The sight of them filling the screen, hour after
hour, was starting to prey heavily on Martok's
nerves. He prayed for some relief from it. Any
sort of relief.
"We are receiving an incoming transmission!"
There was great surprise in his officer's voice,
as if he, too, thought that they were going to be stuck
there ad infinitum.
"From the Borg?"
"Yes, sir."
"On screen."
The screen wavered for a moment, and then an
image appeared that stunned Martok into silence before
he could even begin a swaggering, "This is Martok
in command of the Ferengi marauder ship."
It was Daimon Turane.
Or, at least, what was left of Daimon
Turane.
His head had been encompassed in some sort of
gear composed of metal and black leather. One
eye was gone, replaced by a glowing red lens. His
face was deathly white. The perpetual,
calculating sneer that was practically ingrained
into all Ferengi was gone, replaced by a cold,
passionless, thin-lipped look of arrogant
confidence.
When Martok managed to get out anything, it was
a harsh and stunned whisper. "Daimon
Turane?" he said.
"We are no longer the one you call Daimon
Turane," said the individual on the
screen. There was an edge to his voice that hadn't
been there before, an ominous darkness. "We are
Vastator. Vastator of Borg."
"I don't understand," said Martok.
"Vastator? What is ... what have they done
to you, Daimon?"
"I speak for the Borg."
"Daimon, this is incomprehensible. What are
you--"
"I speak," he said again, slowly, as if
addressing a child, "for the Borg."
Martok's mouth moved for a few seconds, and
then his face was set. "Very well," he said
icily. "You speak for the Borg. And what do the
Borg have to say? Are the Borg interested in
negotiating a basis for striking a business
arrangement with the Ferengi?"
"Negotiating is irrelevant. Business
is irrelevant."
"What?" The words that the Daimon were uttering
were literally blasphemy, and were far more convincing than
any mere physical change that something was
definitely wrong with his former commanding officer.
"Daimon Turane, this is unacceptable. I
don't know what they've done to you, but--"
"I have been ... enlightened," said the one who
called himself Vastator. "I have been educated.
I have been made one with the Borg. Profit does
not matter. Profit is irrelevant. The
Ferengi are irrelevant. Only the Borg
matter."
"Are you saying you're staying with the Borg?" The
concept was so difficult for Martok to grasp. For
ages now, all he had ever seen was the Daimon
obsessed with returning to the heart of the Ferengi
empire--after establishing himself within as someone to be
reckoned with. The concept that he might not
return. ...
And then he began to realize. He began
to understand that Turane's staying with the Borg did not
mean that he would not be returning. He might indeed
be planning to return ... backed up by the full
strength and power of the Borg. That, indeed, would be a
threat to contend with.
"These Borg ships remain here," said
Turane, a.k.a. Vastator. "A Borg
ship has been destroyed by an unknown force.
Another has been dispatched to investigate. We
await word and further information. Once we know more,
we will proceed."
"And what do you expect us to do?" demanded
Martok.
Vastator stared at him with--if it could be said
of a Borg--satisfaction. "We expect you
to die."
Martok laughed harshly. "You're bluffing."
"Bluffing," said Vastator, "is
irrelevant."
and confidence, chilled Martok to the bone. There was
suddenly no doubt in his mind whatsoever that the
Borg could do exactly what they said. He also
had the distinct impression--though he couldn't have said
why--that Daimon Turane, or whatever was left
of him, would enjoy their destruction.
"Sever communication," Martok said suddenly and
rapidly, the edge becoming evident in his voice.
"Helm, hard about. Get us the hell out of here.
Shields up."
"But Martok ..."
"Do it!"
The helmsman immediately tried to respond, but
suddenly the ship shook. The Ferengi were hurled
about like poker chips, and Martok cracked his head
on the arm of the chair. "What the hell ...?!"
"A tractor beam!" shouted his tactical
officer. "They have us! They're pulling us toward
them!"
"Full power to engines. Break us free!"
The marauder channeled every bit of energy, every
reserve, into their engines. The ship shuddered and
strained against the force of the Borg tractor beam.
Dampeners were overridden, systems began
to overload, and the howling of the engines became louder
and louder, a continual revving that was not getting them
anywhere.
"Systems malfunction!" came the shout from
ops. "We're losing forward drive!"
"All power to weapons!" snarled Martok.
"Fire!"
