Glass Empires

by Various

  “We have to find her,” he declared. Getting up from his seat, he headed for the transporter at the rear of the main cabin. “You take the helm. I’m going to search her ship for clues.” Perhaps she had left a message aboard the shuttle? “Don’t go anywhere without me.”

  “Picard, wait!” Soong spun around in his seat. “I’m picking up a distress call from the Klingon outpost.” His eyes were wide with excitement. “The Borg. They’re here!”

  What? Picard hurried back toward his seat, but Soong was already piloting Stargazer around the curvature of the planet to investigate. Carraya IV spun beneath them, daylight spreading across its surface. Picard’s jaw dropped as a shocking tableau came into view.

  The Klingon base was under attack from a single vessel: a gigantic steel diamond large enough to contain several Galor-class warships within its angular walls. Layers of intricate machinery covered the diamond’s hull, like ivy overrunning an abandoned temple. Sickly green lights radiated from somewhere deep inside the bizarre vessel, which resembled no starship Picard had ever encountered before. The technology-encrusted faces of the diamond, which had to be at least three thousand meters across, were strangely uniform in design. He could discern no obvious bridge, propulsion units, or hatches.

  There was no mistaking the ship’s weaponry, however. A crimson beam, emanating from one of the diamond’s vertices, strafed the planet below, cutting a circular fissure around the perimeter of the Klingon base. The heavily armed fortress fired back with ground-to-space disruptor cannons, but the powerful beams were unable to penetrate the diamond’s shields. Azure energy flashed uselessly against an invisible barrier.

  Had the Alliance met its match at last?

  Moments later, a pale green tractor beam latched onto the outpost, effortlessly wrenching it from the bedrock and out into orbit. The disruptor cannons fell silent as the base and its inhabitants were suddenly exposed to the icy vacuum of space. Picard wondered if the outpost’s inhabitants had time to realize what was happening before their lives were abruptly snuffed out. Had Vash been a prisoner within the base? Picard prayed that his lover was anywhere else right now.

  “It’s definitely the Borg!” Soong said gleefully. His face bore a rapturous expression, unshaken by the horrific nature of the attack. He was practically bouncing in his seat. “I’m detecting the same magnetic resonance traces as before!”

  We did it, Picard thought. We found the Borg.

  Let’s hope we don’t live to regret it.

  To his relief, their tiny runabout appeared to be beneath the Borg ship’s notice. For better or for worse, they had a front-row seat as their elusive quarry proceeded to take apart its prize. Tractor beams held the floating colony in place while incandescent red lasers carved up the murdered outpost like a roasted targ. Isolated chunks of hardware were absorbed into the diamond, disappearing into concealed openings in the ship’s hull. The Borg were evidently more interested in the base’s technology than its inhabitants; Klingon and Cardassian bodies drifted away from the breached outpost as the Borg systematically dissected the various buildings and weapons emplacements. Lasers sliced off disruptor banks and power stations.

  “Interesting,” Soong observed. “They seem to be collecting samples for examination. Perhaps they’re on a scientific mission? Curiosity is one of the hallmarks of an advanced intelligence. One would expect its presence in any truly evolved cybernetic consciousness.”

  Before Picard could reply, another vessel warped into the system. “Look over there!” he exclaimed, recognizing the newcomer as a Klingon Vor’cha-class attack cruiser. The massive ship was many times larger than Stargazer, but was dwarfed by the enormous diamond. “Reinforcements from the Alliance!”

  The Klingon warship had responded to the attack much faster than had its Romulan counterpart. Picard wondered if the Alliance had been anticipating the Borg’s incursion, perhaps from monitoring the attacks on the Romulan outposts? Maybe we’re not the only ones who noticed a pattern at work.

  “My money’s still on the Borg,” Soong said. “Never bet against an artificial intelligence.”

  Sounds like words to live by, Picard thought.

  Like the Borg ship, the massive attack cruiser ignored Stargazer, winging past the runabout to confront the gigantic diamond. Picard eavesdropped electronically on the warship’s transmissions.

