First Contact, page 8
She had been dying, and two men had come, one of them British. She had shot at them and tried to kill the one that looked like a robot… but the bullets hadn’t stopped him. She’d been so sick, so dizzy that she’d simply passed out in front of him; she remembered that final glance up at his quizzical and pale, golden face.
Then she’d awakened somewhere totally different, in terrible danger and was now following a group of uniformed people she didn’t know.
And she felt perfectly fine.
Just in front of her, the strawberry blonde spoke up. “Follow me,” she told the group, and scurried toward the front in order to lead them. “We need to get off this deck.”
The distraction gave Lily an opportunity. She paused in the semidarkness—there was no one behind her or too close in front of her to notice—and held her injured hand in front of her face.
No blisters, no pain, no radiation burn. The skin was perfect again; in fact, a small scar left on her thumb from the time it’d been smashed by a piece of dropped equipment was entirely gone, erased.
So just where the hell was she?
Inside some sort of organization, maybe; these people were all wearing uniforms. But were they the ECON, or were they fleeing it? The evidence was contradictory. The British man and his robot must have picked her up when she passed out…
And brought her here? If these people were ECON and wanted to destroy the Phoenix, why were they trying to take care of her now?
Too weird. Just all too weird to be true.
Don’t forget, Lil. You were dying. Three thousand one hundred twenty-nine rads, remember? Sorry, but even the ECON couldn’t have come up with a total cure for a superlethal dose of radiation. Not even in ten years’ time…
So what are you—dead? This is one sorry excuse for an afterlife.
Are you sure you aren’t still hallucinating?
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Whatever this is, it’s such a complicated mess there’s no point in trying to understand it right now. Just follow your instincts and take care of yourself.
Their leader rounded a corner, and the rest of the group obediently followed—except for Lily, who sat back on her haunches and watched silently as the group headed off in one direction.
And when they were out of sight, she struck off in another.
* * *
In the Enterprise-E’s security bay, as ten officers worked swiftly in the background to charge and test phaser rifles, Worf and Data listened intently to their commanding officer.
“The first thing they’ll do in engineering,” Picard said quietly, with a conviction that unsettled him but seemed to distress his listeners not at all, “is establish a collective—a central point from where they’ll control the hive.”
He moved over to a large display padd, activated it, and called up a schematic diagram of Main Engineering. “The problem is, if we begin firing particle weapons inside engineering, we risk hitting the warp core. So I believe our goal should be to puncture one of the plasma coolant tanks.” He tapped another control; the schematic rotated and zoomed in on a diagram of the warp core with two flanking coolant tanks, each marked with a flashing biohazard symbol. “Data?”
The android had apparently changed into more than just his uniform; the detachment in his amber eyes had vanished, replaced by warmth, enthusiasm, and more than a little nervous anticipation. “An excellent idea,” he replied. “Plasma coolant will liquefy any organic material on contact.”
Worf turned, thick red-brown eyebrows rushing together beneath his skull ridges, and regarded Data with a mixture of disdain and concern. “But the Borg aren’t entirely organic.”
“No,” Picard said. “But like any true cybernetic life-form, they can’t survive without their organic components.”
The Klingon gave one of his abrupt nods of approval, accompanied by a stern grunt, then turned and reached into one of the lockers and began to prepare his own phaser rifle. “I have ordered all weapons to be set on a rotating modulation. But the Borg will adapt quickly.” He paused and shot a meaningful look at Picard. “We will have a dozen shots at most.”
The captain acknowledged with a glance, then hesitated a heartbeat before speaking again. “One other thing. Warn your teams they may encounter Enterprise crewmembers who have already been assimilated. They mustn’t hesitate to fire.” The memory of Locutus rose unbidden, and with it the agonizing moment when he had stared at the Borg’s viewscreen and seen the horrified faces of his own crew there—and been unable to cry out, to warn them, to do anything except parrot the words forced upon him by the collective. He fought to keep the pain from his voice; it came out sounding grim, hollow. “Believe me… you’ll be doing them a favor.”
