The Doctor slowly turned around and stared down the camera stalk of his old enemy, the Dalek. He lowered his arms to his side and couldn't help but feel sorry for the assimilated creature before him. With a sad yet cautious look, he sighed. "Yes?" he asked patiently.
The green light inside the camera eye shrank slightly as it maintained a steady focus on the Time Lord and for a tense moment, the Dalek said nothing and made no move.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow wondering if he was in yet another staring contest with a Dalek. He decided to just walk away.
As he turned, the Dalek fired its weapon. The white beam was right on target and struck the Doctor's protective field. He instinctively flinched under the powerful, original Dalek weapon, but the field held the deadly beam back with a loud crackling.
"Doctor!" Kathryn called out.
He wasn't too concerned about the beam at first, but then he felt it. A burning sensation steadily growing more intense as the beam maintained a constant stream on his protective field.
When the Time Lord started to show he was in pain and began slumping down to his knees, Kathryn took action. She flanked down one side of the Doctor while Tuvok flanked the other.
The Doctor, now on his knees, held up an arm to shield his eyes and started screaming.
The captain and security chief opened fire on the Dalek at the same time, hitting it with a double dose of sonic energy. The Dalek's weapon immediately ceased firing and the Dalek itself moaned and shuddered to stillness.
Kathryn and Tuvok crouched by the Doctor, who hunched over and breathed heavily. The captain gently rested her hand on his shoulder and at her touch; he sat upright and franticly removed the protective field and loosened his tie.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly.
The Time Lord nodded. "That was close," he said between deep breaths. "Thank you."
"Tuvok!" Seven called from the TARDIS.
The Vulcan jumped up and fired a sonic blast at a drone Seven managed to shove out the door.
Seven stepped out of the blue box and closed the door behind her. "Are we continuing with the mission?" she asked in her stern tone.
"Yes," Kathryn said to Seven and turned to the Doctor. "Can you stand?"
He nodded and climbed to his feet.
Kathryn held on to his arm in case he needed the support. "Come on." She started to lead him to the TARDIS when he stopped her, his gaze fixed on the Dalek.
"I have to know," the Doctor whispered with a look of hard determination. He lowered down to one knee in front of the disabled Dalek and ran the head of the sonic screwdriver along the grooves in the mid-section of the metal shell. A click sounded and the front of the Dalek's exterior opened like a flower in bloom.
Kathryn, Tuvok and Seven looked on in curiosity despite the dangerous situation they were in.
The true form of the Dalek was nestled inside the shell just as the Doctor expected. What he didn't expect to see was that a couple of the squid-like alien's tendrils were replaced by Borg implants with tiny Borg tools on the tips. Around the single central eye, small Borg wires dug into the Dalek's pale-blue flesh connecting to Borg nodes mounted inside the shell.
"This will only take a minute," the Doctor said to Kathryn in a soft voice.
She remained silent as he tucked the sonic in his jacket pocket and gently rested his fingertips on the Dalek's head around the single eye.
"Mind meld?" Tuvok whispered to Seven in slight surprise.
The Time Lord closed his eyes, relaxed his features and exhaled.
.
.
The war had raged across time and space for long enough. Today it ends. A massive fleet consisting of ten million ships advanced on the home world of their greatest enemy. Inside the ships, billions of soldiers prepared for the final battle. Each and every soldier, driven by the most seething hatred of everything living, stood in endless ranks patiently waiting to strike.
As the bay doors of the ships finally opened, the armies filed out in a steady stream. One soldier in particular reveled in the anticipation of seeing its beam canon destroy those arrogant Time Lords. It flew into space along side its brethren and headed down to the planet below eagerly awaiting the battle ahead. Today, the war ends. The Daleks would be victorious.
Suddenly in flash of white light, the Dalek soldier was no longer in space. Instead, it was in a corridor covered in black wiring and other dark metal parts. Some areas of the wall had panels lit with glowing green symbols the confused Dalek had never seen before. This a Time Lord trick, the Dalek thought with growing anger. It heard footsteps and rotated its camera stalk around to see a humanoid, outfitted with the same black mechanical parts as the corridor, approaching it.
"Where am I?" The Dalek demanded.
When the humanoid did not respond and continued walking past as if it weren't there, the Dalek rotated its cannon and took aim. "If you do not answer, you will be exterminated!"
The humanoid did not acknowledge the Dalek, so the Dalek kept its promise and fired. The white beam hit its target square in the back and the creature's skeleton flashed brightly before the body collapsed into death.
For a moment, the Dalek was satisfied of its easy kill, but then heard additional footsteps approaching. Moving its camera around, it counted four more of the mechanical creatures steadily walking up to it and scanning it with green lasers.
"We are Borg. Your biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile," said a voice of a thousand voices that seemed to come from nowhere and yet be everywhere.
"You will be exterminated!" The Dalek cried and fired its cannon at one of the drones. The white beam hit a field of green light directly in front of the drone that scattered the deadly energy into harmless particles. Taken aback, the Dalek fired again and again, but caused no damage to the drones that had now adapted to its weapon.
The Dalek had a new species to hate, whatever they were. "Back!" It cried as invading hands reached out. There was nowhere for the Dalek to go, it was trapped and all it could do was watch in horror as the drone's penetrated the Dalek's own shields.
For the first time in its existence, the Dalek felt fear as prying hands forced apart its protective metal hull and revealed its vulnerable form. As nanoprobes were injected into its body and began turning it into something it didn't want to be, the Dalek screamed.
.
.
