Deadlier than a Scorpion's Sting – Chapter 3
By Kudara
Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager and crew belong to Paramount/Viacom and no infringement of copyright/trade marks is intended. The only thing I lay claim to is the solar system I created for Pegasi 51, the background and culture of the Pegasians, and the original character Alexa Nikoleon.
Note: This story diverges from the canon storyline during the events of Scorpion II, and thus is essentially an AU story.
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Always welcome, feedback is what encourages me to keep writing. Please let me know what you like and what you dislike about the story.
Revision History: 02/20/06; 02/22/07
Summary: Sometimes Murphy puts in overtime, and if you could find him you'd bring back burning at the stake.
Stardate 51005.4 (Wed, 02 Jan 2374 23:30 GMT)
The Cube sent to retrieve them had been destroyed, and no other Borg vessels were within range to retrieve the nanoprobes within the next 24 hours. The Borg had already tried and failed to create a transwarp tunnel to this moon from unaffected regions of space, losing ten vessels in the attempt. Neither the medical tricorder nor the regular tricorder contained in the Starfleet survival kit had the resolution to determine the modifications made to the nanoprobes to make them effective against Species 8472, and attempts to contact the Starfleet vessel Voyager had been unsuccessful.
Failure after failure chipped away at the tactical projections, until only the unlikely possibilities that Voyager contacted the Borg, an unknown ally came to the Borg's aid, or Species 8472 ceased its attacks, resulted in any likelihood of the Collectives success in this conflict. The past six hours brought consecutive reports of incursions closer to Grid 001. The Borg had lost 145 planets, 689 vessels, and 1,465,895,345 Borg in total since the conflict with Species 8472 had begun.
Seven of Nine stared at the medical stasis tube containing the modified nanoprobes, her mind searching yet again for some way to determine the changes made to them, even though the entire Borg Collective had been attempting the same task for the last four hours unsuccessfully. Upgrading the medical tricorder was possible by taking parts from the alcove and solar collector, but the estimated resolution after the upgrade did not even approach that needed for the task.
But she could not, would not, cease her attempt, no matter how unlikely it was that she would succeed, for the alternative was unthinkable, the Borg could not be defeated. What would her existence be like if the Collective's measureless voice was silenced? Six years ago, her neural transceiver had been damaged when the Borg sphere she had been on had crash landed upon Planet 1865 Alpha. It had been a difficult, frightening, time for her until the Borg Cube had retrieved them, repaired their neural transceivers, and re-linked them to the Collective. She did not want to experience that silence again, she was Borg, part of a harmonious whole, every drone working toward the same goal, perfection, she was not small, not individual, and did not wish to be.
Five of Ten stirred and made a distressed sound, drawing Seven of Nine's attention. The drone's mind was active, distorted images flickering through it at a rapid pace--walking down a section corridor of some Cube with something unknown rapidly coming up from behind and attacking--moving through corridors stepping over the bodies of dead drones--coming face to face with the body of a dead drone in an alcove that tilted forward and fell toward… Seven wrenched herself from the drone's sleeping mind, confused by the images.
Staring perplexed at Five of Ten, it took a few seconds until Seven of Nine realized what was happening. The images were real ones, only from the minds of other drones, and were currently part of the Collective's consciousness. She had dismissed them as irrelevant to her current task and was ignoring them, but the new drone was sleeping, and her mind was trying to make sense of the images in the only way it was familiar, as a dream.
The drone cried out as a particularly vivid image of Species 8472 appeared in its dream and attacked slashing at the drone's face. Concerned, Seven of Nine connected again with the drones sleeping mind and ordered it to ignore all data not specifically directed to it. The image and phantom pain of the injury faded from Five of Ten's mind, and the drone relaxed and slipped into a deeper sleep. Seven of Nine continued to monitor her for another few minutes to ensure that the drone was obeying her directive.
Once satisfied that Five of Ten was complying, she turned her attention back to the stasis tube containing the modified nanoprobes and once again attempted to find a solution to the Collective's dilemma.
Stardate 51005.6 (Thur, 03 Jan 2374 01:30 GMT)
"Would someone like to explain to me exactly how Lt. Nikoleon was transported with the Borg drones?" Captain Janeway snapped at Chakotay and Tuvok. The three of them were the only ones currently present in Sickbay, the Doctor having deactivated himself earlier. The discussion with Chakotay about his decision to transport the drones in the first place and break the alliance had already occurred, the news that Lt. Nikoleon was missing had come approximately one hour after that heated discussion.