And he himself reached for one of the phaser rifles, trying to ignore the surprised reactions of his two friends and fellow officers, refusing to meet their eyes and see the concern that was, perhaps rightly, there. Even so, in the periphery of his vision, he saw a glance pass between them.
The Klingon cleared his throat. “Captain… I do not believe you should accompany us on this mission. Your place is on the bridge.”
Picard had already had this same argument with himself, but reason had lost. He could not let his own people face the Borg without his help, his newfound ability to sense what they were doing; nor could he pass up a test that would prove, beyond a doubt, that he was no longer theirs to control.
He would not sit alone on the bridge and wait for word from others. If anyone had earned the right to fight them, to destroy them, face to face, he had.
Startlingly, a muscle in his jaw began to twitch, one that did so only during moments of great rage. He was not angry, he assured himself, not angry at all. He was justified.
“Objection noted, Mr. Worf,” he said easily, though he never took his gaze from the rifle in his hands. As he watched, it began to hum with power. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Will Riker picked his way carefully over the mud-and-ice walkway that served as the ramshackle community’s main thoroughfare, taking care to give the faintly smoldering craters wide berth. People had already emerged from their hiding places and swiftly put out the fires; now, they were cleaning up the debris, assessing the damage, and casting worried glances up at the smoke-veiled night sky. One particular image struck him: that of a frail, silver-haired woman who stood staring expressionlessly at the pile of ashes that had been her tent.
The poor woman was stunned, Riker thought; but before he passed by her, she suddenly gave a small, disgusted sigh, then moved to a particular area and began sifting through the ashes with her boot. She found something, too; she lifted it up, blew it off, stuck it in her pocket… then turned her back on the ashes and walked away without another sign of regret.
Survivors, he realized, his pity turning to honest admiration; these people were true survivors who had lost everything, everyone, yet still did not surrender.
Riker could only hope that Zefram Cochrane was a survivor, too. He had not been among the dead in the silo’s outer control chamber, nor had they found any sign of him in or near the Phoenix. Deanna had gone in search of him; after all, in the twenty-fourth century, everyone who had ever been to Earth knew the warp-drive pioneer’s famous face. Identifying him by sight was not a problem.
Now, the Phoenix was almost ready for launch, and Troi had not returned to report on the search for Cochrane. The away team’s need to blend in with the locals had precluded the use of comm badges, but invisible transponders had been used in case an emergency required a quick beam-up. Riker had used Deanna’s to locate her—but wherever she was, she wasn’t moving very fast.
He could only hope she was all right.
As he’d left the silo, he could hear the faint sound of hard-driving music—“rock and roll,” they had called it. And the closer he moved toward Troi’s coordinates, the louder the music became, until at last he stood wincing at the vibratory effect of the percussion on his eardrums, in front of an olive-drab tent bearing the hand-lettered sign CRASH & BURN.
Riker entered. The place was clearly a local bar, with a twenty-first-century jukebox blaring away in the corner; to his surprise, there wasn’t a soul inside… save for Deanna Troi, who sat alone at the rickety bar, staring disconsolately down at a glass of amber liquid in front of her. Beside it rested another glass—empty. Elbows resting on the counter, she rubbed her temples, frowning, as if trying to ease a monstrous headache.
And little wonder, Riker thought, what with the music so damned loud his teeth rattled.
“Deanna!” he called.
She did not turn, did not see or hear him.
“Deanna!” he shouted at full volume, and this time when she did not hear, he found the jukebox’s old-fashioned power cord and yanked it out of the wall.
Blessedly, the music stopped. Troi immediately turned around at once, her expression dismayed. “Will, no! Don’t turn off the—”
The last word was lost in the bright, high tinkle of exploding glass. Riker instinctively shielded his face, then felt the sting of tiny shards, the splash of burning liquid upon the outside of one arm. The volatile fragrance of crudely made alcohol filled the air.
