“Which we now possess,” Worf added.
“So we’re going to cloak the Enterprise?” Nave asked.
“Not exactly,” the lieutenant replied. “To cloak the entire ship would require a massive amount of energy, which we don’t exactly have at the moment. Since the saucer section is most damaged, we’re going to have to separate from it and cloak only the stardrive section. Commander La Forge is working off the decrypted schematics and installing the cloaking device right now. He’s the only one onboard with proper clearance for the procedure.”
“Meanwhile, Doctor Crusher is working on a neutralizer injection, a way to take out the Borg queen once and for all,” Worf added. “In the meantime, we will need to evacuate all extraneous personnel to the saucer section. Counselor, I will leave you in command of that section. Your orders are simple: remain at this position, outside of the Borg sensor range, until we return. If you pick up any movement by the Borg, you will turn the ship around and head to the coordinates Admiral Janeway has ordered the fleet to mass. Do not attempt to slow the Borg ship. Your goal is to join the fight where you can be of the best advantage.”
“Understood,” T’Lana said with a nod. Nave didn’t doubt for a second that T’Lana would do exactly as she was told.
Worf looked out at the three officers. “Lieutenant Nelson will be in command of the auxiliary bridge while we are on the cube. In the meantime, we must prepare for the separation.”
“Aye, sir,” the officers responded.
• • •
As T’Lana and Nelson left the conference room, Worf motioned for Nave to remain with him. “Once the cloak is active, we will be arriving in the vicinity of the Borg ship within the hour, Lieutenant,” he said. “I need you to designate a security team. I will, of course, be leading the rescue efforts. But you will be responsible for coordinating them.”
Thank you, Nave almost said. Worf had held the position of security chief several years earlier; he knew what was necessary in order to pull a team together on short notice. Perhaps Nave only imagined it, but it seemed he understood how important it was to her to organize the rescue efforts to find the captain. To find Lio.
Instead she answered, “Aye, sir. I’ve already thought about it. I’ll want Chao, Leary, and Diasourakis.” She’d worked out with Sandra Chao before; Chao was an ensign, only a year out of the academy, but she was tough and fast and smart. Margaret Leary was an experienced security veteran, and while Nave didn’t know Gregory Diasourakis personally — he had transferred to the Enterprise only a month before — his Starfleet file was littered with commendations.
Worf grunted in approval. “Good choices. You will need to be sure your team is drilled in certain facts. First, phasers set on stun are useless against the Borg. Weapons must be set to kill. Second, when the Borg were last on the Enterprise, they learned to adapt to the frequency of our weapons. After we fired a few times, they became impervious, and so we had to constantly recalibrate our weapons. Your team should be prepared to do so as well.”
The first fact worried Nave. She had assumed that all she had to do, if she encountered Lio on the Borg ship, was stun him and return him to the Enterprise. “I’ll be sure to inform them.” She paused. “Do we have any way of locating the captain, sir? Will we be aware of his position?”
Worf shook his head. “Our primary goal must be to find the queen. Commander La Forge’s team is currently trying to calibrate our scanners to determine whether we can single her out from among the drones. If we can destroy her, then the entire Borg colony will be disabled, and we can then try to locate the captain and Lieutenant Battaglia.” He paused, then, with a look Nave could not interpret, said, “If we locate the queen, the captain will almost certainly be nearby.”
“The neutralizer injection you mentioned Doctor Crusher was working on. Will that kill the queen?”
“Not exactly. The injection would transform the queen back into a drone — if it works. If it does not work quickly, or as planned, we will resort to conventional methods.”
“Kill her, you mean.”
The Klingon shot her a humorless look. “I believe that is what I said.”
“Sir . . .” Nave began hesitantly. “You’ve fought the Borg before. I know that when the Borg overran the Enterprise, a lot of crew members were assimilated and . . . lost. What do you think our chances are of recovering Lio . . . Lieutenant Battaglia? Of actually bringing him home?”