"I knew the internal sensors were still damaged, so I ordered the wide beam transportation to include anything containing a Borg signature," Chakotay spoke before Tuvok could, he knew the Vulcan blamed himself for transporting Lt. Nikoleon, but it had been his command that the Vulcan had been following. Janeway was already furious with him for breaking the alliance against her wishes; a bit more anger was not going to change much at this point.
"Despite the fact that it was Commander Chakotay's order, it was my responsibility to check the transportation buffer before completing the transportation, if I had done so I might have been able to determine the presence of an extra done." Tuvok interrupted Chakotay stoically.
Captain Janeway fixed him with a look that held equal mixtures of anger and disappointment, "You're right, it was."
Chakotay saw Tuvok's face grow even grimmer at the words. "The only way for her to have been included in that sensor scan was for her to have been assimilated before the transportation, and I'm not at all convinced that a look at the transportation buffer would have revealed her inclusion," Chakotay said glancing at Tuvok. Leaning forward, and staring at the Captain intently, he drew Janeway's attention away from Tuvok, "Which shows that they broke the alliance before we ever transported them down to the planet. Lt. Nikoleon was in the Cargo Bay doing a repair; they must have been planning something and assimilated her so that she couldn't warn us."
"Did it occur to you that might have not happened had you not threatened to put them off the ship? The Borg are desperate to get these modified nanoprobes, and desperate people," seeing he was about to speak Janeway raised her voice, "or desperate Borg, do desperate things. You might have pushed them into trying to take over Voyager, if you were planning on transporting them somewhere you should have just done it, and told them after the fact when they couldn't harm the ship."
Chakotay opened his mouth to argue with her then shut it; he knew Janeway could be ruthless when it came to protecting Voyager and its crew. It was quite possible that, if she had decided to break the alliance, she would have never tipped her hand to the Borg until it was impossible for them to do anything more than object.
"How soon will repairs be completed?" Janeway asked.
"B'Elanna says eighteen more hours to complete the repairs, we were lucky find this nebula, and slip away from that bioship." Chakotay replied, remembering with a shudder exactly how close it had been, the bioship had come very close to destroying them.
"We're going back for her as soon as they are, the Doctor assures me that he can sever her from the Collective and remove her implants." Janeway's tone and icy glare made it clear that there would be no objections allowed. "We aren't going to leave a crewmember stranded upon a Class L moon for the Borg to pick up, if they are even able to pick them up. We're going back for her." Janeway was satisfied to see two almost identical winces from the men in front of her.
A shift in the nature of Five of Ten's thoughts alerted Seven of Nine to the fact that the drone was waking. The new drone's eyes snapped open and she sat up abruptly, the silver emergency blankets falling away from her body. As Five of Ten was facing away from the Tertiary Adjunct, Seven of Nine had a clear view of the new drones bare muscular back and the tattoo there of two creatures oriented back to back. A query to the new drone identified them as rearing horses, one in reds, oranges and gold, and the other in pale blue, white and silver. The red-gold horse breathed a plume of flames from its flared nostrils, and the white-silver horse a plume of cold; intricate spiraling designs, in the same colors as the horses, formed a circle around the two rearing animals in the center.
Seven of Nine reached out and curiously stroked the markings, questioning Five of Ten as for the reason for them. Images flooded her mind. She was walking round, and round, reddish brown soil and gravel crunching under her booted feet, shaking her arms and legs, trying to keep the muscles relaxed and limber in the cold. Her mind focused on the upcoming task, she mentally ran though a map of the course, as her breath plumed in the cold thin air. The terrain around her could charitably be described as scrubland, exceptionally hardy short, stunted, shrub sized plants and grasses were all that could withstand Crucible's daily extremes of temperature. The land was rocky and rugged, rising and falling in a series of steeply rounded hills.
