First Contact, page 16
Then the second, and the third, and fourth, in sequential order, until at last the final bolt blew free and the deflector dish itself, along with the brightly glowing crystal, began to float upward.
Picard did not dare permit himself to relax, to smile, to consider victory—and his caution served him well. At the height of slightly more than a meter above the hull, the still-glowing dish stopped—tethered still to the Enterprise by a thick pillar of power cables.
He lifted his phaser rifle, took careful aim, and—paused before firing, at the sensation of movement in the right periphery of his vision. Immediately he turned and found himself face to face with an inhabited Star-fleet spacesuit.
Hawk’s, judging from its size, but the helmet’s face mask was obscured by the brilliant reflection of the blue Earth. Yet as the body inside the spacesuit lunged at Picard, the Earth faded, replaced by the far ghastlier image of Hawk’s face, still partially human in appearance, yet unmistakably Borg in its dreadful lack of expression and mechanical augmentation. A small sensorscope protruded from his left temple, and one ear and the surrounding scalp had been replaced by a panel of circuitry. The eyes… the eyes were by far the worst, for they reminded Picard of the eyes of a corpse—open but unseeing, unfeeling, devoid of any spark that had made the individual who he was.
Dead, but still moving.
But it was even worse than that, Picard knew; for inside that mindless shell, the personality named Hawk was still inside, infinitely horrified and helpless, praying for Picard’s victory, terrified that his Borg-self might cause his captain harm.
I will not yield again.…
Hawk seized his shoulders, tried to slam him down against the deckplate; Picard fell backward, yet managed to keep the magnetized soles flat against the hull and pull himself back up—only to be slammed again. Fortunately, Borg-Hawk was too new to the collective to have been fitted with cybernetic weaponry; unfortunately, his strength was now at least ten times that of Picard. Hawk lunged again, this time throwing the totality of his weight into it—and the captain had no chance but to bend his knees and fall backward, else let the pressure break his lumbar spine.
As he fell, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the three remaining Borg working frantically on the beacon, and a row of spires suddenly igniting with internal light.…
Then Hawk was upon him, fist smashing into the helmet’s faceplate. Picard caught his wrist with a hand; the almost-Borg flicked free with distressing ease, and even when Picard clutched the wrist hard, with both hands, Hawk struck the faceplate.
Again. Again.
The plate began to crack.
I will not yield, Picard vowed again silently, but no instinct, no sudden inspiration, came to his aid now, and he looked upon his imminent death with bitter rage. He had failed, and humanity past and future was consigned to hopelessness, to mental suffering without end.
He watched, intent, as Borg-Hawk lifted his fist for the final blow. If Picard nursed any hope at all, it was that he should die quickly, before he could be assimilated.
So it was that his eyes were wide open when the phaser blast came, so near to his face that he was immediately blinded and lay gasping against the hull, staring up into the opaque yellow afterimage.
When, after several seconds, it began to fade, he saw far above him a receding figure tumbling off into space: Hawk, limp arms and legs slowly pinwheeling around a scorched torso.
Picard struggled to his feet—awkwardly, since he was in no mood to break contact again with the ship’s hull—and saw, to his utter delight, Worf. The Klingon stood some meters away, lowering his rifle as he gazed up at Hawk’s receding body, his expression one of somber satisfaction to have freed a companion from a dishonorable fate.
He stepped toward Picard; something black and white moved with him, a terrier-sized object that hovered close to his calf and ankle. Closer inspection revealed the suit’s tear, in midshin; just below the knee, a long piece of tubing served as a tourniquet, the excess dangling behind him like a leash.
Worf came to a halt. The extra tubing floated past him, the black-and-white object gently bumping against his lower leg: a hand, Picard realized, with a mild surge of nausea—a Borg hand attached to a severed forearm, from whose bloodied metal wound extruded the long tube.