“The same as our chances of bringing home the captain,” Worf answered at once. But his tone held little hope, and he would not meet her eyes.
• • •
Worf sat in the command chair on the auxiliary bridge as the stardrive section disengaged from the saucer. He had never conducted a saucer separation before, though he had taken part in the procedure many times. The entire process was fully automated, but it still seemed unnatural to him to divide a ship and leave part of it behind. It was the equivalent of severing an arm or a leg to him. More to the point, it was almost unfathomable to leave behind most of the crew when heading into battle. True Klingon warriors would never consent to being left out of the fray. Then again, if the skeleton crew aboard the stardrive section with him failed, those aboard the saucer section would join in the battle soon enough.
“Separation complete,” Nave reported from the conn of the auxiliary bridge.
“Very good, Lieutenant,” Worf said as he tapped his combadge. “Worf to the main bridge.”
T’Lana’s voice replied. “Aye, Commander.”
“Hold this position as instructed,” he reiterated his previous orders. “Once we activate the cloak, we will have approximately two and a half hours to conduct our mission. If we do not contact you by the end of that time, or you read any movement from the Borg cube, you are to leave the area immediately.”
“Understood,” T’Lana said.
Worf briefly wondered if he was expecting too much to think she would wish him well in battle as she had wished the captain before his mission. He quickly put the idea out of his mind and severed the communication. This was not the time for such silliness. He pressed his combadge again and opened communications with La Forge.
“I’ve activated the cloaking device,” La Forge reported from engineering. “It’s coming online now.”
If everything was going according to plan, the stardrive section would be in the process of disappearing from the main bridge’s viewscreen. He could almost feel the anticipation from the crew seated around him. This was likely their first time on a cloaked ship. Not that they would be able to tell the difference from within the ship, but it was an odd sensation. Worf had experienced it many times onboard the Defiant. To be totally invisible to sensors gave one a feeling of power. Though some would say that sneaking up on an enemy was not an honorable way to conduct battle, it was a necessity in some cases. And he could think of none more important than this.
“The cloak is holding,” La Forge reported. “We’re invisible.”
Worf set his eyes on the viewscreen in front of him. “Lieutenant Nave, set a course for the Borg cube. Maximum warp.”
“Already set, sir,” she replied. He heard the determination in her voice.
Worf then echoed the command his captain had used so many times before: “Engage.”
• • •
Beverly Crusher moved rapidly down the corridor toward the transporter room. She had been working in one of the labs in the stardrive section up to the last possible moment and was positive that she had found success. Now, as she went to join the away team, her mind was utterly focused on her next challenge. A medkit was slung over her shoulder; a hypospray was securely fastened to her belt, a phaser beside it.
She was doing this, she told herself, for strictly professional reasons: for the sake of science, of research, for the sake of any sentient beings that might ever run the risk of being assimilated by the Borg. It had nothing to do with her inability to sit idly and wait for word of the away team’s success or fa
ilure; it had nothing to do with her desire to go to the Borg ship and find Jean-Luc herself, to make sure — even if she had to do it herself — that the queen was destroyed and he was rescued and brought back to the Enterprise in one piece.
Be truthful. You’re doing this because you want to go to him and not leave his side until you’re sure he’s safe and completely Jean-Luc again.
Yes. But I have another very good, very logical reason.
Fleeing the Borg when they had boarded the Enterprise was the second most frightening memory of her life — almost as frightening as the moment she had first set eyes on Locutus. But she felt no fear now, only horror, for Jean-Luc’s sake. She was too busy trying to imagine where he was, what he was feeling . . . and what he had gone through.
In midstride, she realized that she was still wearing her lab coat. Chagrined, she pulled it off without slowing her pace and flung it over her arm. She could not afford to be late: she needed time to make her case.
