Chapter Twenty-eight: Damocles
While jogging to the nearest launch pad, Rong-Arya pulled out a communications device similar in appearance to a military radio but working on completely different principles and demanded, "Stiletto, status report!"
"Multiple Borg cubes have just begun appearing on the far side of Syracuse. Current count is at thirty cubes and rising at a rate of approximately one every two seconds," O'Hare replied crisply.
"Son of a bitch," Rong-Arya muttered while pulling out the data pad Picard had given them. They thought that they had set up a proper bottleneck in the nebula but the only way to get ships in like that was with some form of FTL that bypassed the disruptive effects of local conditions. "Can you make a straight line vector, or at least a near straight line, between their current location and the following coordinates?"
After a few moments O'Hare replied, "Affirmative ma'am."
Running through two life times of tactical and strategic training and one of actual experience, along with a survey of the coming timelines, Rong-Arya figured that the Borg had placed their LZ behind the planet to prevent the Stiletto from simply shooting them as they exited.
"Alright, hold station over New Syracuse. All weapons are to go free, all defensive measures activated. All rules of engagement are suspended. Shoot to kill, shoot at full charge with all available weapons, and do not stop shooting until all of those bastards are scrap, you here me? No artistry, just kill them: quick, clean, and efficiently," Rong-Arya ordered.
"And you captain?" O'Hare asked.
"I will attempt to make my way to the ship, but we cannot afford to delay the battle once the Borg decide for it to be joined. You are all well trained and you can function without me. Perhaps not as well, but a single person, no matter how skilled, cannot become the lynchpin of battle," Rong-Arya replied.
There was a pause and then several voices, the entire bridge crew all announced, "Yes ma'am! For the glory of Chaos!"
Tactical Cube Designation 1 of 60 beginning combat mission against species designation 9251
Primary objective: Species 9251 ship designation Stiletto
Secondary objective: All other species 9251 assets
Tertiary objective: Gather data on Species 9251 for further analysis
Primary objective threat analysis: Species 9251 ship designation Stiletto
-Power generation: Unknown
-Defensive measures: Unknown material used for armour, scans inconclusive. Unknown method of energy shield detected, energy handling capacity presumed high. Defensive holographic screens detected, reducing accuracy by 15.2009
-Offensive measures: Unknown. Prior engagement burned out sensors upon activation of primary weapon system. Assume extreme
-Acceleration profile: Unknown.
Overall threat rating: EXTREME
Beginning engagement
…
Cubes designated 12 of 60 and 38 of 60 destroyed by primary weapon of Species 9251 Stiletto
Tactical consideration: Avoid aligning cubes such that a shot from the primary weapon of Species 9251 Stiletto cannot strike more than one cube simultaneously
Cubes designated 7 of 60, 19 of 60, 58 of 60, and 59 of 60 destroyed by primary weapon of Species 9251 Stiletto
Updating data on Species 9251 Stiletto: Nonlinear acceleration demonstrated capacity to exceed 1000G
Tactical consideration: Recharge time and acceleration exceeds capacity of cubes to comply with prior tactical consideration
Tactical analysis of the destruction of cubs 7 of 60, 19 of 60, 38 of 60, 58 of 60, and 59 of 60
-Shield analysis: Primary weapon of Species 9251 Stiletto is a high frequency coherent electromagnetic beam. Proper shield modulation will allow all energy to be devoted to energy cancellation
-Energy handling: Energy output of primary weapon for Species 9251 Stiletto exceeds total reactor output of four tactical cubes by an unknown number of orders of magnitude.
-Structural analysis: Photon momentum imparted by primary weapon of Species 9251 Stiletto exceeds structural integrity fields and materials capacity by an unknown number of orders of magnitude
Adaptation consideration: Shield modulation possible but of negligible use. Construction of new cubes required. Addition of sufficient armour, inertial dampers, reactors, and shields not possible with current technology. Increase reactor and attendant technologies output by a minimum of five orders of magnitude. Increase materials technology and attendant technologies by a minimum of five orders of magnitude.
Species list known to have such technologies:
-List contains 1 entry
-Species 9251
Assimilation priority of Species 9251 recommended increase
Tactical consideration: bring additional forces
Cubes 2 of 60, 3 of 60, 4 of 60, 6 of 60, 11 of 60, 17 of 60, 20 of 60, 23 of 60, 31 of 60, 33 of 60, 47 of 60, and 52 of 60 all destroyed by secondary weapons fire from Species 9251 Stiletto.
Tactical consideration: Maintain minimum safe distance of 20 km between cubes in all directions
Tactical analysis of destruction of cubes 2 of 60, 3 of 60, 4 of 60, 6 of 60, 11 of 60, 17 of 60, 20 of 60, 23 of 60, 31 of 60, 33 of 60, 47 of 60, and 52 of 60 by secondary weapons fire from Species 9251 Stiletto
-Cubes 4 of 60, 23 of 60, and 52 of 60 destroyed by secondary weapon causing critical structural damage while passing through superstructure at high relativistic speeds
-Cubes 2 of 60, 3 of 60, 6 of 60, 11 of 60, 17 of 60, 20 of 60, 31 of 60, 33 of 60, and 47 of 60 destroyed by high energy plasma warhead detonation
Adaptation consideration: None known against high acceleration relativistic kill vehicles at short ranges. Destruction of launcher only known effective countermeasure. Construction of new cubes with improved materials and/or energy generation and shield technology possible adaptation method against detonation of warhead.