Yet the captain at once drew his attention away to an even ghastlier sight: although the dish hovered above the ship’s surface, cables still held it fast and allowed power to flow into the spires, all of which glowed blindingly. As Picard watched, the entire beacon began to pulsate with power.
Picard reached for his phaser rifle, aimed, and directed a searing bolt directly at the thick cable tether.
He did not flinch at the painful brilliance of the spires, of the beacon, of the phaser blast as it found its mark and bit through the bonds in an eye-searing millisecond of dazzling sparks.
The immense dish itself shuddered slightly, then slowly—with, Picard thought, a dignity that was beautiful—lifted, and began to rise.
Abruptly, the beacon and its myriad spires died. The three Borg who still labored upon the dish ceased all work, all movement, and stood mute, helpless, utterly emotionless in the face of defeat and death.
Into the void they sailed; Picard and Worf stood together, faces lifted, watching. And when the dish had at last risen a good twenty meters—a safe distance—the Klingon aimed his rifle spaceward and snarled.
“Assimilate this.”
He fired. Picard shielded his eyes as the deflector dish flared like a small nova, then erupted in a shower of white-hot debris. And when Worf turned to look at his captain with a fierce smile of victory, Picard returned it.
The death of the Borg evoked in him no somberness, no regret at the thought of taking a life—only a bright, savage joy and a mild disappointment that he could never violate them as he had been violated, never inflict on them the mental suffering he had endured at their hands.
But he would, he vowed silently, as the beacon hurtled dark and silent into space, hunt them down, drone by drone, until he reached the heart of the collective.
A woman’s lips, whispering, Locutus…
And he would pierce that heart, with a wound deeper than that inflicted on his own; pierce it, even though it meant his death, and the death of all things loved.…
* * *
And in the warm, moist womb of the Borg hive, she who was all lifted her head sharply at the vision of fire and shattering crystal, at the silent sound of death cries.
Locutus…
Silvered eyes blinked, then narrowed; rage slowly cooled, hardening into determination and a hunger far beyond the physical.
The lust for little minds could never be sated—but there would always be such minds, always be the joy that came at the moment of consumption. But she had come, over the long millennia, to yearn for more: for an equal, one possessed of her infinite will, of her strength, of her daring…
One who, like her, could not be conquered.
Yet that would be her pleasure, her challenge: to spend the centuries struggling to overcome, to conquer… and, at long last, to devour.
The hour would not be long now; the time would soon come. She would look upon him again, again present the choice.
And this time, she would have her revenge.…
THIRTEEN
Worf groaning softly beside him, Picard waited inside the airlock and stared through the transparent portal as, on the other side, Beverly Crusher worked the controls. Lily stood beside her, smiling now, though when the two men had first entered the airlock, her dark eyes had been wide and her brow furrowed with wild anxiety at finding one of the team missing. She had craned her long neck, tilted her head, squinting at the reflections on the helmets, until she finally saw past them and recognized Picard…
And then her relief and joy had been so sparkling, so genuine, so filled with bright affection that Picard felt momentarily frightened—frightened because he found himself responding with the same broad grin, the same overwhelming affection—an emotion deeper than mere camaraderie.
He stared back at her just a second longer than either had intended, until at last both lowered their eyes, mildly dismayed by the event. Lily became cool at once, reassuming her twenty-first-century cynic’s air; Picard turned his attention to Crusher and shared with the doctor a relieved smile.
True, he admired Lily Sloane for her determination, her courage, her odd wit, but a relationship with a woman from a different era was entirely impossible, a fact that Lily’s abruptly formal posture showed she, too, understood.
Flanked by Worf, Picard stepped through the airlock door and removed his helmet.
“We stopped them,” he said, his tone a mixture of triumph and regret. “But we lost Hawk.”
Beverly’s blue eyes registered the loss by looking briefly, sadly away, but she was already in motion, moving forward to help the Klingon, who fumbled in his efforts to remove his helmet. On tiptoe, Crusher reached up and lifted the helmet in a single, graceful move.
