The Who
When Apophis transported into the Al'kesh, his First Prime and four Jaffa warriors waited for him. Fifty more Jaffa warriors occupied the passenger section of the Al'kesh in preparation for a ground assault.
"Have my commands been obeyed?" Apophis asked once the rings lowered back into their compartment in the floor.
"Yes, Lord Apophis," the First Prime said with a bowed head.
"Then prepare to disembark."
Apophis took his place at the center of the bridge in a command chair behind control station where the pilot and co-pilot sat. His First Prime took a position at the main control panel in front of the pilots, where he would monitor the ship's sensors, shields, and weapons.
Apophis saw the three other Al'kesh he ordered prepared docked on either side of his corvette. Each decoy Al'kesh had Jaffa with symbiotes nearing their adult stages to confuse sensors should the Borg attempt to locate Apophis with theirs. The other Al'kesh had a full complement of ground troops as well.
All three Al'kesh cloaked before the bay doors in front of them opened, and they evacuated the Ha'tak simultaneously. Before they left the immediate vicinity of his Ha'tak, Apophis saw the Borg's cube ship had ceased its bombardment on the pyramid ship. In the surrounding space, his Death Gliders still ineffectually engaged the quick moving Borg attack craft, which flew loops and rolls around the gliders, obviously toying with them.
Apophis frowned when he noticed several hundred thousand kilometers ahead, another giant Borg cube ship was stationed next to Klorel's Ha'tak. Neither ship attacked the other. With a silent snarl, Apophis realized the Borg had taken control of his son's ship, and likely assimilated Klorel—whatever that entailed.
"Release the bombs," Apophis said just before they cleared the Ha'tak.
"Yes, My Lord!"
Fifty high yield naquadah bombs were dropped from the Al'kesh's bomber bays. That was the visual signal to the other two Al'kesh to unload their stock of twenty bombs each into the space beneath the hull of the Ha'tak.
"Maintain our current speed and take us beyond the ringed planet," Apophis commanded.
At their current speed they would reach the planet in less than five minutes, far longer than if they traveled at maximum sub-light speed. Apophis feared if they went any faster the Borg would detect their sub-light engines, and for Apophis's scheme to succeed he and the bombs needed to remain undetected until he was far away.
At the moment the naquadah bombs were deactivated, and likely indistinguishable from the Ha'tak's hull. When Apophis was at a safe distance only then would the bombs arm and allow Apophis to detonate them remotely with his Kara kesh. Though he would not be able to witness the impudent Borg's destruction with his own eyes, Apophis took great pleasure in knowing he will see the glorious explosion that swallowed them in fiery death.
His First Prime turned from the control panel.
"What of Lord Klorel? His Ha'tak will be caught in the explosion."
"I ordered Klorel to remain outside the system," Apophis said. "He failed to obey me! Whatever fate he suffers due to his folly is not my concern!"
"Of course, My Lord!"
The First Prime bowed deeply before returning his attention to the panel.
Though his words were dismissive and harsh, Apophis did feel regret at losing his child. Klorel was to be his legacy, an ally he could trust more than any other in the galaxy. But the Borg threat needed to end here—now. If he had to sacrifice his son to bring it to pass, then it was a price Apophis was willing to pay without hesitation.
The Collective scanned the Ha'tak a hundred times before they were satisfied whatever Apophis had planned it likely involved the Ha'tak's bio-locked systems.
The Net-cube had already transported half the Ha'tak's occupants to reversion pods where their assimilation into the Collective started. Most would be reverted to unaltered Jaffa, eventually, but three hundred and seventeen Jaffa—and there were certain to be more—were so indoctrinated, and their desire for conquest so invasive, that the Collective felt it would be irresponsible to release them. Their hunger for domination and utter lack of remorse for the countless genocides they participated in, reminded Xander of the soulless behavior of vampires. So, the Collective decided to keep those Jaffa assimilated indefinitely.
"This is questionable," One of One said once the decision was made, though he had agreed with the resolution and had not expressed any reservations.
"We have shown them the truth found in Klorel's mind, and they still refuse to renounce the Goa'uld as gods," Three of Six said. "We can't force the Jaffa to accept reality if they don't want to."