They had arrived here one hour ago, during the early morning dawn, and waited patiently until the temperature rose from the nightly low of -43 degrees Celsius to 0 degrees Celsius when the marathon would begin. Now it was only a few minutes from the start time, all twenty competitors watched the temperature gauge; it read -1 degrees Celsius, when it changed to 0 they would start the 50 kilometer run. Crucibles short day meant that they had only about two hours and thirty minutes to complete the course before the noonday sun caught up with them, turning the landscape into a shimmering oven at 64 degrees Celsius. Anyone not finishing at time would be transported out and would have to attempt the marathon again the following year. The marathon was called 'Running before the Noonday Sun,' and as the temperature readout shifted from -1 to 0, Alexa began with the others, settling quickly into a steady ground eating pace.
Seven of Nine pulled away from the intensity of the drone's uncensored memories, startled at how it had felt as if she were actually present for that moment. She stared at the red-gold horse and the fiery plume of its breath, signifying Alexa's, Seven of Nine paused confused at her use of the drone's former designation, and corrected herself quickly, Five of Ten's success. Its white-silver twin beside it was for succeeding at running the same distance only starting from just before the planets nightfall, when the temperature again fell to 0 degrees Celsius, and running to just before its midnight and was called 'Running before the Midnight Moon.' That race, however, was run with minimal protective gear, mainly a breathing mask to ensure that the cold air did not damage the runner's lungs.
Seven could feel Alexa's strong emotional response at having been to be one of only three competitors to attempt both marathons in the same day, instead of waiting until the next year to do the second run. A quick query identified the emotion as pride, the satisfaction in attempting and succeeding at a difficult task. Seven examined the emotional response once again curiously, and then continued interrogating Five of Ten's memories about the event.
To run the two marathons in the same day meant that you only had five hours to rest in between them, and was a challenge few cared to attempt, of the three that had run both with her, Alexa had been the only one to succeed. That she had succeeded was shown in the tattoo by the fact that the backs of the two horses were touching slightly instead of having the usual inch of space between them; showing that the runs were literally done 'back to back.' On average only two people a year succeeded in doing both runs, and Alexa had been pleased to know that on that year she had been the only one, that in the official records there would be only one name for that year for the double run; hers.
Approximately twenty percent of Pegasus's population was entitled to have both of the tattoos, only one percent had the 'back to back' version of the tattoo, and the two runs were recognized to be among the four most difficult individual tests offered on Crucible. The two higher ranked tests, stays of a month and six months upon Crucibles surface, starting with minimal survival gear and two protective suits, one for the day and one for the night, were only held by ten and one percent of Pegasians respectively.
Belatedly, realizing how much time she had spent questioning Five of Ten about the marking, Seven of Nine remonstrated with herself sharply, she had yet again allowed herself to become enmeshed in the new drone's memories. Her last regeneration period had been 12 hours ago on Voyager, but there had been no vinculum present to order her thoughts and purge them of irrelevant ideas and emotions. The last time she had regenerated on a Borg vessel had been 96 hours ago, and it was showing, her thoughts were becoming more disorganized, and she was experiencing irrelevant emotions more frequently. It was not just the fascination with the new drone, but the despair she felt at the thought of the Collective being defeated, and the fear she experienced whenever she contemplated her own existence in such a future.
Not that such an existence was likely, Seven of Nine admitted, thinking of the environment outside the thin insulated walls of the Federation shelter. If the Borg ceased to exist, there was little hope of them being retrieved from the moon's surface. The ration bars in the survival kit would run out in approximately 45 days and the new drone would slowly starve to death since she was unable to regenerate, and Seven of Nine would be alone. She could not exist that way, Seven of Nine knew, she would terminate herself in such circumstances rather than attempt to continue functioning.
She silently ordered Five of Ten to dress and assist her; perhaps there would be something in the new drone's memory that would present a solution to the seemingly insolvable problem of how to determine what modifications were made to the nanoprobes. Seven of Nine did not see how the Federation could possess such knowledge, but then their successful modification of the nanoprobes had been unforeseen as well.
"Tuvok release the probe, let's see if there's anything waiting out there for us," Captain Janeway ordered. She appeared relaxed, leaning back in her command chair and her hands casually resting upon the armrests, but a certain tenseness to her jaw gave away her true state of mind.
Minute sounds of activity came from around her as Paris maintained the ships relative position just inside the nebula, and Tuvok and Kim worked together to analyze the data coming in from the probe.