Beneath, Worf’s dark face had faded to gray and his eyes had narrowed to slits; the corners of his mouth tugged downward in a manner that made Picard instinctively back away.
Beverly finally noticed. “Commander.” She addressed the paling Klingon. “Are you feeling all—”
Worf held up a large hand. “Hold that thought.”
He lunged behind the nearest console and began to retch; at the sounds of his gagging, the three shared a look of nauseated pity.
“Strong heart,” Picard said. “Weak stomach.”
“They’re on the move again!”
The comment from a fourth voice made him whirl about as, a mere meter away, a security officer crawled from a Jefferies tube. The young man’s olive face and disheveled coal-black hair glistened with perspiration; wide-eyed and shaken, he told Picard, “The Borg just overran three of our defense checkpoints; they’ve taken decks five and six. They’ve adapted to every modulation of our weapons. It’s like we’re shooting blanks.”
“We’ll have to start working on a new way to modify our phasers so they’re more effective,” Picard told him at once, then paused. It would be difficult, almost impossible, to hold the Borg back; one shot, and the phasers would have to be adapted again—and again, and again.… If they had the option of enlisting their best engineers to solve the problem, there was a chance that the combined brainpower might produce a solution. But La Forge and his best team were down on Earth’s surface—if all was well, with Zefram Cochrane—and most of the engineers remaining on the Enterprise had been the first of the Borg’s victims. Without their help—
No. This far and no further. They’ve violated me already—I won’t let them violate my ship. I can’t let them have her.…
He glanced sternly at the young officer. “In the meantime, tell your people to stand their ground. Fight hand to hand, if they have to.”
The officer’s posture and expression visibly deflated; for an instant, he averted his gaze and seemed to stare sadly beyond Picard at a vision of his own death. Picard told himself that he did not see it, that the situation was not hopeless—that there was a chance, and he was not condemning his surviving crew to die.
Then a sense of duty seized the young man, gathered him, straightened him, caused him to nod smartly at Picard. “Aye, sir.” He turned to go.
“Wait.” Worf had emerged from behind the console and now stood, one hand gripping it to steady himself, the other wiping his mouth. “Captain… our weapons are useless. We must activate the autodestruct sequence and use the escape pods to evacuate the ship.”
“Escape pods?” Lily leaned forward, hopeful, in the swift second after the Klingon spoke, but at the same instant, Picard snapped, “No.”
Worf blinked, his fierce eyes fleetingly puzzled.
Beverly, too, seemed surprised at the captain’s reaction. “Jean-Luc,” she said, “If we destroy the ship, we’ll destroy the Borg.”
Lily’s voice an annoying undercurrent: “Tell me more about those escape pods.…”
Picard graced her with neither glance nor reply. As he stared hard at his crew, he felt the stirring of emotions long restrained but never mastered: homicidal rage, the blind desire for revenge. “We are going to stay and fight.”
“Sir,” Worf continued, his tone urgent, insistent, “we have lost the Enterprise. We should not sacrifice more—”
“We have not lost the Enterprise,” Picard interrupted loudly, “and we are not going to lose the Enterprise. Not to the Borg, and not while I’m in command.” He jerked his head to glare at the security officer. “You have your orders.”
Worf and Crusher watched in silence as the younger man nodded again and walked back to the Jefferies tube.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Lily said, her voice strident. “I’m not one of your troops, and I really don’t want to stick around while you guys fight these space monsters, okay? I want to go home.”
If we fail, you will have no home, Picard wanted to say, but held his tongue. The Klingon’s words had fed a fury within him that was growing now and could no longer be contained. This was his ship—his ship—and he would not give it up. Would not permit them to hurt him again, to have even this small victory. He would not leave this vessel to them, then simply hope the self-destruct sequence killed them all.
He wished to see them all dead. To find… Once again, memory failed as he tried to retrieve the image of the one who had wounded him so, the one who had birthed Locutus. The one on whom he craved revenge.