  “Alien vessel!” a deep voice hailed the Borg. “This is Captain K’muc of the Imperial Starship Mek’leth !” The face of a jowly Klingon warrior appeared on the viewscreen. Fury contorted his whiskered features. “Your treacherous sneak attack on Alliance territory will not go unavenged. Surrender at once, or be destroyed!”

  Soong snorted in derision. “Empty threats. That thick-headed brute has no idea of what he’s dealing with.” He consulted the sensor displays. “The Borg are scanning his vessel even as we speak.”

  I don’t know, Picard thought. A Klingon attack cruiser was not to be taken lightly. Would the Borg choose to fight or flee?

  Breaking off their dissection of the captured outpost, the Borg responded to the Klingons’ hails. “Your threats are irrelevant,” said a chorus of robotic voices, speaking in unison. In marked contrast to the bellicose tone of Captain K’muc, the voice(s) of the Borg were utterly devoid of emotion. “We have analyzed your defensive capabilities. You are unable to withstand us. Prepare to be assimilated into our Collective. Resistance is futile.”

  The flat, uninflected statements sent a chill through Picard’s blood. Vulcans spoke with more feeling.

  “Fascinating,” Soong enthused. “It appears that the Borg possess some sort of group mind, linking their collective intelligence into a single unified purpose.” He nodded thoughtfully. “That would explain why I can’t detect any individual life signs aboard their vessel. It’s possible that the Borg don’t even exist as individuals. How incredibly efficient!”

  And inhuman, Picard thought.

  “We’ll show you futile!” Captain K’muc barked back. He shook his fist at the faceless voice. “No one defies the Alliance with impunity. Death is upon you!”

  The Klingon commander wasted no further breath on his enemies. His face disappeared from the viewscreen as he cut off the transmission. The Mek’leth, named after a traditional Klingon short sword, launched its attack. Disruptors raked the exposed faces of the huge diamond, but the corrosive beams seemed to have no more effect on the Borg ship than Carraya IV’s own defenses had. The diamond wasn’t even scratched.

  “Resistance is futile,” the Borg repeated. “Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our Collective.”

  I don’t like the sound of that, Picard thought. What exactly do they mean?

  On-screen, the Klingon warship had not yet exhausted its arsenal. With the disruptors proving ineffective, the Mek’leth fired photon torpedoes at the enemy vessel. The torpedoes exploded against the Borg ship’s shields with far more effect than the disruptor beams had. The blinding detonations tore out great chunks of the Borg ship’s hull, leaving charred craters in the face of the great diamond. It seemed the Borg could be hurt after all.

  “Perhaps the Borg are not as invincible as we believed,” Picard said. Vash would be disappointed, if she was still alive, but he had distinctly mixed feelings about this evidence of the Borg’s fallibility. The Resistance needed a powerful ally, but maybe not too powerful….

  Soong scowled at the viewscreen. “We’ll see.” There was no question whom the old scientist was rooting for in the silent conflict before them. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Borg still have a few good tricks up their sleeve.”

  No doubt emboldened by his success, the Klingon commander launched another salvo of torpedoes at the Borg. The deadly missiles tore across the void, igniting brilliantly in the airless dark. Picard leaned forward, anxious to see how badly the torpedoes had damaged the Borg ship, yet when the glare from the explosions faded, he was surprised to discover that the huge diamond had been left unscat
hed by the second bombardment. If anything, the Borg ship looked less damaged than before.

  “Hah!” Soong cackled. “You see, Picard? The Borg have already adapted to the Klingons’ weapons, and modified their shields accordingly. Their reaction time is astounding! Do you grasp just how quickly they learned to defend themselves from those torpedoes? No mere organic intelligence can adapt that swiftly!” He clapped his hands, applauding the Borg’s near-instantaneous learning curve. “And look, the ship is repairing itself as well.”

  It was true. Before Picard’s eyes, the breached areas of the Borg ship’s hull were being restored automatically. Severed girders and conduits snaked across the open wounds, forming new connections. White-hot flares fused ruptured steel together. Gray metal plating spread over the newly erected scaffolding like a fresh layer of skin. It was almost as though the ship itself were a living organism, healing at an incredibly accelerated rate.

