Kathryn
She cracked the theorem just before nightfall. Dark matter wasn't the answer. Something wasn't in the M.C.H.O.s, something was behind them, obscured. She nearly missed it until she found the stray tachyons. There's something in the darkness, something hidden. Something with enough mass to be just visible through the dark matter around them.
She stares at the console, blaming the equipment. It can't be. After she's adjusted the sensors, programmed them to read through the dark matter soup, she has hull signatures, even the faintest hint of power.
"Starships."
Four huge vessels, each kilometres long. It's a carrier group, an El-Aurian attack fleet. Something that hasn't been seen in the galaxy for centuries. She restarts the console twice, not trusting what she sees.
This was what Ro wanted. It must be something only the Empress knows about. Kathryn's heard stories about Listener ships. The great El-Aurian fleet disappeared, went to transwarp and was never seen again. She's heard whispers, more ghost stories than history. The El-Aurians were at war. They fled the far side of the galaxy, the Delta Quadrant, to build a new life here.
Some made it only to be devastated by an unknown enemy. She'd gone looking through forbidden files, trying to find something, but all that she could scour from the computer was an obscure reference to sentient cybernetic organisms.
She meant to go back and check, but she got distracted. She should still be able to read Terok Sa's computer. If her remote login hasn't been cleared from the backup system, she should be able to get in. Cardassian computer programmers are too lazy to remove everything. It's only been a few weeks and it should still be there.
Kathryn reroutes the long range sensors, twisting the old system to be what she needs. Hacking in to the Terok Sa library computer is far too easy. The Intendant's computer security is worse than Kathryn thought.
She has to write a worm to find the data. It's the work of moments and she sends it off, tapping her fingers on the console. Kathryn retrieves her cold coffee from the floor and gulps the rest of it. She barely has time to swallow before she's in. The console chips, ready to provide data.
Nearly dropping her cup, she clings to the old metal of the console. The worm was more successful than she thought, dragging up old files from several computer system upgrades ago. One is an autopsy report about a body so integrated with machines that nanites lived in the blood, able to repair some tissues after death. Another file simply lists incidents of missing colonies, places that were scooped from the earth leaving nothing but craters behind.
Kathryn's so engrossed in the article that she doesn't realise that the stardate is over three hundred years ago. She taps the console, trying to find the location of the file. The registry takes a moment, the reports back that it is an externally linked file, stored on the main computer core of the Silence.
Silence had to be in orbit for her to achieve a remote uplink. The Empress's flagship was in orbit already?
Kathryn cut the uplink, not even bothering to copy the files. Some species that could eat whole colonies was connected to a ghost fleet hiding behind a series of halo objects. None of the Alliance ships matched El Aurian design or technology. If the race that had destroyed their colonies and their ships was still out there and came for them now, the Alliance would be destroyed.
Were they watching the fleet? Had anyone else figured out what the ghost fleet was and how to reach it?
She jogs out of the old lab, looking for Beverly or Chakotay, someone who will understand what to do with what she's discovered.
Harry looks at her with fear dark on his face before he turns his head down towards his boots. "The Alliance took her."
"What do you mean they took her?"
Tom reaches for her shoulder, trying to calm her. "Beverly didn't come back. Chakotay's on his way to the station. I can try and find Tuvok or Riker to see if they've heard anything. Beverly always comes back on time."
Harry nods, eyes wide and white. He really is just more than a child. "Someone, one of the pirates might be able to find her."
"Pirates?"
Harry stands straighter, relieved he has something to offer. "We trade with them sometimes. They're Terrans, but they're free Terrans. I know where he likes to keep his ship."
Tom grins, now optimistic. "Better than that, I know where to find Riker."
"Riker?" Kathryn turns to Tom, puzzled. "Will Riker's no pirate."
"He's lots of things."
"Including whoever you want him to be."
Tom nudges Harry. "Nothing wrong with being good at what he does."
"You're good at who you do."
Kathryn glares at both of them, unable to believe that now they're arguing. "Look, I know Will and don't care what he does or who. If someone's taken Beverly, we need to get her back."
"I need to check the power station. Beverly got in, I know her route. I'm good with her devices." Harry looks to her for acknowledgement and the realisation that this is her mission now shivers through her.