When no second explosion was forthcoming, he lowered his arm and found himself staring at a man, stubbled chin thrust indignantly upward, graying tendrils emerging from beneath a brimless cap onto a heavily lined forehead, blue eyes narrowed and bloodshot. Those eyes regarded Riker with hostility, suspicion, anger—and a brilliance so intense it was painful to behold.
“Who told this jerk he could turn off my music?” he demanded thickly of Troi.
Riker did not move; he had also noticed that the older man held another liquor bottle in his hand and was certainly drunk enough to overreact at the slightest provocation.
Troi ran a hand over her hair, a gesture that she reserved for the most harrying of times. Without smiling or looking at either of the men, she said, “Will Riker… Zefram Cochrane.”
Of course, Riker realized with awe; this was the great hero, standing right before him. Dissolute, unshaven, drunken, argumentative—not exactly what he had expected.
Cochrane walked on wobbly legs to the bar and sat himself down beside Troi. “Friend of yours?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Husband?”
“No,” she said, frosting up as his reason for asking became clear.
Cochrane blithely ignored her defensiveness. “Good.” And he picked up her glass and poured the contents onto the dirt floor, then refilled her glass and his. “Now this, Deena—”
“Deanna,” she corrected him, with such exasperation that Riker grinned faintly. Obviously, she’d found the famous scientist to be quite a handful.
“This is the good stuff,” he said, so cheerfully that Will took advantage of the shift in his mood.
“Dr. Cochrane…” he began warmly, stepping up to the bar beside the scientist.
Ignoring him, Cochrane lifted his glass and studied it, as if inspecting it for imperfections. “Here’s to the Phoenix… may she rest in peace.”
He emptied his glass with a single gulp, swallowed, then grimaced and pounded the bar with his fist. Troi followed suit—without the pounding, though her expression was even ghastlier than her host’s.
Disgusted, Cochrane peered at the label, then hurled the bottle to the ground, where it broke. “Okay. That was bad.” He rose, and went back around the bar to a secluded storage area.
Troi put her elbows on the wooden surface again and rubbed her temples. “Will, I think we’re going to have to tell him the truth.”
Riker glanced warily in the direction Cochrane had gone. “But if we tell him, the timeline could—”
Troi raised her head and faced him; for the first time, Will noticed that her words were slightly slurred. “This is no time to argue about time… we don’t have the time.” She frowned suddenly, as if trying to make sense of her own comment. “What was I saying?”
“You’re drunk,” Riker said in amazement.
She straightened with wounded—and noticeably wobbly—dignity. “I am not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Look,” she countered, using her elbows as support and leaning unsteadily toward him—a little too close, really, and he fought the impulse to recoil from her pungent breath. “He wouldn’t even talk to me unless I had a drink with him, and then it took three shots of something called ‘tequila’ just to find out he was the one we’re looking for. And I’ve spent the last twenty minutes trying to keep his hands off me, so don’t start criticizing my counseling technique!”
“Sorry.” He could not entirely repress a grin.
She recoiled stiffly at that. “It’s a primitive culture and I’m just trying to blend in.…”
“You’ve blended, all right.”
She seemed not to hear but continued, slumping forward on her elbows and growing steadily closer to the wooden counter. “I already tried telling him our cover story. He didn’t believe me.”
Will grew utterly serious; drunk or not, Deanna had a point. They didn’t have much time now, and Cochrane’s cooperation was essential. The Borg had already altered this timeline with their attack, and there was always the paradox: how could the Enterprise crew know that they were not destined to interfere? “We are getting short on time,” he said. “If we do tell him the truth, you think he’ll be able to handle it?”
The two of them swiveled their heads to look at Cochrane, who emerged from the storage area with a silver disc half the size of his palm, flipping it like a coin into the air with his thumb. He made a beeline for the antique jukebox.