Crusher studied Picard solemnly, her eyes narrowed just enough to register both her silent objection to the captain’s plan and her concern for him.
“Captain…” Worf’s tone grew strident. “I must object to this course of—”
Picard could not keep the pitch of his voice from rising. “Your objection has been noted, Mr. Worf.”
On the Klingon’s deeply sculpted face, anger warred with friendship; Worf drew a breath and visibly calmed himself. When he spoke again, he did so quietly, calmly. “With all due respect, sir, I believe you are allowing your… personal experience with the Borg… to influence your judgment.”
The fury grew electric as it traveled down his spine, moving his feet in one swift, dangerous step toward the Klingon, tensing his arm so that it stiffened, pulled back, clenched the fist. In his mind’s eye, he saw not Worf, but himself, staring horrified into the mirror, blood-slicked servo protruding from his cheek; he saw a vague glimpse of another, the one whose face maddeningly refused to coalesce in his memory.
Through a miracle of will, he did not strike out—but spoke, his voice cold and coiled as a serpent.
“I never thought I’d hear myself say this, Worf… but I actually think you’re afraid. You want to destroy the ship and run away.”
The Klingon grew visibly taller where he stood, and broader, as if the heat of anger had caused him physically to expand. In his dark eyes, fire burned—a sight to evoke fear in any human being.
“Jean-Luc…” Crusher warned, but he waved her into silence, beyond fear, beyond reason, beyond all but the blindness of rage and revenge. He held Worf’s furious gaze and fed it with his own.
“If you were any other man,” the Klingon growled softly, slowly, “I would kill you where you stand.”
“Get off my bridge,” Picard said. And saw not Worf, but a pair of glistening onyx lips part, revealing teeth of pearl.
Locutus…
The sound of footsteps brought him back, and he watched, unyielding, as the Klingon turned and moved for the open Jefferies tube hatch, then crawled inside.
* * *
Lily watched, too, stunned like the rest of those on the bridge into silence. Watched as the huge Klingon named Worf walked away, watched as Picard scanned the shocked faces of his remaining crew, then silently turned and headed into another chamber that opened onto the bridge.
When the door had closed behind him, Beverly Crusher—the doctor who had been helping everyone, including Lily, escape when the Borg had come—turned to Lily.
“Let’s go.” The blond doctor’s tone was one of quiet professionalism, but Lily read her well enough to see that she was enormously troubled by what had just happened.
Ahab, it seemed, was flipping out, willing to risk his entire crew to stay and fight the Borg. All to save a ship. Pretty damned stupid, she thought, considering there won’t be anyone around to pilot it.
And then she stopped herself in midjudgment; she had been willing to risk her life to save the Phoenix. All her hopes, all her dreams, had been tangled up in the damned thing. Maybe she did understand what Ahab was feeling after all. But there was something else in him, other than plain love for a ship—something darker that she had glimpsed from time to time as they fled through the tunnels, something she had seen again just now. She’d assumed he’d lost someone very important to the Borg—a friend, a relative, a lover.
But Worf’s comment had put a whole new spin on things.
Dr. Crusher began to move; Lily didn’t.
“What do we do now?”
Crusher stopped; a shadow came over her face, one that only faintly veiled the horror and pain… one that fell over the face of every crew member who glanced up surreptitiously at Lily’s words, then just as quickly looked away. There was a wound here, one that extended far beyond Jean-Luc Picard and even this woman, one so shattering that no one on this ship had earlier dared give it voice.
“We carry out his orders,” the doctor said softly, then turned toward two officers. “Kaplan, Dyson—start working on a way to modify the—”
Lily interrupted. “Wait a minute. This is stupid. If we can get off this ship and blow it up, we should do it.”
Crusher’s expression and voice were carefully composed, professional, but her eyes failed to entirely hide her frustration. “Once the captain’s made up his mind, the discussion’s over.” She signaled the two officers she’d addressed, and they moved toward her.