"Go, be safe." What else can she say? What does a leader say? Make him know she believes in him. "They should be overconfident now that they have her." She pats his shoulder, wishing she could do more.
Chastised, Tom nods and heads towards his tent. "Will should be in with the other courtesans, I can get you in, but you can't come dressed like that. You need to be clean, to smell nice, and I'll have to come up with something to do with your hair."
Kathryn touches her head. Her hair's up tight in a bun, the way it usually is. "Fine. I'll wear whatever you want, just get me to Riker."
=====/\=====
Beverly
She's lying on a table, something cold and metal. The right side of her head throbs and there's a faint buzzing sound that must be generated from inside of her head instead of outside. Concussion, but if she's where she thinks she is, that's the least of her problems. Forcing her eyes open, Beverly looks up into the single point of light. Her vision's slow to clear, but she knows where she is.
She's dreaded being in a room like this since Jack died in one. A laser scalpel makes a neat incision, getting in so a neural pressure regulator can clear her concussion. Something hums, a dermal regenerator at work against the wound on her head. The pain fades, taking the fuzziness with it. She's acutely aware of where she is again and her terror is that much sharper. Cold sweat forms on her skin between her back and the table.
"Is she awake?" The voice to her left is Cardassian, soft and full of practiced charm. "Can't let her sleep through our little mapping session. She'll get so much more out of it if she's awake."
The Cardassian face looms over her, a male, middle aged with a mirthless, hungry smile. The hands that wielded the medical equipment belong to another, Seska. For all the time Beverly and her friends have feared Seska, she's not the master here.
"So you're our little bomber. The one who keeps blowing up the Intendant's property. She'll be so pleased to know we've mapped out your mind and we know where your little trouble causing devices are."
There's no point in arguing with them or fighting the machine. Wether she struggles or not the essence of her mind will be torn open and illuminated in excruciating detail. Jean-Luc compared it to a light blasted into the darkest corners of his mind. His life flew past without substance or context, memories he had no knowledge of recurring as if they were real again with the force of a phaser blast.
She won't beg. She won't give them the satisfaction. Her palms are clammy and a knot of fear burns in her stomach like liquid metal. She could rage and cry out, curse them and swear she'll never break, or she could save the energy. Maybe she'll live through this.
The tiny spark of hope fades, going out as the machine warms up above her head. For a moment she hopes she'll die outright, a few do, and Beverly clings to that thought until her desire for life wins out.
She wants to survive and that surprises her. Is wanting enough? Can she will her way through the etcher? Is that what Jean-Luc did?
The light above her brightens, becomes an orange glow before it coalesces into one thin stream of light that pours down into her mind. She sees Nana making tea, feels Wesley's hand grab her hair, hears a wall bursting above her head, tastes dust and blood but all she smells is the metallic tang of death. Her life, even the most banal moments, sears through her mind, turning minutiae into hyperreality.
After a second or eternity, she's not even aware if she's screaming or if she's already passed out.
Then it stops. She pants for breath, lying limp against the table with the sudden darkness as much of a shock as the light.
"Your techniques are barbaric. What did you expect to learn, what she wore when she was a child?"
"Inquisitor-"
"High Inquisitor."
"We merely meant-" The Cardassian, Madred, doesn't finish speaking. His protest dies in his throat and it's a slow, gasping death.
"Madame Inquisitor."
Beverly rolls to her side, curling into a ball while she takes an inventory of the parts of her body she has left. She can see her saviour, a woman in an ornate, black, gilded dress. She doesn't even want to process what 'Madame Inquisitor' means.
"Get her off of this thing."
"Madame Inquisitor? I really think-"
Madred grabs her shoulders and starts to drag Beverly off the table, she doesn't have any strength to resist or aid him and she's not sure which is worse, going with the High Inquisitor or staying with the Cardassians.
Seska resists, stopping Madred. "You think the Empress cares about your word when she can have proof? Let us map her mind and we'll know everything she ever thought. All that she was will be in the computer. We'll be able to search a database to find out what we need to know."
The High Inquisitor stares at Seska as if she's a filthy vole rat. "Your lack of precision is nearly as disturbing as your lack of faith."