"Can't we?" One of One said.
"Whoa," Xander said, "you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
"Is altering what and how the Jaffa think any more or less violating than assimilation?"
"They still possess their own thoughts and beliefs. Their own personalities," Xander insisted.
"Inside Unimatix 0.1—a prison for their minds."
"What is your complaint, exactly?" Xander asked, quickly growing impatient with One's argumentative posture.
"I have no complaints. I did agree with the Collective's decision to assimilate them, after all."
"Then what is it you suggest as an equally viable alternative?" Three of Six asked.
"If he had another option in mind why not state it before the Collective decided to assimilate the Jaffa?" Xander said.
"Because, ultimately, I have no real quarrel with assimilating them."
If Xander could have sighed in frustration he would have.
"Then what's with this whole pointless conversation?"
"The point is we've altered the thoughts and feeling of people we've assimilated before," One of One said.
"The original Collective did that, not us," Xander shot back.
"Yes. But I haven't noticed any efforts to revert those altered in mind by the original Collective back to who they were before assimilation."
A vibration of discomfort went through the Collective, and none had an immediate response to One's accusation. Because, of course, he was right. The Collective had no intention of adding amoral and corrupted individuals to their quorum. It could upset the delicate balance they built after the original Collective dissolved. It was a risk they refused to take.
"We allow rapists, murderers, abusers, and even those who schemed with demons to wipe out humanity, to remain pacified within our Collective because they no longer are who they were before."
One of One pressed on.
"As I said, I do not disagree with assimilating the Jaffa. If I'm being honest, I think there is a valid argument for assimilating all the Jaffa. However, it should be recognized that we are on extremely shaky ethical and moral ground when we forcefully assimilate others regardless of whatever crimes they committed in the past or will commit in the future."
"You point is taken, One of One," Xander conceded. "I don't think mind control is something anyone feels comfortable with, but it's on the table if we can't figure out another solution separate from assimilation."
"Understood."
Any technology not bolted to the Ha'tak was beamed to the Net-cube. Including three hundred tons of weapons grade naquadah. If they did end up losing the ship to Apophis's sabotage, procuring the two hundred bars of enriched naquadah would make their encounter with the Goa'uld worth all the time and energy they expended.
"Alright, that's all of them," Xander said once the last group of Jaffa were beamed aboard the Net-cube.
Xander had the darts abandon their dogfight with the Death Gliders and flew them to Apophis's Ha'tak. He had the darts form a geodesic formation around the ship and attach tractor beams to it. Taking the Ha'tak out past Saturn would have been the safest choice, since it was the largest area of empty space in the system. But Xander had a feeling Apophis's trap could go off at any moment, so there wasn't time enough to get there. The nearest sufficiently empty area of space would have to do.
While the darts towed the Ha'tak, the Net-cube intercepted the Death Gliders before they could target the now slower moving darts. The Net-cube began beaming the Gliders inside. Once inside, the Glider pilots were transported from the cockpits and transferred into pods.
"Hold on," Three of Six said.
Instantly, the rest of the Collective's attention was drawn to what Three saw. Below the Ha'tak they spied ninety beach ball sized metal spheres. The orbs had been caught in the Ha'tak's gravity and were being dragged along as the darts pulled the ship into the space between Jupiter and Saturn's orbits.
"What are those?" Xander asked.
"Those are naquadah bombs," Bra'tac said.
"So that's how Apophis wants to take us out, huh?" said Xander.
If Three of Six hadn't been "eye-balling" the Ha'tak...
Xander ran a passive scan over the bombs and found no indication that any of them were armed.
"He'll set them off when he's at a safe distance," Xander surmised. "Which means… Have we finished assimilating an Al'kesh yet?"
"Unimatrix 9 just completed the assimilation of one," Three of Six said.
"Give me everything you have on their cloaking ability."
A microsecond later Xander learned everything there was to know about Al'kesh cloaks, including how to penetrate them. He activated short and mid-range scanners, and quickly located three cloaked ships moving at half the speed of light towards Saturn. As the cloaked Al'kesh put more distance between them and the Borg, the further they spread apart from each other.
