Wozniak had asked her: What does your intuition tell you about the Jem’Hadar?
That in their case diplomacy fails, T’Lana had answered. That they are single-minded creatures whose sole focus is killing. That they cannot be reasoned with.
Yet she would have made an effort, if there had only been time.
Next, she saw a series of images, starting with the face of a Jem’Hadar commander reptilian with skin that seemed carved from stone, his temples and jaw covered by rows of osseous projections. His voice, harsh and gloating: You are surrounded by a dozen of our warships. Prepare to be destroyed.
The screen had gone black. A bolt of light bright as Vulcan’s sun blinded T’Lana for seconds, even with her inner eyelids squeezed shut.
Acrid smoke, the stench of burned circuitry and flesh. The thick haze blanketed the bridge, forcing T’Lana to grope for the captain’s chair, only to find it empty.
On the deck, partially obscured by smoke and the afterimage from the blast, Wozniak, wide-eyed and unseeing, slack jawed, half her face incinerated, revealing ivory bone beneath papery remnants of blackened skin.
Instinctively, T’Lana had moved to lift her, but logic halted the action, with the painful realization that Wozniak, if she were not already dead, would not survive long enough to flee the ship. Others might, and her duty lay with the living. That reasoning propelled T’Lana swiftly past the corpses of her crewmates, past the smoldering consoles and nonfunctional lift, down the nearest auxiliary shaft.
She crawled, gasping for air, down to the next level, then the next, and the next, then ran coughing down the corridors toward the shuttlebay. Along the way, she encountered three crew members still living. She carried and dragged them with her into one of only two shuttles still operational.
The final image: from space, the sight of the Indefatigable, scorched and lifeless, as the massive warships moved off.
T’Lana took a deep, controlled breath, then slowly let it go.
Such was the price of a decision rooted in emotion, such was the cost of heeding intuition.
T’Lana opened her eyes and rose slowly. As always, the image of Wozniak’s charred face remained and rose with her.
• • •
After hours, Beverly sat in the captain’s quarters — in their quarters — barely touching the glass of synthehol cabernet in her hand. She longed for a glass of real wine, fine wine from Picard’s private stock, but tonight was not the night for indulgence. The lights had been dimmed, in honor of Enterprise’s night; a single lamp burned nearby on Jean-Luc’s desk, casting sharp shadows.
They were five hours out from their dreaded destination. Sleep was out of the question, and she would need all her energy and wits to face what was coming. This was the hardest part of any mission where lives were at stake — the wait before the storm. It was hard, too, not to stare obsessively at Jean-Luc, to worry when he might next become overwhelmed and collapse.
Seated beside her, Jean-Luc no doubt sensed her worry. It had become their custom, at day’s end, to sit in his quarters, talking and looking out at the stars. Tonight, they were both doing their best to be casual and talk about anything but what was on their minds: the Borg.
“So,” Beverly said, “what do you make of your new counselor?” She knew that Jean-Luc would understand her question. He, too, had noticed the Vulcan’s odd reaction to Worf.
Jean-Luc had chosen to forgo even the synthehol. Without a glass in his hands, he seemed not to know what to do with them tonight. He let go a small sigh. “I’m not at all sure what to make of T’Lana. At first, she had seemed almost genial. And it wasn’t like she had outright snubbed Worf on the bridge, but her reaction was definitely . . .”
“Cold.” Beverly shook her head and set down the unfinished wine. “She seemed so relaxed, so gracious with everyone else —”
“A perfect diplomat,” Picard interjected.
“Exactly.” She paused, then stated carefully, “She hasn’t exactly been supportive of you or your decision.”
He quirked his lip at that. “Far from it. She’s told me straight out — once she was convinced that you had examined me and that I wasn’t floridly psychotic — that she believes my conviction about the Borg is nothing more than an emotional delusion.”
Beverly frowned. “Frankly, that’s hardly helpful advice from a ship’s counselor. Do you think she’s going to fit in with the crew?”