Madred drops Beverly's shoulders, backing away. She catches herself, sitting up to watch in mute horror. She's spent the last ten years terrified of etchers. The technology takes hours to destroy the mind. The High Inquisitor's solution is far more elegant.
Seska stares at her, insolence her last act.
The High Inquisitor doesn't have to move or speak and Seska begins to shake. Her eyes roll back up into her head, blood trickling from first her nose, then her ears. She's still standing, but it must be because her legs don't yet know she's dead. Froth bubbles from her lips, darkened with blood. Her lungs can't be bleeding and Beverly realises she must have half-swallowed her own tongue. Her muscles stiffen in some sort of seizure then she collapses to the deck, dead.
The High Inquisitor shuts her eyes, centring herself.
Beverly stares over the edge of the table, watching blood pool around Seska's head as the stench of bitter urine fills the room. She's about to vomit, her gorge rising in her throat when the high Inquisitor grabs her face and turns her eyes towards her own fathomless ones.
She's in her head, running phantom fingers over Beverly's mind, melting her fear as if it were frost on the grass facing the sun.
"Come with me."
The voice is inside of Beverly's head, part of her very soul. Her nausea and the cold terror making her back rigid evaporate. She's safe. No longer afraid, Beverly climbs from the table and follows the High Inquisitor's long train out of the room.
=====/\=====
Kathryn
If the night were any less oppressively hot, she'd be freezing in what Tom's dressed her in. Kathryn's wearing a translucent wrap made of metres of cloth that seems to be without buttons or fastenings. She has a tiny halter top covering her breasts, but everything else is only vaguely hidden in sweet-smelling silk.
He notices her toying with the fabric and explains, "It's Tholian." Tom curls her hair, turning long auburn strands into gentle waves.
Kathryn's rarely thought of herself as beautiful because attraction is an immeasurable quantity. It doesn't matter if she's pleasing to look at, that is not her position. He finishes with her hair, checks the stain he's painted on her lips, smudges the dark kohl on her eyes and daubs perfume on his hands. He expertly rubs it along her neck, down her chest and onto the bare skin on the sides of her breasts.
Staring at him, Kathryn holds still because it'll be over in a moment.
"You have to look and smell like the wealthiest of courtesans or they'll never let you in. Will's of Imperial rank in the ShiXhen. He doesn't just hang out in bars, waiting for patrons, they come to him."
"You're taking me to a brothel?"
Tom shakes his head, grinning. "Cardassians might have something so crude, but this is a Bajoran planet. The Pah Wraiths teach that sex is a sacred union, even when money is involved, their courtesans are vedeks and all serve the Orb of Union."
"So it's a temple?"
"The site itself is a temple." Tom pauses. "You really never learned any of this stuff?"
"I was busy."
"I guess so." He tilts his head, trying to simplify his answer. "Every culture in the alliance has their own traditions. Klingons are military-minded. Only a dishonourable warrior has to pay for sex. Klingons like to hunt, to make it a conquest and if you're a challenging prey, they leave gifts, latinum and silks mostly. Cardassians are on the other end of that. They like to pretend they're seducing you, but they'll prefer to own their slaves rather than rent them. They're the worst because they want to break you and then they get rid of you. Bajorans make it sacred, lots of special incantations and incense, and they tithe to the temple, rather than pay outright. Still, the temple pays well and no Bajoran would dare displease the Pah Wraiths by not tithing when they're done."
"You said Will was Imperial something."
"Imperial is his ranking. He's only available to serve the highest ranks in the Empress's service. Her Intendants and Inquisitors, also those they deem worthy. ShiXhen is his training, he was trained on Betazed, which is incredibly rare."
How a planet of psychotic telepaths have the time to train courtesans is beyond her, but she accepts it. "So what did you make me? Do I have a rank?"
Tom holds up a necklace containing an identity chip. "Picard got this somehow. Imperial rank, exotic training."
"Exotic?" She raises an eyebrow.
He waves that off as unimportant. "Something not traditional, like a priest from Vulcan or an Andorian dancing shen. This chip marks whoever wears it as the Empress's own, untouchable by all others unless she deems it. I don't know how he got it, but it's saved me more times than I'd like to admit. As long as you're wearing this, no one will give you any trouble." He closes it around her neck and steps back to admire his creation. He seems pleased and Kathryn's not sure if she wants to know what she looks like.