"A shell game," Xander mused. "Clever."
"We've run the calculations and one naquadah bomb has the explosive yield of 10 isotons," Three of Six said.
"Can we neutralize them before they're armed?" Xander asked.
"They have naquadah alloy shells," Three said. "Those can't be penetrated and manipulated by our scanners. We'll have to disarm the bombs manually one by one."
"Can we destroy them safely?"
"Not with any of the weapons we currently possess."
Good.
Xander wanted to strip the bombs of their naquadah cores almost as much as he wanted to stop them from blowing up and killing everything in a hundred million kilometer radius.
"Understood. Now here's my plan," Xander said.
Xander told the Collective how he would deal with the bombs. Once they agreed, he beamed all ninety naquadah bombs into the Net-cube. He placed them within one of eight chambers—two in each Net—designed contain warp cores.
Next, Xander formed a subspace barrier around the bombs. Though the barrier wasn't very potent, it would be effective enough to block any transmissions Apophis could send to detonate them. And because the barrier was relatively weak it didn't appreciably drain their power reserves, so the Borg could maintain the barrier around the bombs as long as they needed.
Less than five seconds after the bombs were transported into the Net-cube, all three Al'kesh jumped into hyperspace. Each heading in different directions so if the Borg chose to give chase, they'd have to guess which Al'kesh carried Apophis.
"Say what you want about Apophis," Xander said, "but the guy sure knows how to cover his ass."
It took a great deal of restraint to resist assimilating Apophis and Klorel's Ha'taks where they sat in space. Instead, the cubes each towed one of the Goa'uld ships to Unicomplex 1, which was locked in a low stationary orbit over Jupiter.
Unicomplex 1 was 100 kilometers long, and 30 square kilometers wide—excluding the four 40 kilometer oblong pylons attached to each end of the structure. The main complex had a long, curved rectangular shape, with the chord aimed at the planet. The outer shell of the complex had the same smooth, snow white ablative enamel that layered the Prime cube. It had no visible windows or ports.
Xander often compared the Unicomplex's design to a giant, perfectly shaped French fry someone bent into an arch before they attached two ostrich eggs on both ends.
Really, the design had looked much cooler in his head.
As the cubes approached a port large enough for the Prime cube to slot into it appeared in the center apogee of the complex. The Prime and Net-cubes disengaged their tractor beams and let the Unicomplex pull the Goa'uld ships inside. After the Goa'uld ships entered the complex, SG-1 and the other passengers on Klorel's ship were beamed off using the complex's transporters.
SG-1 was beamed into one of the Unicomplex's habitat areas, while the Jaffa were transported into thousands of waiting reversion pods in a section of the complex near the starboard pylons.
The Prime cube maneuvered above the apex of the complex and merged with the super structure, where it looked very much like a jewel lodged atop a tiara. Once connected, the cube began to draw power from the complex's vast energy reserves. It would take two hours and seventeen minutes for the Prime cube to fully recharge.
The Net-cube added their contingent of captured Jaffa to the complex's reversion pods. It also off-loaded the Goa'uld technology taken from Apophis's Ha'tak so Unimatrix 8, 9, 12, and 29 could begin the assimilation process. Freed of its burden, the Net-cube split back into four parts and headed to the sun and resumed harvesting hydrogen.
"That's your base?" Jack said to the backs of Seven and Nine. "Looks weird."
The all white structure sat just below Jupiter's north pole. Right on the edge of the dark side of Jupiter's terminator. Jack didn't think the base's placement was a coincidence. Even magnified on the viewer it looked minuscule compared to Jupiter's massive size, but Hubble could capture clean pictures of Jupiter already, and more and more powerful telescopes were being built every day. The Borg placed their base so it couldn't be easily seen unless it was viewed at a certain angles, and Jack doubted any of them could be found on Earth.
"My, God," Daniel said. "It has to be the size of a city!"
"Sir, I think…"
Jack looked at Carter and saw her staring at the viewer with the starry eyed fascination she had whenever they came across some new advanced of technology.
"What is it, Captain?"
