rest of the body spiralled down at a
ninety-degree angle to it. It twisted and
turned all the way to the bottom, looking for all
the world like some sort of spacegoing cyclone.
The most noticeable feature, however, was the
huge series of projections that extended from all
over the exterior. They were longest and most
towers miles high that came to points, packed so
densely that they overlapped. Yet there was a
symmetry to them, a sense of deadly beauty and
purpose. With the combination of the flickering within the maw
itself, and the dazzling projections so thickly set
around the mouth, it gave the impression of a
massive, moving, highly stylized starburst. A
mobile sun, consuming whatever was in its path.
Scattered along the rest of the cyclonic
image were more of the huge, spike-like projections.
They stuck out at odd angles, in all
directions. Any one of them looked capable of
skewering a planet through to the core, or smashing
through starships with no trouble. It meant that an
attacking ship couldn't even get in close.
"Sir, having trouble getting through," reported
Goodman. "We're getting some sort of
subspace interference. It'll take me a
minute to punch through."
"Can you inform Starfleet of what's going on?"
"Negative, sir. We have local
communication, but there's too much interference to go beyond
the solar system."
Taggert sat back in the command chair, steepling
her fingers. A planet-devouring ship.
Neutronium hull. Subspace interference.
Damn, it all sounded familiar somehow. "Mr.
Seth," she began, "check Starfleet logs
for--"
"Captain, we're getting a response!"
The surprise in Goodman's voice was clear.
"On visual."
"No visual transmission."
"Audio, then."
There was a pause, and then there was a voice ...
a combination of voices. A symphony of
voices.
"Yes?" it said. Insanely, it sounded almost
polite, as if going about consuming planets was
simply standard operating procedure.
Taggert licked her suddenly dry lips and
said, "This is Captain Taggert of the starship
Repulse." She paused, waiting for some
response, some replying identification.
Instead, the huge planet-destroyer simply
hung there. Chunks of rubble were being hungrily
scooped up by means of what appeared to be a
tractor beam.
"And?" said the voice finally. It seemed even
vaguely amused somehow.
"Identify yourself," said Taggert.
"Why?"
"Because," Taggert said, using annoyance to cover
her deep-seated conviction that they were in way over
their heads, "I wish to know the name of the
individual, or individuals, who believe that
they can just go about the galaxy, destroying planets
with impunity."
There was a silence. And then the voice spoke
again. "You describe the Borg," it said.
"You are not one of the Borg," said Taggert.
"No. But they are the destroyers. They
operate with impunity. We will stop them, though.
I will stop them."
"You just destroyed a planet!" said Taggert.
"What makes you any better?"
"There was no life. We needed the fuel.
I needed the fuel. We are hungry. Hungry
for fuel. Vengeance fuels our hatred, but the
body needs fuel of a different sort."
"And if there had been life?"
"There was none."
"But if there were?" Taggert said, this
time with increased urgency.
"Then they would die. It does not matter.
Nothing matters except stopping the Borg. The
soulless ones. For if they are not stopped, then
truly nothing will matter."
"I must ask you," said Taggert firmly, "as
a duly authorized representative of
Starfleet, to remain where you are. We cannot permit
you to continue on your present course."
"You cannot stop me."
"We will do what we have to."
"If what you have to do is die, then that is
what you will do. We would regret that. But if it is
necessary, then it is necessary. Nothing must stop me from
destroying the Borg."
"Captain, communications have been cut off,"
said Goodman.
"It's finished consuming the planet," said
He looked up in alarm. "Captain ... there's
a small colony on Kalish VIII--THREE
hundred people."
Taggert bolted to her feet. "Hard about,
Mr. Seth. Alert all transporter rooms.
Emergency evacuation about to commence. Raise the
colonists."
"They hailed us, Captain. They're coming on
now."
On the screen appeared the panicked face of a
colonist. His skin had turned as white as the thin
hair on his head. "Repulse, come in!" he
was saying urgently. They could see, behind him, people
running about frantically, screaming, waving their
arms. "This is Astra colony on Kalish
VIII. Come in!"
"We're reading you, Astra," said Taggert, the
voice and picture of calm.
"Our planetary sensors are reading--"
"We know," she said. "We'll be there in no
time. Get your people together--transportation will go
faster if we can do you in large masses. And
pray," she added, "that what's coming toward you is
full from its most recent meal."
The Borg soldier lay in the biobed, the
implants glistening metal all over her skin
and, insanely, the knife still sticking out of her arm.
Dr. Crusher was studying the implants
carefully, shaking her head. "Machine parts,
attached to people against their will," she was
muttering. "Tapping into your body and soul. It's
like cybernetic rape."
Data had finished putting the connectors from his
own positronic mind to the appropriate
connections on the Borg. La Forge stood
nearby, making some last-minute adjustments.
"Data, you sure about this?" he asked.
Data looked at him with as close
to puzzlement as he could muster. "Of course not,
Geordi," he said. "One can only be sure if
there is no possibility of error, and all
factors are known. With the Borg, neither condition
is met."
"You sure know how to instill a sense of
security," mumbled Geordi, going back to his
work.
Deanna Troi stood nearby, feeling
helpless and useless. She was reaching out as much as she
could to the helpless woman in the biobed, but there was
simply nothing there. Troi was perceiving no sense
of awareness, no sense of self, no nothing. It
was as if the biobed were empty.
"I am ready to proceed," said Data
quietly.
Crusher stepped aside to keep a close eye
on the life signs. "Ready on this end," she
said.
"Proceeding," said Data, and he lapsed
into silence.
No one spoke, and there was no sound except
for a soft, gentle humming of circuitry. All
the normal sounds of sickbay abruptly seem
magnified beyond all proportion. Troi looked
at Crusher, who glanced at her and then looked
at Geordi. La Forge, for his part, kept a
steady watch on all the important
circuitry.
"I have located the neural path that maintains
contact with the Borg central mind," Data said
finally. "It appears to be generating a steady flow
of electrons which, due to the disruption in the
circuitry, are being rerouted and returned to the
programming center. It will be necessary to continue this
loop, or else the immediate destruction of the soldier
will result." He suddenly paused and then said,
"She is aware of my presence."
"Vitals are fluctuating," said Beverly.
"I still sense nothing," Troi commented.
"She is aware," said Data. "On a
rudimentary level, she senses that I
am within her frame of reference."
"Does she know she's severed from the Borg?"
said Geordi.
"No, and she must not find out. Not at this point
in the procedure," Data said. "Otherwise, it
would trigger her self-destruct mechanism ...
as would any attempt by you, Geordi, to remove
her self-destruct mechanism. There are enough
redundant fail-safes within her that you could never