"I have clients tonight, so I'll come with you." Tom removes a shirt and trades it for an open-chested black one. He can't be much more than twenty and he has an innocent, sun god kind of beauty. "Take small steps, if you need to move quickly, pull up your skirt."
Even though she's swathed in layers, the wrap feels like nothing, as if she were naked in the night. "Will Harry get to the power station?"
Tom shrugs, leading her through the underground tunnels towards the street. "Probably, he's pretty fast."
She walks alongside him in silence, trying to wrap her head around the complicated social norms of an entire world she knew nothing about.
"What are you, I mean, who trained-?"
Tom's quick smile lights his face in the dark alley when they hit the surface. "Chakotay did, after he found me in the street, trading myself for food. He sent me with Riker for a few years, let me learn as much as I can from him. He even got some Betazoid to sign off on my training as ShiXhenza, which means I'm as good as an ordinary person will get to a real Betazoid courtesan." He's proud of that. "It's not what I'll do forever, but it keeps me fed, lets me listen to things that might be important."
Kathryn takes his arm when he offers it, her sandals were designed for form, not function and the street is dusty and uneven. "What would you do, if you could do anything?"
"Pilot." That grin returns. "I'm the best damn pilot you'll ever see."
She believes him. In another world, he might even be a pilot instead of a courtesan. They walk in silence for awhile, until she has to ask. "If you were training Harry, and Chakotay was a courtesan, why isn't Beverly one too? Surely it's better than running around in dark corners."
"Beverly never had the disposition. Too stubborn, Chakotay says." Tom shrugs again. "We need bombers too. She's good at what she does."
Kathryn is good at her position and she nearly found a fleet of ships capable of putting the Alliance in power for the rest of eternity. Between them and the hellfire myth of the Borg, she's not sure who she wants to win.
Ferengi guards scan their chips and usher them into a tall, stone structure of Bajoran design. They pass rooms full of lesser courtesans, fountains of wine with cushions on the floor and silks hanging from the ceiling. The incense is thick and spiced, heavy enough to make her head float.
Tom leads her down a long corridor, passing progressively nicer rooms until they stop before a carved door. He knocks once, then steps aside. Kathryn looks at him in a moment of panic, but he returns to whisper.
"I saw one of Intendant Ro's majors, she'll know something about the Empress's visit. Riker will know how to find me if you need me."
Then he's gone with the Bajoran woman and Kathryn's alone when the door opens. A slave girl, Terran, barely as tall as Kathryn's waist, opens the door and waves her in. Will's chamber is lush, with a fountain of water in the centre, surrounded by trees that grow up into the ceiling to form a canopy both in and out of the room. The columns are all carved wood, dark with age, and the bed in the centre is on the floor, covered in even more silks, some with threads of latinum.
Will kneels by the pool, washing his face in the cool water. He lifts his head, smiling as if expecting her.
"Tell Tom you're unrecognisably beautiful." He raises a hand and another slave, this time a Vulcan boy with a green tinge to his burnished skin, brings him a towel. "I'm impressed, Kathryn."
She has no time for pleasantries. "Seska took Beverly."
"Up to the Empress's ship." Will nods and dismisses the slaves with a wave. "I know. Ro's been trying to find her for months. Taking you made it personal."
"I'm not-" Kathryn stops, because she was Ro's. She was a possession and Beverly stole her away. Does she belong to her now or is she making her own choices? "Will they hurt her?"
Will's voice is gentle. "She might be put in a neuroscanner by the Cardassians."
Kathryn sinks to her knees, remembering what Beverly said about Cardassian neural imagers. She saw the terror in her face then but she didn't want to believe it.
"Or Lwaxana will question her personally."
"Lwaxana the High Inquisitor? What does she care about a terrorist?"
"A terrorist who kidnapped the scientist who found the lost fleet is of great importance to the Empress. If Beverly is lucky, Lwaxana will find her before Seska gets a chance to start."
"Is Lwaxana any better?" Kathryn remembers little about her other than the aura of fear that surrounded her.
"Neuroscanners are crude by design and they're a slow, nasty way to die. Lwaxana can be merciful or unimaginably cruel. She gets into your head, and she might remind you of a pleasant memory, search the depths of your soul, or simply overwhelm you with the weight of your mind, letting your psyche implode."