Two more steps, and she was in the transporter room. Worf stood in hawkish profile at the transporter console, next to Ensign Luptowski. The Klingon turned as she entered — and just behind her came Sara Nave, as tight-lipped and tense as Beverly had ever seen her. She was attended by three security crew members. Beverly recognized Chao, a muscular, dark-haired woman, and Leary, petite but formidable, but not the third, a thirtyish man with dark auburn hair and remarkably blue eyes who bore the relentlessly calm demeanor of a seasoned officer.
All of them, including Worf, were armed with ominous-looking phaser rifles.
As they all came to a stop and faced Worf, Nave shot Crusher a look and smiled in grim approval. Somehow, she had sized up the doctor; she understood what she was about to do, and she approved. Beverly shared a long look with her, then glanced back at Worf.
The Klingon turned to her. When Beverly had first met him, many years ago, his features had reminded her of an owl’s: fiercely penetrating eyes beneath swooping brows that created a perpetual scowl. Worf briefly caught her gaze, then looked pointedly at the medkit slung over her shoulder.
“Thank you, Doctor. Is the injection in there?”
“No.” She touched her belt. “It’s here.” She paused. “Actually . . . I’m going with you, Worf. When I was preparing the injection, my tests indicated that the feminizing hormone is in fact contained in a nutrient gel secreted by the drones’ bodies, triggered by the loss of a queen. If I can get a sample of drone tissue — now that their body chemistry has altered to produce the hormone — I’m confident I can find a way to alter their DNA.” It was Jean-Luc, actually, who had provided the clue, when he had spoken of the drones’ protectiveness of the queen. Not a directive, he had said. Something deeper. Those words had haunted her until she at last realized what that “something deeper” was: DNA. “And if that’s done . . .”
He lifted his chin, adamant. “I am afraid you must stay, Doctor. It is too dangerous for you to go.”
“If you fail in your mission, it will be too dangerous to be on this ship, Commander. It hasn’t been safe since we all agreed to accompany the captain on his search for the Borg queen.” She pulled him aside and softened her tone. This was not a conversation for the junior officers to witness. “Hear me out, Worf. If I alter their DNA, it could spread to all the Borg in the Alpha Quadrant. They’ll never be able to produce another queen. We could stop them for good.”
“I understand.” Worf reached for the medkit. “But I can administer the injection. And I can take the sample.”
“I have to do this,” Beverly said sharply, stridently, as she pulled away from him with determination in her eyes. She knew that she was being unfair. She was counting on his Klingon sensibilities to kick in. Truthfully, anyone could make the injection. There was no need for a medical professional to administer it. Her request was personal. And she knew that Worf would see it that way, as more than a simple battle with the Borg. This was a fight to save the man she loved. In his eyes, it would be a deeply honorable action. “Please,” she said softly. “I have to do this.”
The tension in his features eased; the corner of his lip quirked in the small, exasperated gesture she knew so well.
“La Forge to Worf.”
Worf pressed his combadge. “Go ahead, Commander.”
Geordi’s voice was uncharacteristically flat, defeated. “We tried to pinpoint the queen on the Borg vessel, but there just wasn’t enough time. If we had another hour, I could probably pull it off. She’s a very small needle in a very big haystack. I’m sorry, Worf.”
“I know that you did your best, Commander,” Worf said. He kept the channel open and turned to Luptowski at the transporter controls. “We will need to drop the cloak to beam to the cube. As soon as we are away, Commander La Forge can reinitialize the cloak. However, the Borg will be immediately alerted to our presence. If their behavior remains consistent, they will instantly perceive us as a threat and attack. Our only option, as I see it, is to beam into the same coordinates as the captain and the first away team had. Tactically, it will not be a strong position, but we won’t have time to beam any farther away from the queen’s chamber.”
“Agreed,” Nave said with a nod.
Worf addressed his security team. “We will provide cover for Doctor Crusher so that she can administer the injection to the queen. Once the Borg are disarmed, she will gather samples.” He looked pointedly at Crusher and frowned. “You will need a phaser rifle.”