“If you’re looking for my professional opinion as ship’s counselor,” Deanna murmured, “he’s nuts.”
“I’ll note that in my log,” Riker said dryly, and winced again as his eardrums reacted to the skull-shattering blare of rock and roll. Cochrane beat his fists in the air and stamped his feet drunkenly in time to the music, then gave a little leap and began to play an invisible guitar.
Beside Riker came a faint thump, one he would not have heard at all had it not been so close. He whirled about to see Troi face down against the counter, passed out.
EIGHT
To Picard, it seemed a long, long way down the emergency shaft ladder and an even longer jump from the last rung to deck sixteen. In truth, he had climbed only one level, and the distance between the ladder’s end and the deck was less than the length of his body.
But the mental distance was great, for when his boot soles struck the hard metal deck, the sound had the ring of finality. This, he realized, with that inexplicable way of knowing, would lead to the end of the ongoing struggle against the Borg: either he would see them utterly destroyed, or they would have to destroy him. There could no longer be any partial resolutions, no retreats, no escapes.
And nothing—not the Enterprise-E, the bridge, or even duty—would keep him from being at the battle’s conclusion. He, more than any of his peers, had suffered at their hands; he, more than all else, deserved to be in the thick of it.
This deck, too, was powerless, dimly lit—and stiflingly hot. He activated the light beam on his phaser rifle and peered about him: a corridor, nothing more. Silently, he raised an arm upward and motioned for the others to follow; Data immediately dropped down beside him, followed soon after by five security officers.
Together, weapons at the alert, they moved stealthily toward their destination, as yet out of sight. At the opposite end of the deck, Picard knew, Worf and his team of five should also be heading toward Main Engineering, where the two groups would converge.
It did not take long for signs of the enemy to appear. Data forged into the lead as they approached an intersection and shone his light beam around the corner; he stopped, raising his free hand for others to do the same. Even from the back, his posture telegraphed his fear as elegantly as voice or expression could; Picard hurried silently to his side, then followed the android’s troubled gaze.
Beyond, the corridor—bulkheads, decks, ceiling—were entwined by the leaden flesh-and-metal kudzu of Borg technology.
Picard drew in a sharp breath, not so much in fear but outrage at the obscenity. Beside him, Data audibly swallowed.
“Captain,” he whispered, “I believe I am feeling… anxiety. It is an intriguing sensation. I can see how it would be distracting for—”
“I’m sure it’s a fascinating experience,” Picard said brusquely. “But perhaps you should deactivate your emotion chip for now.”
“Good idea, sir.” The android tilted his head; for a millisecond, no more, his eyes grew vacant… then, abruptly, all traces of tension vanished from his face. “Done.”
Picard looked at him and sighed. “Data… there are times I envy you.”
* * *
At the same moment, Worf and his team were stealing down their own section of Borgified corridor. Worf’s five companions were well trained, experienced enough to remain levelheaded in the direst emergency, but now they were visibly tense, eyes wide and hyperalert, movements taut and nervously quick, lips grimly compressed.
And they had good reason to be. Few starships were able to survive a confrontation with the Borg; how much more dangerous would direct, hand-to-hand combat with them be?
Worf’s wish, if he did not survive that day’s battle, was to take more than a few of the Borg with him into death. His one regret was that the enemy he faced was indeed powerful but utterly lacking in honor.
He was glad Captain Picard had chosen to ignore Starfleet’s orders and fight; the war would be difficult, and only with the help of the most courageous and determined warriors could it be won.
Picard was indeed both courageous and determined; but there was something more Worf had seen in his eyes, something darker than a mere desire for justice or revenge—something bordering suspiciously on obsession. And if the captain allowed it to interfere with his judgment…
Worf immediately reigned in his thoughts, forcing his mind to clear and renew its intent focus on every sight, every sound as he led his team forward into a large intersection; in all four directions, Borg machinery coiled, a devouring serpent, around Federation technology.