The Ferengi ship fired upon the Borg ship which
shook slightly when it hit. Suddenly the
tractor beam vanished.
"Now!" shouted Martok. "Get us out!
Now!"
The marauder leaped forward, desperately trying
to compensate for its ravaged control systems.
Another few seconds, and they might actually have
gotten away.
A force beam lanced out from the middle
Borg ship--the one which was the new home of the
Borg known as Vastator. The beam was directed
by him. It was requested by him. Although revenge was
now irrelevant, there was something deep within him that
took immense pleasure. Just as there was something
even deeper within him that cringed and cried out and
screamed. Screamed, though there was no one to hear.
The beam slashed through the marauder, dissecting it,
cutting the nacelles off it the way one would
pluck the wings off a fly. The ship hurtled end
over end for a moment, and then ruptured. It blew
completely apart, the vacuum of space swallowing
the sound and impact of the explosion, and the abortive
screams of the entire crew. Within moments the
fir eball that had been the marauder was snuffed, and
except for some free-floating rubble and shreds of
bodies, there was no evidence that there had ever been
a Ferengi ship there at all.
Vastator observed the explosion from the safety
of the Borg ship. There had been nothing to gain from
taking the ship apart and assimilating it
. Any knowledge
of the Ferengi that the Borg deemed necessary had already
been garnered from what he carried in his mind. So the
concept of keeping the shipful of Ferengi around was a
useless one. Nor did the Borg have any
desire to let the Ferengi depart and warn their
fellows about the three Borg ships that were awaiting
word on the fate of their brother ship.
Once upon a time the Borg would have considered
warnings irrelevant. The Ferengi could have gone
on ahead and let their entire race know that the
Borg were coming, and it would have been irrelevant.
The Borg were superior. The Borg were
inevitable. Whether you knew they were coming or not
made no difference. You could make preparations for
it, you could try and stave it off or keep one step
ahead of it. But the Borg did not care, because the
Borg would always win.
Recent developments, however, had prompted
the Borg to proceed with more caution. They had
suffered more losses in recent days than they could
recall suffering in their entire history the loss
at the homeworld of the Federation in sector 001, the
loss of Locutus, the loss of a Borg ship in
that battle, and the loss of another Borg ship at
the world called Penzatti. Like the annoying buzzing
of flies, the losses were starting to pile up and
become something to consider.
So the Borg were considering the losses. And the
Borg were changing their strategy, altering
their approach. They were doing whatever needed to be
done to accommodate the inevitable assimilation of
all life forms by the Borg. If that meant taking
a wait-and-see attitude, then the Borg would
wait and see.
Vastator indulged himself a moment or two
longer, watching airless space extinguish the last
trace of the fireball that marked the marauder's
passing.
They were now permanently irrelevant.
Vastator turned on his heel, Borg
soldiers at either shoulder, and headed back into the
heart of the Borg ship. All he had to do now was
wait and see what would happen next. The Borg
uni-mind would tell him what to do. The uni-mind
knew everything, and would be triumphant over all.
That was the way of the Borg. That was the destiny of the
Borg.
But with all that had occurred to them ... and with the
savvy and experience of Vastator to aid them ...
they would proceed with caution. They learned from
experience, and learned quickly. That was the strength of the
Borg.
That was why they would never fail.
Never.
ACT TWO
Chapter Nine
"Her name is Reannon Bonaventure, and
she was officially declared missing, presumed dead,
thirteen years ago."
The senior officers were grouped around the conference
room table, listening to the pronouncement from Data,
who had just finished his computer studies. They were also
staring at the computer screen and the image that had been
called up on it. Outside the viewing port
hung the now-familiar image of the Penzatti
homeworld. The concept of playing guard for a
planet in the event that the Borg should show up was a
strenuous one, for it meant having to be constantly
on alert, never knowing when battle was going
to suddenly present itself. It was an extremely
unpleasant situation to be in.
Troi shuddered, for the young woman whose face
appeared on the screen bore a striking
resemblance to Troi herself large, luminous
eyes, classic features. Her hair was a
few shades lighter than Troi's, and there was
something else unusual about her. The officers had
seen many pictures that had been taken, as in the
case of this one, for the purpose of obtaining a
freighter pilot's license. But it was the only
one in which the subject was impishly sticking her
tongue out at the camera.