Species list known to have such technologies:
-List contains 1 entry
-Species 9251
Assimilation priority of Species 9251 recommended increase
Tactical consideration: bring additional forces
Tactical consideration: 28.3333 of initial forces destroyed
Tactical consideration: Mission clock reads 0 days 0 hours 0 minutes 8 seconds 57 milliseconds
Tactical consideration: Tertiary and quaternary weapons of Species 9251 Stiletto have yet to fire. Probable reason: insufficient time to acquire targets not destroyed by primary and secondary weapons as multiple weapons locks already detected
Tactical consideration: Probable tertiary weapons mounts exceed number of remaining cubes
Tactical analysis: 98.4713 chance of complete destruction of remaining cubes within the next 40 seconds
Tactical consideration: Temporary disengagement from combat operations recommended. Methods of disengagement before destruction: None
Mission analysis: Mission has 0.0000 probability of completing primary objective. Mission has 0.0001 probability of completing secondary objective. Tertiary objective unsatisfactorily fulfilled.
Mission update: Primary objective changed
Primary objective: Observe effects of Collective weapons on Species 9251 Stiletto
Tactical consideration: Species 9251 primary and secondary weapons ranges unknown but exceed Collective ranges by a minimum of an order of magnitude. Probable ranges of tertiary weapons also exceed Collective ranges
Mission analysis: 3.8014 chance of completing primary objective
Unknown consideration: Ha! Ha! Our psychics hacked your Collective, eat shit and die motherfuckers!
"Well… that's sixty down. Let's see what the next wave has in store," Rong-Arya commented as they sat down in the captain's chair, having only recently managed to get a shuttle up to the Stiletto once the shooting died down.
"Are we just going to sit here and let them throw shit at us?" Ichiro-Faust asked.
"Negative. As much as these bastards are self-contained a cube on a combat mission has to chew threw fuel and ammo at a high rate, and they only have an outpost in this part of the galaxy. There are a limited number of cubes in this quadrant that their logistics should be able to reliably support, so we will wait half a day for the next wave before we attempt to move on their outpost. If it was just us fighting I would go on the offence right away, but…" Rong-Arya trailed off at the last bit, the implications clear. "Right. Plans for evacuation are already underway. Once the civilians and the Primarch are secure we can go kick those Borg fucktards in the balls."
"Ma'am, we are detecting new contacts on the opposite side of Syracuse," Xavier reported.
"Hmmm… let's see what they learned from that spanking," Rong-Arya muttered while leaning forward almost eagerly.
Over the next few minutes two hundred Borg cubes of several different makes and models appeared, arranging themselves into two groups of a hundred each, arranged into hemispheres with each individual cube positioned so that the Stiletto could not hit multiple cubes with the Pulsar Lance or its torpedoes. Once both hemispheres were formed up, one began to go spin-wise around the planet while the other went anti-spin-wise two minutes later. More cubes were arriving and forming up into a third formation.
"Clever… clever. Still rather simplistic and brute force, but they are clearly trying to minimize damage the speed at which we can blow them to the Warp so that they can get in close to brawl with us, and possibly attack New Syracuse while we are engaged with them. This will require… finesse on our part," Rong-Arya noted, looking over the approaching formations.
"Commander, we still have the Bearers on board, correct?" They finally asked.
"Affirmative ma'am," Ichiro-Faust answered.
"Designate a cube, I don't care which, and cripple it. But do not destroy it. Make sure all of the gunners have it designated as a friend until I say otherwise. Once its shields have been knocked down, teleport the Bearers on to it. Make sure that they are carrying the Infinite Despair Plague, with the objective of getting into as many communications nodes as possible. The only way to keep up this sort of brutal meat grinder tactic is if your troops either are more afraid of going back than forward or if they have no fear. I want to make sure neither is a factor," Rong-Arya said with a predatory grin.
"The Bearers will be overjoyed," Ichiro-Faust replied with an equal grin.
Sergeant Gregor Stamatelos was overjoyed. The last time they had fought the Borg they had slaughtered the slow moving cyborgs by the hundreds before growing bored, but this time they were authorized to carry one of Mama Reigle's greatest blessings: the Infinite Despair Plague. Created as an anti-boarding measure, it was capable of corrupting metals as well as flesh, and as an added bonus it could force grow circuitry capable of causing fear and pain in anything more advanced than a calculator.
The idea was that if your boarding vessel sudden was terrified of the ship it was trying to board it would make the operation considerably more difficult.
Locking his helmet on his a wet crunch of rusting mechanisms lubricated by bursting, necrotic boils, Gregor lead his men to the teleport pad where fellow servants of Reigle were standing by with hoses to douse them with fluids tapped directly from the organic parts of the ship so that they would be inoculated with the deadly plague. The only down side of this operation was that they would have to give up the disease as it was too dangerous to keep.