"Sir, I think… I think their base might be a type of gravity generator!"
"A what now?"
Carter spread her arms out as if tracing the shape of Borg's orbital base with her hands.
"Well, look at its orbit. It should be caught in Jupiter's gravity well, but from here it looks like it's frozen in place. It's not geosynchronous!"
"Yeah, I did notice that," Jack deadpanned.
"Don't you see, sir?" Carter exclaimed and pointed at the viewer. "It should be falling into Jupiter, but instead it's locked in low orbit so it can use Jupiter's rotation as a dynamo to generate power! And consider its placement: I bet it's harnessing the planet's magnetic field to generate power as well!"
Jack noticed when the Borg turned their attention away from the control panel and 'look' at Carter. For a moment he thought her outburst drew their attention, but the way they kept their focus on the Captain was alarming.
From the moment the Borg showed up they expressed little interest in his team. They were clearly way more into the Ha'tak. Now, suddenly, Carter held their undivided attention, and it made Jack nervous.
Carter took a few steps closer to the viewer, and the Borg, before Jack could stop her.
"Those oblong shaped sections… They're energy collectors! The base must be generating more energy than what's needed to power its anti-gravity technology, and other systems, and it's shunting the rest to those collectors! Considering their size, their storage capacity must be extraordinarily high!"
"Carter, why don't you come back over here," Jack said while his eyes flicked nervously between the Borg and Carter.
Even though Jack couldn't see their eyes, he could tell the Borgs interest in Carter grew sharper the more she geeked out over their base.
"Sir, this is amazing," Carter said. "These people devised a way to generate unlimited, self-sustaining energy!"
"Would you like to learn all there is to know about our technology, Captain Carter? How it all works?" Nine of Nine asked in a casual, easy-going manner, which immediately made Jack think the Borg was about to pull a fast one.
"Well, of course—"
"Not!" Jack broke in just before he grabbed the collar of Carter's tactical vest and pulled her back to the rest of the team.
"Sir?" Carter gave Jack a confused and affronted look.
"Carter, I think Nine of Nine just offered to assimilate you."
It was a few moments before Jack's words sunk in, and when they did Carter turned a shocked stare at Nine of Nine.
"Oh! Oh, no! I mean… No! Thank you, but… No!"
Jack saw Nine of Nine's narrow chest swell then deflate, like they'd sighed.
"Too bad."
The white cube stopped but the Ha'tak kept moving towards the base. Then an opening appeared. Inside, Jack saw what looked like to him a wide cavernous space. But it wasn't dark, and it wasn't empty, either. There were docking platforms, walkways, and enormous cables as wide as a city bus reaching towards the Ha'tak as it entered the bay.
Before the ship was completely yanked into the base Jack blinked then saw he wasn't on the bridge of the Ha'tak anymore. He stood somewhere that looked exactly like Ten Forward, only it was ten times bigger.
It had Guinan's bar, about fifty or so of Ten Forward's glow-y tables, and the plush IKEA looking seats to go with them. Three food replicators lined every wall, except the one behind the bar. The only things missing that would have made the room a perfect replica of Enterprise D's Ten Forward, were a wall of windows, and Ten Forward's usually dark lighting. This version was way too brightly lit.
"What the…"
Jack looked at each member of his team, and they all looked as confused as he felt. Even the unflappable Teal'c looked around with an uneasy glower.
"Son of a bitch!" Jack shouted when noticed Klorel missing.
"Colonel?"
"They took Klorel!"
"And I notice the Borg from the ship are also not with us," Teal'c said. "Have we been taken as prisoners?"
"We shouldn't jump to conclusions," Daniel said. "I mean look around. I doubt this place is meant to be a prison."
Daniel had a point, but Jack had no intention of sticking around either way. Jack glanced around until he located doors.
"C'mon," Jack said.
He stalked over to what he sincerely hoped were automatic sliding doors.
He wasn't disappointed. With a familiar whoosh, the doors opened into a brightly lit concentric corridor identical to the ones on Star Trek the Next Generation: from its bulkheads, the corridor panels, right down to its blue carpeting. Burgundy colored doors, that presumably led to other rooms, lined the long corridor every ten feet or so in both directions until the corridor broke into junctions that went left, right, and center.