“Give her time,” Jean-Luc said. He began to speak again, then fell silent. She saw the shift in his expression, as if he were listening to something far away. Though his face was half obscured by shadow, she caught his eye, and he managed a faint and unhappy sheepish smile.
Determined to show no alarm, she kept her tone even, neutral. At the same time, she needed to reach out to him. She placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “You’re hearing them now, aren’t you?”
Jean-Luc shrugged. “Nothing new. Just more faint chatter. Boring stuff, actually. And certainly not as bad as it could be. The majority of them are sleeping, waiting for a directive to wake. A skeleton crew is tending the queen and readying the ship.”
And when they finally wake . . . Beverly did not permit herself to finish the thought.
He sighed. “I just don’t like them . . . being in my head again.”
“I understand,” she answered softly. She had been worried not just about the physical threat from the Borg, but about the psychic damage to Jean-Luc as well. “It’s a violation . . . another violation . . .”
Before she could think of something comforting, therapeutic, to say, Picard spoke first, his tone and expression consummately resolute. He pointed to his brow. “But I’m glad they’re here. Glad to be able to sense them. The alternative . . .”
He left the alternative unspoken, but Beverly shuddered mentally. The memories she had of the Borg still entered her dreams from time to time: the Borg breaking down the walls of sickbay, forcing her to flee, panicked, with her patients and the utterly terrified Lily; witnessing the carnage left in their wake, seeing crew members she knew assimilated or killed.
Worst of all was the memory of the day she had stood on the Borg cube. She had been the first to see Jean-Luc as Locutus. She had worked for years to rid herself of the image, of all the other memories, but now they were all resurfacing.
He laughed abruptly, bitterly. “You know, I keep hoping I’m mad, that this is all some sort of psychotic delusion. It’d be easier to deal with.”
“I know,” she answered gently. “But all your scans checked out, Jean-Luc. I’m afraid you’re sane . . . unless this is some new, rare disease, or some strange form of metaspace we’ve entered . . . in which case, we’d all be affected.”
“I keep wishing it was something else, anything other than what it appears to be,” he confessed. “I’d hoped never to have to do this again. It’s like cutting the head off the Hydra; another two take its place.” He rubbed his face, and she caught the glimmer of frustration in his eyes. “It seems like it will never end.”
“But this time is different.”
He looked up at her, his faint surprise mixed with even fainter hope. “How so?”
“This time,” Beverly said firmly, “we’re stopping the Borg before they can start. This time, thanks to your connection to them, no one will have to die. No one — except the Borg.”
His expression grew grim. “I pray you’re right, Beverly. Too many have died under my watch, far too many. Now I’ve not only put my crew’s lives at risk, I’m asking them to risk court-martial as well.”
She faced him, her gaze and words pointed. “Do you have any choice, Jean-Luc?”
He looked away at the stars and in a low voice uttered, “I don’t.”
“And we don’t,” she insisted. “We know you, Jean . . . Captain. We trust you. You wouldn’t do this unless it was absolutely necessary. Can you think of a single one of your officers who wouldn’t make the very same decision you have?”
His lip quirked
wryly again. “Counselor T’Lana.”
“She doesn’t know you. Yet. But she’ll come around.”
“When she sees the Borg ship,” Jean-Luc said heavily.
The words made them both lapse into silence. Beverly settled back into the couch beside him and waited for the encounter that would come before the Enterprise’s dawn.
5
Picard sat through the night, occasionally rising to stare out at the stars streaking by. He felt no fear for himself, only for what his crew might have to endure, only for what he had asked of Beverly, now curled, dozing, beside him.