The Doctor's eyes fluttered open and his vision was blurred with tears that streamed down his cheeks. Even after all he's suffered at the hands of the Daleks, he couldn't bring himself to let a creature suffer. He looked down at the poor, poor Dalek and knew there was only one thing he could do, liberate it from the Collective.
Slowly, he let his hands slip away from the Dalek's head when it reached out and gently wrapped an untainted tendril around the Doctor's wrist. The Time Lord paused and stared incredulously at the gesture.
The Dalek's eye blinked and gave the Doctor an intense, almost pleading look. He covered the tendril with his other hand as a one might comfort a friend. "Don't you worry," he said with a reassuring voice. "I'm the Doctor and I'm going to help you."
Hello, Doctor, said a sultry female voice inside his mind.
The Doctor gasped in surprise and flinched back from the Dalek, but did not let go of the tendril. "Who are you?" he asked aloud.
I am your Queen, the voice answered and seemed to be mocking him.
"My Queen?" He couldn't believe the audacity of the voice and started to laugh, but choked in realization. With eyes wide in shock, he gawked at the sight of two prongs extending from one of the Dalek's mechanical tendrils buried deep in his wrist. His body was being injected with a flood of nanoprobes.
The Doctor yanked his hand free of the Dalek and tried to jump back, but his legs gave way and he tumbled backwards to the floor. Kathryn, Tuvok and Seven quickly knelt beside the Doctor, and Seven scanned him with a tricorder.
"He's been injected with nanoprobes," Seven said evenly. "But his immune system is fighting to eject them."
Kathryn noticed the Time Lord turn pale and she pressed her hand on his forehead. "He's cold," she said to Seven then looked at the Doctor. "Doctor, can you hear me?"
He shivered and nodded. "My m-metabol..ism will get…t-them out," he said between chattering teeth.
"Ok, we're going to get you into the TARDIS." Kathryn told him and nodded to Seven and Tuvok to help her.
Come to me, my little Time Lord, the female voice laughed in the Doctor's mind. He fought to maintain consciousness because he knew he'd have to pilot his time ship to escape. Just as he was about to be carried into the safety of the TARDIS, he vanished in the swirling light of a Borg transporter beam.
.
.
The captain stared in shock where the Doctor was laying just a second ago. Her Starfleet training prevented her from remaining in that shocked state for very long. She climbed to her feet and tugged on her shirt to straighten it. "Seven, can you locate the Doctor?" she asked.
The ex-Borg frowned. "He hasn't been assimilated yet, so I won't be able to use the cube's computer," she said and paused in thought.
"Captain." Tuvok warned as he stared at the chamber entrance and raised his sonic phaser.
Kathryn paused and she could hear what sounded like an army of Borg marching steadily closer. "Get to the TARDIS," she said firmly and moved quickly toward the time ship's doors.
Silently, the captain prayed that the doors of the blue box weren't locked when she grabbed on the handle and pushed. The door yielded and Kathryn ran inside with Tuvok and Seven right behind her.
Seven was about to close the door when she stopped, turned and held her tricorder just over the threshold of the TARDIS door.
"Seven!" The captain called out.
After a few seconds, Seven stepped back and closed the door. "My apologies, captain," she said evenly as she walked up to the console, "but I was able to locate the Doctor's communicator at adjunct one, the center of the cube."
"How far away are we?" Tuvok asked.
"Twenty-four decks above adjunct one," Seven said with a grim look.
"Before he was transported, the Doctor mentioned the Queen," Kathryn said. "It's possible she's in this cube."
"If she were," Seven raised an eyebrow, "she would be in adjunct one."
"Well, we've got to figure out how to get to adjunct one."
"Captain," the Vulcan said. "I do not believe it is wise to attempt to make our way down twenty-four decks. While these modified phasers are effective, our protection shields are nearly drained. I recommend another course of action."
"I agree, Tuvok." The captain nodded and crossed her arms. "The Doctor was going to use this ship to transport us to the link node…maybe we can use it to get to adjunct one."
The three paused and looked at the console simultaneously. Seven sighed and didn't look too confident, but she marched up to the console and stood in front of the monitor. Kathryn and Tuvok joined her.
"This looks like it came from Tom's Captain Proton program," Kathryn said after studying the array of archaic looking buttons, levers and dials on the console.
"The Doctor mentioned that this ship is thousands of years old," Seven said with an intrigued expression. "But if I can decipher these symbols, I may be able to pilot it." Kathryn looked at the monitor and was fascinated by the circular patterns it displayed.
Meanwhile, Tuvok scanned the console with his tricorder in attempt to learn more about how to operate the ship. Without warning, something brushed his mind. He gasped quietly at the unexpected intrusion, but wasn't alarmed. The telepathic intelligence seemed friendly, even helpful. He thought about the Doctor's display of telepathy and raised his eyes to look into the glass column in the center of the console.
"Captain," he said with realization as he gazed at the column, "I believe this ship is attempting to communicate with me telepathically."
The captain was clearly intrigued and stood next to her Vulcan friend. "What is it trying to say?" she asked looking up at his face.
"I'm not sure," he spoke softly, "but she wants me to do something…" His voice trailed off as he dropped his gaze to the console. He reached out with his right hand and gently rested his fingers on a blue glowing section of the panel. He closed his eyes and opened his mind.
On the monitor, Seven looked on as the circular language flickered between one pattern after another until it locked onto one. Kathryn stood back in awe as Tuvok's eyes flew open and he frantically pressed buttons, flipped switches and pulled a level.
The column in the center of the console sprang to life, moving up and down, and the TARDIS engines swooshed and grind as they sent the time ship into the Time Vortex.
A/N: I hope you liked how Tuvok was able to pilot the TARDIS. It was a last minute idea that I thought was pretty neat. :)