"How can she do that?"
"The Betazoid brain can be a formidable weapon. She's been a tool of the Empress for decades. The Empress refined her, calmed the mind storms that make Betazoids so dangerous."
"That's why all her guards are Breen and Ferengi."
"Mind storms kill everyone else. I've heard the Empress lost three crews before she made the order. She's never affected."
"What is she?"
Will lifts his identification chip, a gilded necklace Kathryn remembers hanging on the wall above her bed the first time she met him.
"The Empress is El Aurian, and I don't think anyone but her knows exactly that what means. She doesn't seem to age, she doesn't see time the way we do and once upon a time, her people were set to rule the galaxy before-"
Kathryn knows this now. "The cybernetic race-"
"The Borg."
"Borg?" That word wasn't in the files she found.
"The many who are one. They're a hive race, millions of drones with one collective mind." Will slips a belt around his waist, hiding something within it. "They're the one thing the Empress is afraid of."
"What does it matter to us? We've found the fleet, when Chakotay comes back we can activate them. That's what he's after, isn't it? A fleet of starhips, El Aurian starships, those would be enough to-"
Will opens a hidden console and starts imputing commands. "Throw off the Alliance and restore the Terran Empire to its former diseased glory? I don't think that's the plan. Stand in the centre of the fountain."
"The fountain?"
"It's a transporter."
Kathryn lifts her diaphanous skirt and carefully wades to the stone circle in the middle of the fountains. "Where are we going?"
"Where Beverly is."
"And the Borg?"
Will hits the last command and the stone beneath her feet lights up. "I don't know if anyone knows what to do about them."
The transporter whisks them away before Kathryn gets to know where that destination is. When her sight returns from the void between, she's standing on the smooth black deck of the Empress's ship. Will's beamed them into a bedroom.
She turns and he grins. "The Empress's daughter and I have a connection."
He means command codes to beam into her bedroom and Kathryn doesn't have time to ask. "Where's Beverly?"
"You're the computer genius." He leads her to a terminal in the main room, runs his necklace over the board and it lights up obediently.
She's only worked with the El Aurian computer over remote link, up close and personal it's a work of art as much as technical sophistication. After she figures out the interface, Kathryn searches. Beverly might have a transponder, but that system might be encrypted. Her best bet is a simple search for life forms. Thousands of Ferengi and Breen aren't important, Kathryn removes them from the parameters. There are four Terrans aboard, herself, Will and two in the centre of the ship.
"Throne room." Will explains when she points at the map. "With the Empress and the high Inquisitor, surrounded by guards."
Kathryn slams her hand against the console, distracting herself with the pain. "Will the High Inquisitor kill her?"
"I don't know." Will touches her shoulder, his palm hot against her bare skin. "If we can't get to her, we need to signal Chakotay and Picard."
"Why?"
"Picard's our only way out of here if the ship decides to go in search of that ghost fleet." Will opens communications. "Can you bury a signal?"
Kathryn frowns at the options. Everything's encrypted and they're running out of time. "I can bounce the signal through the repeating matrix of the sensor array. It'll be detected, but not for a day or two when someone bothers to read the report."
"Do it."
"What do we say?"
"Tell Picard we've found the ghosts."
B'Elanna
The Terran woman with red hair, the terrorist, sits on the floor at Lwaxana's feet. She's remarkably calm, even docile and B'Elanna guesses she's been controlled. The High Inquisitor arrived in a violent mood, berating Intendant Ro for letting the Cardassians use their filthy little devices when she had a perfectly good Inquisitor of her own to use.
Ro apologised sincerely, but her nose bled before Lwaxana stopped looking at her. The other Inquisitor, Deanna, seems to be fuming but it's a cold rage. The Empress is distracted with the boy, the one who found the ships.
The boy is younger than B'Elanna, maybe fourteen years old. His eyes are far older than that and he speaks like a computer. He's found a fleet, a ghost fleet and he thinks the ships are still active, there's a homing signal.
The Empress raises a hand from her throne, beckoning the boy to his feet. "And you suggest we follow that signal?"