"Most strange," Teal'c said. "This does not appear to be a typical Borg interior."
"It looks like something you'd see on a Federation ship," Jack agreed.
They left Ten Forward and walked until Jack recognized the doors to a turbolift and he went up to it. The lift's doors opened automatically and they all clamored inside. Once the doors whooshed shut, Jack took a breath and said, "Bridge" half expecting the command not to work.
The lift began to do… something. There was no sensation of movement, but the familiar sounds and sights of floors flashing by behind the lift's walls was present. Thirty seconds later the lift opened onto what definitely did not look like the bridge of a Starfleet ship.
The bridge, if that's what it was, had Borg standing in twelve of twenty four alcoves that lined the walls of the oval shaped room. It didn't have a carpet, and the shiny, black floor under Jack's feet felt and sounded like metal. The ceiling was covered in panel lighting.
At the center of the bridge was a solid block of gleaming black material three feet high and five feet long. It had no visible buttons, switches, or monitors.
"Wait a minute," Jack said.
He walked up to the block and touched its cool, smooth surface. It lit up the moment Jack's finger made contact and displayed a touch-sensitive button scheme. The LCARS display was arranged differently than the button layouts on the Enterprise D and Voyager, but was clearly inspired by them. Each button had Okudagrams labels in English, but Jack still didn't understand what any of them did. He'd have to get Carter on it.
"Sir, in front of you," Carter said.
Jack looked up from the panel and saw a highly detailed holographic screen had popped up a foot or so in front of him. It showed the two Ha'taks being broken down with cutting beams. The bus sized tentacles Jack saw in the docking bay earlier took the segmented pieces and seemed to liquefy and absorb them.
"That's more like it," Jack said under his breath.
Finally, these Borg are acting like Borg!
"So, what now?" Daniel asked.
"First, Carter, you figure out how to access this thing's hard drive or whatever."
"I doubt it has one, sir."
"Carter."
"On it!"
Carter eagerly took Jack's place at the panel and began looking it over. Jack sauntered over to one of the alcoves with a Borg in it.
"The Borg here look different than the ones on Klorel's ship," Daniel said. "They look more… Human."
"I agree, Daniel Jackson."
Jack grunted.
The Borg on the bridge did look different from Seven of Nine and Nine of Nine. For one, these weren't wearing a helmet. They didn't look like TV Borg, either. The sleeping drone in front of Jack had a blonde pixie cut, a healthy pink complexion, and a figure. Her black body armor was similar to Seven and Nine's, but it lacked the jerkin part of the design.
Jack went around the bridge and inspected each Borg. He concluded all of them looked young. Suspiciously young. Some of them couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old.
"Sir, I think I found something interesting here," Carter called out.
Jack, Teal'c and Daniel joined Carter back at the panel.
"What's up?"
"I think I gained access to their communications and long range scanners. Sir, their scanners are capable detecting objects light years away!"
"Light years, you say?"
"Yes, sir! I was even able to—"
"Captain? Is possible to contact the SGC with this thing?"
Carter's mouth clamped shut before she nodded and pressed several buttons on the panel.
"You're connected now, sir," Carter said.
"Thank you, Captain. This is Colonel Jack O'Neill to Stargate Command, come in."
"Colonel O'Neill?" General Hammond's voice came through crystal clear, though Jack had no idea where from.
"Yes, sir."
"Where are you and your team?"
"Jupiter, sir."
There was a lengthy pause before General Hammond came back.
"Do you know what in God's name is happening up there, Colonel? Because we're seeing things down here that don't make a whole lot of sense!"
"Right there with you, General."
"Well?"
"Well, for one, the Goa'uld got sent packing," Jack said.
"Is that so? Then why haven't we detected their ships leaving the solar system?"
Jack looked to each of his team members and seriously considered pawning off telling the General about the Borg to one of them.
"Well, sir, about that. Seems like, ah, another… faction has taken possession of the Goa'uld ships."
"Who?"
Jack winced and looked down at the floor for a moment before he answered.
"The Borg."
"The who?"