The doctor shook her head. “I’ll have to make do with the phaser. The rifle is too cumbersome with the medkit.” Her hand fell on the hypospray. “Besides, this is all the weapon I need.”
Worf spoke to the security team again. “Doctor Crusher will attempt to disable the queen — but the instant it seems that she is not successful, fire to kill.” He paused, and his voice dropped even lower. “I realize that we want our captain and our crew-mate to be recovered safely. But our first priority is to stop the Borg — at any cost. Am I understood?”
“Understood,” Beverly said softly, along with the others. She caught Nave’s eye at the instant it flickered with a ghost of pain. She was sure no one else saw it, no one but herself, because she felt the very same ache.
“Very well,” Worf said. “According to Captain Picard, we have only two hours before the queen wakes and the Borg vessel is online. It is imperative that we accomplish our mission before either of those events occurs.”
As they stepped onto the transporter pads, Beverly drew in a breath. The air was cool here and pleasant; she remembered how hot and dank it had been when the Borg had taken over the ship, and she steeled herself.
“Mister La Forge,” Worf said into the air, “on my mark.”
“Ready,” La Forge’s voice replied.
Worf nodded to Ensign Luptowski. “Energize.”
Beverly watched as the normal world, the sane world, dissolved into nothingness around her.
12
Nave materialized with the away team on one of the uppermost decks of the Borg cube.
She had been sitting at the helm of the Enterprise when the Borg ship had first loomed close on the viewscreen. Hanging dark and ominous against an incandescent moon, it had reminded Nave oddly of images from old stories, of haunted Gothic mansions peopled by white, soulless ghosts of the ancient dead. The same feeling took hold of her again, as she got her bearings on the catwalk suspended high within the cavernous ship. This was the exact spot where Lio had been taken, where DeVrie and Costas and Satchitanand had died. Their ghosts whispered to her as she swayed a bit, staring down at the spiraling decks below.
They now attack on sight . . .
The interior of the ship was as haphazard and ungainly as the outside, dim and bland and shadowed — far dimmer, even, than the Enterprise’s night. What few colors existed were muted shades of dulled gray and bronze — the color of inanimate things.
Beneath Nave was a vast downward spiral, a maze of metal wrought like a spider’s web but without the eleganc
e. A conduit was stuck here, a railing there, another deck, a wall of circuitry fully exposed, as if someone had stripped away the bulkheads to reveal the internal workings of the ship, unable to be bothered by concerns of elegance or privacy.
Far below, so far they were no bigger than the first knuckle of Nave’s little finger, Borg drones slept, mindless and dreamless, in tiny, dark alcoves. Nave’s mind immediately went to Dante’s Inferno; surely this was the innermost circle of hell, where souls were trapped in eternal suffering. And that brought her mind back to Lio.
But Dante had said that the innermost circle was bitterly cold; that was surely not the case on this ship, so humid that mists swirled about Nave’s feet. Sweat already glazed her upper lip and forehead.
Nave forced her gaze upward, at the away team: Worf leading, then Leary, Crusher, and Diasourakis and Chao side by side. Clutching her phaser rifle close, its butt pressing into her collarbone, Nave brought up the rear, her body angled sideways in order to follow the movements of the team while still being alert to any threats approaching from her direction.
“There,” Worf said softly. Nave craned her neck and looked beyond Chao’s straight spill of dark hair, beyond Diasourakis and Leary and Crusher, to the Klingon, who pointed at a light — faint and pulsating and unmistakably green in the colorless landscape — emanating from an arched entryway in the near distance. “That would be the queen’s chamber.”
The team moved forward, each step punctuated by another pulse of the green light. In the silence, Nave heard the whisper of ghosts.
As the catwalk was intersected by a perpendicular walkway, Crusher hissed a warning. Nave turned, instantly on the alert. The phaser rifle was thicker than her two arms laid side by side, fastened to her body by a thick strap so there was no danger of her dropping it. Some officers complained that the weapon was unwieldy, but Nave swung it around as though it were an extension of herself.
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