Instead, he felt anger: anger that he was again called upon to fight a nemesis he had thought conquered, an even greater anger that he again had to subject his crew to a horror no one should be called upon to face. Worse, he felt a mounting fury — one he believed he had overcome but that had apparently lain long buried. It was the rage of a man embittered by an intolerable violation, and with it came infinite grief. He had never forgotten that the Borg had used his knowledge to kill: the crews of forty starships, half as many Klingon warships, assembled near the star called Wolf 359 . . . all dead, because of the contribution Locutus had brought to the Collective. He had known many of the perished; at night, he saw their faces more distinctly, saw their graveyard: ships blackened and battered, helplessly afloat, their hulls rent, leaving twisted bridges open to space . . .
He’d had enough counseling — enough time spent with Deanna — to know that it was not his fault, that the Borg had committed these crimes. Rationally, he understood that well. But thoughts and emotions were two different things.
What had Beverly said?
A wound as deep as yours won’t ever heal completely . . .
He had thought her wrong; he had believed that Lily’s admonition had helped him form a scar too thick ever to be pierced. Now the wound was exposed again, raw: T’Lana was correct in that regard. But he had made a silent promise to himself, to the long-dead Lily, to his crew. He would never again let his fury against the Borg color his command decisions.
The Borg chatter had become progressively louder throughout the night, though the few phrases that were comprehensible gave him no further insight. Yet he could sense himself, his ship, moving steadily closer to them.
He was not surprised when, at last, his communicator chirped. He pressed it at once. “Picard here.”
Beverly stirred, then sat forward, instantly alert.
The voice was Geordi’s. His tone managed to convey an incongruent mix of excitation and grimness. “Per your orders, Captain, we’re not in visual range yet. But our long-range scanners have found the moon we’re looking for.” He hesitated. “And, sir . . . you’re right. There’s a structure resembling a Borg cube in orbit. And it’s massive.”
“Of course,” Picard murmured. It was, after all, a queen vessel.
“It doesn’t seem to have detected us yet.”
“They have no reason to use their long-range scanners. I doubt they’re expecting visitors.” The captain paused, doubting himself for the first time. He couldn’t be sure of that fact, or anything he suspected about the ship. Everything that he had heard so far led him to believe that the Borg cube was not yet fully functional, that all the systems would come online at once when the queen was awakened. But there was no way to be sure of that information. He had put a great deal of faith in his intuition already, but what came next was a tremendous leap. It was the one part of his plan that required his crew to support him without question, even though he already questioned himself.
• • •
On the bridge, Picard sat surrounded by his crew: Worf, Geordi, T’Lana, Nave. He could not help but think of Shakespeare’s Henvy V in the moment: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers . . . Never before had he felt so alone against an enemy.
The Vulcan counselor had expressed polite interest in the fact that the Enterprise scanners had detected something, but she was still unwilling to yield the fact that it was a Borg vessel. He had avoided another confrontation with her over their difference of opinion on the definition of proof, but just barely. Picard could not help noticing that she had scrupulously avoided eye contact or conversation with Worf during the encounter. It was only logical that any counselor would approach the first officer for further discussion once she had exhausted all options with the captain. Not that she would want to undermine Picard, but her level of objection would naturally lend itself to further discussion. For the moment, Picard was thankful for what he perceived as a self-imposed distancing between T’Lana and Worf. Regretfully, that distance was beginning to extend to the other members of the bridge crew as it became clear that T’Lana was singular in her objections.
Beverly alone was absent from the bridge; she’d gone to sickbay. During her half-dozing state the previous night, she’d become inspired to reexamine the many years’ worth of biomedical data collected on the Borg. She would not state what she was hunting for, only that she had a “hunch.” Picard had learned to value those hunches a great deal over the many years he had known her.
The Borg cube was too distant for them to get an image of it on the viewscreen, but Picard knew it was there.
Picard turned to his navigator. “Lieutenant Nave, on my command, I want you to take us to the Borg ship at warp one. Plot a direct route. No diverting course.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Mister Worf, I want you in control of the weapons system,” Picard said. “Take it off-line but ready to bring it back up on a moment’s notice.”