A distressed noise from Kim caused her to twist around in her seat, ignoring Chakotay who was sitting broodingly beside her she looked past him at the Ensign. "I'm detecting bioships, Captain," Kim replied apologetically, as if somehow at fault.
"Three bioships to be exact," Tuvok corrected. Janeway turned back around and faced him. "Their positioning indicates that they are waiting for us to leave the nebula."
Her grey eyes met his dark ones, "How long until we have enough of the modified nanoprobes to arm three torpedoes?"
"Forty-eight hours Captain, but I would recommend waiting until we have enough for at least five torpedoes. I doubt these will be the only bioships we encounter." He maintained eye contact with her, emphasizing his words.
"No, I doubt they will be," Janeway replied grimly, wondering how the war between the Collective and Species 8472 was going. Between having no link to the Collective and hiding in this nebula, they had no way of knowing either. "How much longer would that take?" she asked, her voice cool. She didn't like the idea of leaving Lt. Nikoleon on that moon for any longer than absolutely necessary. She had no idea whether or not a Borg ship had already retrieved the drones, but every hour gave the Borg more time to do so.
"Approximately sixty-four hours, or less Captain, the Doctor is currently working on a more efficient way to produce them and believes that he will be able to do so within the next forty-eight hours." Tuvok answered.
Janeway gave a sharp nod, "I think I'll go down and see if the Doctor could use some help," she stood, 'and ask Kes whether or not she's detected anything else from Species 8472,' she thought to herself. "Commander you have the bridge," she commented as she left, barely giving him a glance. As the turbolift began to move, she ran over the possible tactical scenarios, she understood why Chakotay was so afraid of the Borg, but in this case she was convinced he had been dangerously short-sighted. The way the Borg had acted, she suspected Species 8472 would win this war without Voyager's help, on the surface that appeared to be a good thing, but what happened afterward? There was nothing to stop Species 8472 from continuing their attacks throughout the quadrant and perhaps even further, and they had implied in their communications with Kes that they would do just that.
Chakotay smoothed his hands over his thighs uneasily as he watched her leave. Knowing that Kathryn would be angry with him was quite different from the reality of her anger. Staring at the swirling orange colors of the nebula on the viewscreen, he considered once again what he knew of Lt. Nikoleon, and why she had decided to go into that cargo bay instead of turning around and reporting to engineering. A discussion with Ensign Marie Hickman, one of Alexa's friends, had provided some enlightenment, Marie had pointed out that the Captain and Tuvok had been over to the Borg ship and returned unassimilated. It would be just like Alexa to take that as a challenge to go into the cargo bay, do the repair and leave just so she could tell them about doing so later.
It sounded crazy, but then as Hickman had pointed out Pegasians had an element of craziness to their character, otherwise why put themselves though some the things they did just to get tattoos. Chakotay devoutly hoped that Alexa Nikoleon was still alive and still on the moon's surface, and that they would get there in time to rescue her for both of their sakes.
Stardate 51007.5 (Thur, 03 Jan 2374 17:30 GMT)
There was a moment of almost silence in the Collective's consciousness as the unthinkable moment, the calculated time point where all projections agreed that the Borg no longer possessed the number of ships and drones needed to successfully defend itself, passed. Immediately following, came the order summoning all vessels within a 40 light year radius of Sector 001 to defend Unimatrix 01 and the Unicomplex at Borg Prime, the homeworld of the Borg. All other vessels were to avoid contact with Species 8472 and either travel to Sector 159 and use its transwarp hub to travel to Sector 256, Unimatrix 256 near the galactic center, or travel directly to Unimatrix 256, whichever was closer to them, in an attempt to preserve the Collective should Unimatrix 01 be destroyed.
Seven of Nine looked at the stasis container in her hands, the taunting silvery gray nanoprobes whose programming could have ensured the Collectives defeat of Species 8472. She queried the Collective for instructions, "Protect the modified nanoprobes, Unimatrix 256 will continue efforts to retrieve them. Attempt to find a method to allow Five of Ten, Quinary Data Core Engineer of Subjunction 12, Cube 178 Unimatrix 12 to regenerate to permit its continued functioning." came the brief reply through her neural transceiver.
"I will comply," Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 01 replied, turning to look at Five of Ten, her mind already busy with its new tasking.