  Picard felt a touch of superstitious dread. A Klingon or Cardassian ship would have required weeks in spacedock to repair that kind of damage, but the Borg ship looked like it would be as good as new in no time. What kind of beings are we dealing with here?

  A greenish tractor beam latched onto the Mek’leth. Scanning the battle from a safe distance, Picard saw that the beam was rapidly draining energy from the Klingon ship’s deflectors. The Mek’leth’s shields were already down fifty-seven percent; at this rate, the Klingons would be defenseless within minutes. A nimbus of chartreuse energy flickered weakly around the embattled ship.

  Had Picard been in K’muc’s place, he would have attempted to escape from the fearsome diamond, diverting all of the ship’s remaining resources to its warp drive, but Klingons never ran from a foe. The attack cruiser targeted the source of the tractor beam with a blistering volley of disruptor blasts and photon torpedoes, seemingly throwing everything in its armory up against the Borg, yet all its fire and fury came to naught. Additional tractor beams emanated from the diamond’s vertices, catching the warship even more tightly in their snares. Picard doubted that the Mek’leth could have retreated even if the Klingons had been willing to sacrifice their barbaric “honor” for safety.

  “Their shields are gone,” he reported grimly.

  Slowly, methodically, the Borg’s lasers dismantled the trapped attack cruiser. Mek’leth’s warp nacelles, battle bridge, and engineering section were surgically removed from the warship before being drawn into the voracious maws of the looming Borg diamond. Glowing plasma and Klingon bodies spilled out into space. Picard wondered if K’muc’s corpse was among those floating lifelessly in the vacuum.

  “They never stood a chance,” he realized. He felt a flicker of sympathy for the outmatched Klingons, then remembered how those two drunken guards had trampled over his work and memories back on Celtris III. He pictured Wesley’s broken body, lying in a filthy cot. Maybe Vash was right, he thought. As cold-bloodedly ruthless as they appeared to be, perhaps the Borg were just the allies the Terran Resistance needed. Who else could annihilate the Klingons so easily?

  “Of course not,” Soong said confidently, as though the outcome of the battle had never been in doubt. “The Borg clearly possess superior technology, not to mention the strategic advantage of a collective mind that can make and implement decisions at the speed of thought.” He beamed benignly at the floating diamond as it reduced the once-formidable warship to raw material, then went back to “assimilating” the uprooted outpost. “They’re everything I dreamed they’d be.”

  By the time the Borg ship completed its work, all that was left of the former military base was a small cloud of scrap metal and Klingon remains. The Borg ship released the debris from its tractor beam, letting it drift away on the solar winds. At least some of the corpses, Picard guessed, would be caught by the planet’s gravity and burn up in reentry. Meanwhile, the metallic diamond floated in orbit above Carraya IV, still and silent. He wondered what it was waiting for.

  Us?

  Soong grinned at Picard. “So when shall we pay them a visit?”

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

  Picard joined Soong on the small transporter platform at the rear of the cabin. He glanced back over his shoulder at the cockpit. Stargazer was locked into a stable orbit less than two kilometers away from the Borg vessel. He couldn’t help thinking that was too close for comfort.

  “Nonsense,” Soong replied. A communicator badge was pinned to the scientist’s ragged overcoat, just in case they were separated. “Now’s the perfect time to make contact. Sensors indicate that the Borg have lowered their defensive shields now that they’ve finished assimilating that Klingon settlement. In fact, a decline in their total energy output suggests that the entire ship has gone into some sort of dormant mode. I theorize that the Borg need time to fully absorb the technology and data they harvested from Carraya IV.”

  Picard nodded. “While they finish ‘digesting’ their meal, so to speak.”

  “Precisely,” Soong said. “And to fully recover from the battle.” He tapped his foot impatiently on the platform. “No doubt this dormant state helps speed up the healing process.”

  No wonder they haven’t responded to our hails, Picard thought. Despite his reservations, he keyed in the coordinates for the Borg vessel, along with the emergency retrieval codes. This is what we came here for, he reminded himself. Certainly, there was no denying that the Borg would make a formidable ally against the Alliance. He also hoped to find Vash alive and well within the Borg ship. Perhaps she’s already trying to enlist them in her cause?