“Sir, you wish to engage the Borg with our defenses down?” Worf asked skeptically.
“If the Borg do not determine us to be a threat, we may not have to engage them at all,” Picard reasoned. “Minimal power to the shields, however, and be prepared.”
“Sir . . .”
“The cube’s systems are not fully online yet,” Picard reasoned. “We should be safe.” Picard knew that he was taking a huge risk, but it was the only option. There was no reasonable way a ship like the Enterprise could sneak up on the Borg cube. His only hope was that the Borg would assume they were on an exploratory mission. Surely they would know it was ludicrous for the Enterprise to take on a Borg cube on its own.
Picard looked over to T’Lana, who met his gaze. He had expected her to protest, but she merely looked resigned to the knowledge that her concerns would fall on deaf ears. When she remained silent, he turned his attention to the conn. “Lieutenant Nave, take us in.”
Nave complied.
Before twenty minutes had elapsed, the neighboring star, a superhot blue giant, appeared on the viewscreen.
“Slow to impulse,” Picard ordered.
The solar system came into view. A ring of rocky, atmosphereless planetoids appeared on the screen, followed by a pair of multiringed gas giants.
They were headed farther in, toward the terrestrial planets. At the first of them, Picard lifted his hand; Nave caught the silent signal and slowed the ship further.
In the planet’s orbit hung a solitary moon, reflecting the brilliant blue-white light of the sun.
This stunning backdrop was half eclipsed at its center by something dark and ungainly, something that pricked the hairs on the back of Picard’s neck.
The Borg cube was a hideous thing: an exposed latticework of thousands of metal conduits haphazardly bracketed by panels and laced with black tubing. Infinite rows of conduits and panels were visible beneath, dotted with the glowing lights of internal machinery. To Picard it looked as if someone had taken the inner workings of a ship and turned them inside out. The vessel had been constructed with no regard for aesthetics, design, grace; even in moonlight, the random accretion of dull gray metal failed to gleam.
Picard had seen his share of Borg cubes, but this one dwarfed them all. It was monstrously vast: next to it, the Enterprise was a gnat, a tiny annoyance easily slapped down.
Of course, Picard realized. This vessel had to be the greatest of them all, for it hou
sed not only the queen but also all the Borg’s determination to finally conquer — no, obliterate — every humanoid race that had fought back, that had prevented the Borg from achieving their ultimate goal of total assimilation. This ship was designed to crush, forever, all resistance.
He glanced at his crew. Nave’s eyes were unabashedly huge, and though T’Lana’s expression remained impassive, she exhibited subtle gestures that, in a Vulcan, were tantamount to a startled gasp: a slight lean forward in her chair while fingering the edge of her console, as if she were fighting the urge to clutch it tightly. The captain felt no sense of satisfaction that she at last saw the empirical proof that he had been right.
As for La Forge and Worf, their faces reflected what Picard himself felt: grim determination and hatred at the sight of an old foe.
Geordi directed his attention away from the ship and back to his console. “Only minimal systems seem to be online. Short-range scanners. Partial weapons. Propulsion is still off-line.” There was relief in his voice.
Picard stared at the screen. Even partial weapons were too much of a threat. “What about shields?”
“Nonoperational at this time, sir.”
“Lieutenant Nave,” Picard said, quiet in the presence of such an awesome and deadly sight, “take us to just within transporter range and no farther. I want to keep as much distance as possible from that vessel.”
“Understood, sir.” The task calmed Nave at once; her wide-eyed astonishment vanished, replaced by focused intensity.
“Mister La Forge.” Picard swiveled toward him. “How long will it take you to locate the queen’s chamber?”
Geordi frowned slightly at his readouts. “I’ll need a few minutes, Captain. That’s a lot of ship there . . . but she is the only female on board.”
“There are no more than a few dozen drones awake at present.”
“True, sir,” Geordi agreed. “But she’s sleeping . . . and so are a few hundred drones.”
Resistance Page 8