"Yes, Serenity, we have to get the ships back." The boy stands without fear, even when Lwaxana looks over him.
"Did you reply to it?"
The boy stares his Empress down, defiance raw in his eyes. "The signal asked for confirmation."
He leaves off the honorific but the Empress says nothing. "Did you report to your Intendant before you confirmed the signal?"
The boy shakes his head. "It was fading."
"Did you run the signal through the database, determine who it was from?"
"The signal was type six, classified unknown. I had to run it through a descrambler and two sets of code to clean it up."
"And you replied to the unknown signal, giving them our estimated arrival."
"We've never picked up a type six unknown signal, ever. I couldn't let it fade away."
"Did you report your reply?"
"It's documented."
"You did not report."
"No." The boy struggles, fighting the urge to say something else.
Lwaxana leans forward in her throne, losing enough control of the Terran woman for horror to appear on her face. Something's about to happen, B'Elanna can feel it.
The Empress leaves her black crystal throne, standing to meet the boy's eyes. "What did you find?"
"They sent a signal that needed an organic computer, living neurons, to decode."
"So you took your guards and used their minds."
"It was necessary." The boy remains firm even as the corpses of two Klingons are dropped at his feet by the Breen guards. Their faces are twisted in pain, the skin grey and mottled as if something had attacked them from within.
"What did you discover?"
"The signal was a blueprint, an RNA message that recoded their cells."
"Their bodies tried to make something out of nothing. I think it was organic nanites. They died because they weren't the right species. Klingons were the wrong template. It was unfortunate."
The Empress's expression is placid and calm. "What is the right species?"
"Yours, Empress. The signal was coded for El Aurian DNA. Klingon is too far variant, Cardassian would be too. I require a Terran subject." He drops his gaze to the woman now weeping silently at Lwaxana's feet. "She would suffice."
"You want her?"
"I may require more. She may not survive."
"Then why would you take her?"
The boy looks down at the Terran with disgust. "She is of little use. She is not intelligent enough to serve, and you say she is too stubborn to be a good slave. Let her be of use to me."
B'Elanna catches the softening of the High Inquisitor's eyes even as she frowns. Lwaxana turns to the Empress, meeting her eyes. Something passes between them without being said aloud.
"You know this is your mother."
"Perhaps she should bear other children, if she is healthy. Some part of her genes made me." The boy shrugs. "If that is not your will, I do not see why it is not acceptable for her to be part of my experimentation. My discoveries will give her life meaning."
"Her life has no meaning now?"
"She is a slave. Her life has what meaning you give it."
The Empress looks again at Lwaxana, sharing something silently across their minds.
"What meaning lies in this experiment?"
The boy smiles, an empty, soulless baring of his teeth. "Perfection. The Borg will bring harmony to chaos."
The Empress shuts her eyes and it takes B'Elanna a moment to realise she's shut her eyes in grief. Lwaxana leans back in her throne, hands in her lap. She does something, something with her hands and the woman has a dagger.
The knife slides into the boy's chest before he has time to move away. The Terran woman digs it deep and B'Elanna recognises a death blow. Tears gleam on the woman's face but she's resolute. The boy falls, his heart weeping red onto the black stone of the deck.
Eyes still closed, the Empress actives her link to the bridge. "Take us to transwarp, bring us to the fleet."
Nothing is said yet understanding hangs in the room. The Borg are a united enemy, something even the Terrans know must be stopped. Did Lwaxana tell her somehow? Guinan sweeps from the room, Lwaxana following her. The Terran woman sits on the floor next to her son.
"The Borg would have killed us all." She looks up with haunted eyes. "They're like a virus."
"You don't have to stay, the guards will take care of the body."
"He was sweet when he was a boy." The Terran woman shuts his eyes and backs away from his body, her tears running slow. "Everything was a game for him, something he had to figure out."
B'Elanna could follow the Empress up to the bridge, watch the ship enter transwarp, but she stays with the Terran. It doesn't seem right to leave her alone. She retreats back and sits with her on the stairs up to the Empress's throne.
She's never seen a Klingon cry. Klingon grief is loud, full of death howls and shrieking. This is quiet and the Terran's tears fall silently. She doesn't know what to do, if she should do anything, but she stays. This Terran was brave, she shouldn't suffer alone.