And that meant- horror of horrors- decontamination!
As he was being sprayed down with the thick brown slurry, Gregor said over the radio to his men, "Alright boys, once we get aboard we are to split into two teams of five and hit as many communications nodes as you can, spreading the blessings of Mama Reigle as far and wide as possible. Let us teach these Borg to embrace pain and despair as thoroughly as we have."
With a flash of light and the bang of air rushing in to fill the void where they had once stood, the Terminators from the Bearers of Reigle disappeared from the Stiletto and reappeared on the cube that had just recently had its shields knocked off-line by a single hit from a bombardment cannon.
"Swarms active boys!" Gregor cried out wetly while giving the psychic cue to the living hives of flying insects within his body. He gave his flesh to them willingly so that they would have a home and food, and in turn they would attack his enemies. All of his men were the same.
It took three Borg drones collapsing screaming to the ground for the Collective to notice that the Bearers were even on the cube and thus take action. By that time the walls of the cube were already starting to corrode under the influence of the deadly plague carried by the Bearers and the swarms of buzzing insects surrounding them like black clouds. Force fields snapped up to contain the Terminators, but the ones that did not fail due to sudden and rapid decay were downed with the simple method of a power fist to the projector.
As the two groups of Terminators made their slow march through the cube, the Collective watched on in horror as more and more drones collapsed, tearing at their own implants, wailing in agony. At first they tried to gather more data, but when they detected the presence of microscopic fusion reactions they realized that they were dealing with something willing to fire plasma guns at their nano-probes and that they could not devise a defence against that sort of thing. So they just shut off the infected drones before their screaming could disrupt the purity of the Collective.
Then the plague began rewiring their transmitters. The Infinite Despair Plague was creating a new Collective, one where all of the processing power was dedicated to transmitting the dying, agonized screams of thousands of drones into the Collective at large.
Coordination in the cube dropped considerably.
The Sergeant Gregor found a communications node; one used for broadcast, and plunged his Viral Cleaver into the mechanism. Instead of being destroyed, the node was instantly infected, and Gregor broadcast to the Collective, all of it, "Resistance is futile. You will be infected," before he was shut out.
The Collective was composed of countless trillions of minds spread across the galaxy, but hundreds of billions of them were unwillingly assimilated. The screams of the dying and the declaration of intent in the Alpha Quadrant forced into their minds temporarily awoke the terror of forced assimilation. So many billions of voices joined their fears to others, creating a chain reaction of panic and terror. For exactly twelve seconds before the cold, machine parts of the Collective could clamp down, a single emotion raged across the length and breadth of the galaxy.
Fear.
Ironically, what happened next would not have occurred if not for Rong-Arya's decision to terrify the Borg. One of the cubes, gripped in panic, began shooting wildly. A single, solitary torpedo went far, far off course, if it could be said to have ever had a course to begin with.
By Chaos standards, it was a pathetic bomb, two hundred megatons of explosive energy from a matter/antimatter explosion. Just enough to possibly cause minor damage if it could penetrate the shields of the Stiletto and it hit a sensitive location.
It wasn't aimed at the Stiletto.
The weapon crashed into the primary hydroponics facility on New Syracuse before detonating. Most of the blast was directed outward, and with no atmosphere on the moon to contain it, a little more than half the energy radiated harmlessly into space.
Rock, organic matter, glass, plastics, metals, they all flashed to monatomic vapour in milliseconds after initiation under intense gamma ray bombardment. Again, most of the energy was lost as instead of this vapour compressing against an atmosphere much of it was blown off into space. But in the connecting tunnels beneath the facility, there was enough confinement that pressure could build in the instant before the rocks they were carved from turned molten from the incredible heat.
The entire hydroponics facility, the size of a small city, was destroyed in an instant, but nearly twenty kilometres away was where the significant damage was done. One of the hab domes exploded as a ball of superheated gas to point where it became plasma erupted out of the connecting tunnels. Thousands died, cooked by the fury of the fireball in an instant or suffocated when they found their air either lacking in oxygen or simply evacuated out the hole in the ceiling.
In orbit, the bridge crew of the Stiletto blinked in surprise. So far the Borg had been ignoring the settlement.
Then Rong-Arya's perfect memory kicked in. They had helped plan the construction of New Syracuse. The primary habitation area and the arrival area for the Primarch hadn't been touched but they knew what had been in that hab dome.
"THAT WAS THE PRIMARY NURSERY DOME!" They screamed out in horror. Tens of thousands of children and youths of half a dozen species had been in there along with their care givers.
"New plan boys. We finish these guys up, we smash their outpost in this quadrant, and then we track them back to their homes and we make the Borg extinct," Rong-Arya declared, ripping apart the armrests of their chair in fury while a selfish part of them was glad that Cassandra, the babe they had adopted from the installation that had grown into New Syracuse, had been kept aboard the Stiletto.
The Borg would pay for this.