"Quite an ... interesting young woman," Picard
said. "And certainly a unique picture."
"I think I remember hearing about her,"
Riker said after a moment's thought. "Yeah, I do.
Oh, I remember her now!" and he snapped his
fingers. "How could I have forgotten? She was quite a
character."
"This picture would seem to indicate that,"
observed Crusher.
"That picture doesn't begin to tell the half
of it. They called her the "Brass Lass,""
said Riker. "She would transport any
freight, anywhere. She would deal in anything,
legal or illegal. No matter how deadly
or hazardous the area, she would cross it, if
that's what it took to get her cargo through."
"I remember as well." said Picard. "The
"Brass Lass." My God. There was quite an
uproar about her. Starfleet wanted to shut down
her operation because of all the treaties she was
ignoring, but there were too many members of the
Federation who were using her for their own various
purposes. Raised quite a ruckus."
"She had a cloaking device, a ship that she
called the Phantom Cruiser, and as much
guts as anyone ever had," said Riker
admiringly. "Once, to get medical supplies
to a plague-ravaged colony, she determined that
the shortest distance was straight through Romulan
space. She went right in. We had no direct
line into the Romulans at the time, but word was that there
were all sorts of skirmishes and that that entire
sector of Romulan space was on full
alert. And she dodged them all and came out the
other side. Saved the colony."
"And this woman," said Bev Crusher in
wonder, "this woman is now sitting in one of my
examining rooms."
"She disappeared one day," said Riker.
"Reportedly she had royally infuriated the
Tholians over something ... you know how touchy they
are, especially when it comes to intrusion in their
space. They put a price on her head and were
hunting her pretty hard. Rumor had it that she
took off for deep space to lie low for a while
until things blew over."
"Is it possible she went far enough to have wound up
within Borg space? It would have taken her years
to get there."
"Anything is possible where the "Brass
Lass" is concerned," said Riker, with a touch of
admiration. "If she felt the only way to keep
her head on her shoulders was to explore entirely
new territories, she would have done it in a
second. She was utterly fearless."
"She may well have been the first human being that
the Borg encountered," said Picard slowly. "And
they found her intriguing enough to assimilate her
into themselves. Dr. Crusher ... what is her
present condition?"
"I've removed all of the prosthetics and
appliances," Crusher said, "and reopened her
neural pathways in order to re-establish
normal brain functions. Skin grafts should
take a day or so to completely heal; and will
probably itch like hell for a while."
"Brain activity?"
She shrugged. "As near as I can tell, she's
functioning normally. But Captain, she's still not
right."
"Not right?"
"What the doctor is saying, Captain,"
Troi now spoke up for the first time, still not taking
her eyes off the image on the screen, "is that
her sense of self--all that she is, and was--
has atrophied, probably beyond recovery. For a
decade or more she has had Borg implants
telling her what to do, when to do it, how to do it. She
hasn't thought. She hasn't assimilated
experiences or done anything for herself. She
hasn't expressed her personality, or even
had it. It's as if she had been locked in a
sensory deprivation sphere for ten years. I
examined her barely an hour ago, and I sensed
nothing of Reannon Bonaventure within her.
Nothing of anything, really. Her heart beats, her
body functions, she has all basic motor
commands. But there's nothing in her. She's a shell
of a human. Nothing more."
"Or, in the vernacular, "her lights are
on, but there's nobody home,"" said Riker.
"I don't accept that," said Geordi
firmly.
They looked at him with curiosity. "Are you
saying Counselor Troi's empathic
abilities are in error?" asked Picard.
"I'm saying, sir, that if there was once a
vital, living person in there," and he tapped the
image on the screen, "then there can be again. We
can't just write her off."
"No one is suggesting writing her off,
Geordi," said Riker.
"That's what it sounds like to me," said Geordi.
"What this woman has is a handicap. Her mind
is damaged. But there's probably something
trapped deep within her, crying to be let out."
"I think that unlikely," said Troi
quietly.
"Well, I don't."
"Geordi--"
"Look at me, Counselor," he said with
unexpected vehemence. "I'm handicapped,
remember? Without this VISOR, I can't see.
But I live with it, and I'm satisfied with the way
I am, because I've received aid and support every
step of the way. And every night, when I lie there in
my bed with my VISOR on the nightstand next
to me, and there's nothing but blackness, I always
wonder what my life would have been like if I