  “Let’s hope they don’t mind us dropping in.” He drew his disruptor and assumed a stationary position on the platform. “Transporter, engage.”

  The familiar tingle of the transporter effect enveloped him, then quickly dissipated as the two men found themselves deep within the vast Borg diamond. Picard gripped his phaser as he swiftly surveyed their surroundings.

  Level upon level of metal catwalks extended above and below them. The walkways formed an immense steel lattice that seemed to fill the entirety of the vessel. Amber lights, built into panels above the corridors, provided dim illumination. Circular monitors cast a gangrenous green glow over the scene. The air was uncomfortably warm and humid, not unlike Celtris III. The gravity felt normal.

  “Mon dieu!”

  Picard started at the sight of a grotesque humanoid standing a few feet away from him. Mottled white flesh, like that of a drowned man, peeked out from beneath overlapping layers of matte-black insulation and artificial prosthetics. Exposed circuitry and cables connected the electrical components that covered the creature’s body like barnacles. A telescoping lens jutted from the being’s right eye socket. An ugly black headset was implanted in a hairless white cranium. The left arm looked entirely mechanical. An unblinking organic eye stared blankly ahead.

  The Borg, I presume.

  His body tensed in anticipation of an alarm or attack, and he stepped defensively in front of the old man. A heartbeat passed, yet the Borg did not react to their arrival. The creature stood motionlessly within a recessed metal alcove that faced out onto the walkway, so that its occupant looked like one of those petrified mummies back on New T’Karath, complete with sarcophagus. Stepping backward, Picard saw that the corridor ran past several such niches, each one containing an individual Borg. He gradually lowered his weapon as it became apparent that he and Soong were in no immediate danger. The Borg were indeed in a dormant state, at least for the time being.

  “Out of my way, Picard.” Soong tottered out from behind the other man to get a closer look. He squinted at the nearest Borg, his face only centimeters away from the humanoid’s pallid countenance. “Exquisite,” he murmured to himself, sounding almost as though he were having a religious experience. “Most exquisite.” He peered at a blinking ceramic component embedded in the Borg’s right temple. “Some sort of cortical node? Or perhaps a sensory input processor?”

  The enthralled scientist was speaking in tongues a
s far as Picard was concerned. While his companion spewed technobabble, he glanced around at the Borg’s sprawling habitat. Equipment racks and power couplings filled the spaces between the individual alcoves. Glowing green disks, located above the Borg’s heads, seemed to monitor their vital signs. The circular displays looked incongruously like haloes, although the cybernetic humanoids bore little resemblance to any angels Picard was familiar with. More like drones in a beehive.

  He was struck by the relentless uniformity of it all. Earlier scans had failed to locate any discernible command area, engineering section, or living quarters. Now his own eyes confirmed that the ship’s interior was bizarrely decentralized. He had chosen their landing coordinates more or less at random, but apparently that hadn’t made any difference. One location was as good as any other.

  “I’m going to look around,” he informed Soong. Unlike the scientist, he was more interested in finding out if Vash was aboard, than examining the Borg. His boots resounded against the metal walkway as he walked farther down the corridor. Retrieving a tricorder from his belt, he scanned for life signs, but the results came up negative.

  Damn, he thought. Where are you, Vash? He was tempted to call out her name, but found himself reluctant to disturb the sepulchral hush of the slumbering Borg vessel. Perhaps she was down on the planet instead? He tried not to think about the possibility that she might have died along with the Klingons, but ghastly images of her graceful body being sliced apart by lasers intruded upon his consciousness nonetheless. No! he thought stubbornly. I’m not giving up on her yet.

  A hissing sound caught his attention, and he rounded a corner to investigate. Vapor gushed from a punctured conduit that appeared to be in the process of repairing itself. Picard scanned the atmosphere, but detected only trace levels of tetryon particles, nothing to really worry about. The temperature registered at exactly 39.1 degrees Celsius. The humidity was 92 percent. He wondered if those numbers would mean anything to Soong.