To Stay Where You Are (Part Six)
A sillier Fanfic written by TaTTooGaL™
And across the voids of space, the Borg Cube, a menacing hulk of snarled metal, speeded up as if answering a silent siren call. Before it, a shimmering vortex of luminescent green and electric blue opened up. It yawned wider, finally swallowing the vast Cube in one gulp. It swirled close, leaving turbulent eddies behind it.
Inside the energy portal, the Cube raced at breakneck speeds towards its destination. The portal's other end swirled open and deposited the Cube in the middle of a wild fray.
The Borg had joined the party.
Annika ran along the corridor, sniggering. Her head still hurt a little, but it was nothing compared to the triumph of outwitting that stupid Klingon traitor. Did she really think that one punch like that could have knocked her out? What a fool. The Rebels were all so naïve and stupid. How could they ever amount to anything? Annika had always prided herself on her resourcefulness. Lots of people on board the ship thought she was a complete coward-idiots, all of them. She was as fearless as any other rebel: she wasn't afraid of anything in the universe-except maybe the Intendant.
And the Borg, of course…
Just thinking of the Borg again made her spine tingle. If anything, they were capable of scaring her. She found them like some freakish nightmare she might have had when she was a child- all gray and black and slimy, ruthlessly conquering and mutilating without emotion, without feeling. Not even greed or maliciousness. That she would have understood-even admired. But not this… this aberration. And their assimilation whereby they recruited new of their kind… she shuddered. And the Terrans thought the Alliance was bad…
She hated the Borg, plain and clear.
The deck of the ship shuddered and she stumbled slightly. Drat those inches-thick platform soles. She regained her balance-and the lights went out.
She blinked, slightly disorientated. Damn those rebels! Did they think they could stop her like this? Didn't they need lights to see as well?
Apparently, they did. Around her, glowsticks suddenly lit up, and Annika realized that she'd been so preoccupied with her hatred for the Borg that she hadn't noticed the Rebels hiding along the corridor, all dressed in black. She couldn't see them now, but she knew they could see her reflective black leather suit.
Annika took a deep breath and told herself not to panic. She had a photographic memory and an excellent sense of direction. A little dark wasn't going to hinder her at all. She dived for the floor and rolled towards the direction of where a Jeffries access tube would be. Around her, the rebels yelled, confused as to where she had gone. Eyes shut-it didn't make much difference anyway- she concentrated on her other senses and pushed the access door open.
Too late the rebels realized what she was doing. One of them made a wild grab for her legs as she slid into the tube, but missed. Grinning wildly, Annika rolled down the tube and landed at an intersection.
"It must be the stupid dilithium which is causing all this trouble with the Borg," she mused to herself. "It can't be such a wonderful coincidence, can it?" Now, which way should she head? She did a quick mental calculation and decided that it would be left.
Wait- there was one more thing. Groping, she reached into a recess in the bulkhead and felt for the emergency supply kit. It had a glowstick in it somewhere, she knew. Ah-ha. Here it was. She pulled it out, and fingers funbling in the dark, unhitched the clasp and pulled out the lightstick. She flipped in on, and the eerie blue glow lit up the tubes with a soft undertone. Perfect for the setting. Annika headed for the holding bays.
Captain Kathryn Janeway ducked behind a large storage unit to avoid the crimson bolts searing the air above her head. "How many of them are there out there, Chakotay?" she yelled over the din.
"About ten, I'm not sure," replied the Chakotay closer to her-which would make him her own Chakotay. "Commandant, how long more is this going to take?"
"Not very long, at this rate," he replied, as another shot burned a large hole in the bulkhead next to him. Chakotay dived out from behind his cover, squeezed a few shots off, then dived back in.
Hair's comm buzzed-another message. He dropped his rifle and scooted behind the relative safety of the storage unit to read it. "What now?" asked Janeway.
"Everybody prep your glowsticks!" he yelled to the Rebels. "We are going into the night!"
Janeway unfastened her glowstick from her belt and snapped it on, then fixed it to her phaser rifle. "Any moment now…" muttered Hairs.
The lights went out.
There was a general chorus of confusion from the enemy quarters. With a yell of triumph, Janeway jumped out from behind her cover and fired furiously into their stronghold. There were thuds of bodies hitting the floor. Around her, rebel elements, framed by the surreal blue glow of the sticks, fired, and soon there were no more confused yells.
"Way to go, Lenn, Tom!" yelled Hairs, pummeling the air in victory. "Alright!"
"Now," said Janeway, "we disable the main function systems, take control of the conn and wait for things to bide our way."
Commandant Chakotay shook his head. "We're running on a very thin margin here," he grumbled. "We only have at most a minute between systems shutdown and the establishment of the communication links. I shudder to imagine going up against those Borg things without operational status and no-one to cover for us."
"I shudder to imagine going up against the Borg, period," muttered Chakotay dryly.
"Okay," said Hairs, "here's what we do. We'll split into groups of two each, one to take out the functional systems, the other to set up a working comm system. Once we take complete control, we can bring the systems back on-line."
The floor of the ship started shaking uncontrollably. "It won't be long now…" muttered Janeway. "Better get moving, people."
"I'll take the main systems," said Hairs. "Commandant, I think it's best you stick with Madame." He winked at Janeway. "Could get lost in the dark, you know."
The Commandant nodded. "Come this way," he said, gesturing to Janeway. She followed, picking her way unsteadily over the prostrate enemy forms.
On the bridge of the Starship Voyager, Atoms let out a loud cheer as the firing from the Warrior came to an abrupt halt. "All right, Hairs, you've done it!" he gloated, hands raised in the air in victory. He turned around and gave Harry a wink. "Not bad."
"Hmpf." Harry looked slightly nonplussed.
The silence on the bridge made Atoms slightly nervous. "What's the matter with you guys?" he asked. "I mean, we just finished the battle, right?" He glanced from one nervous face to another. "Maybe we should all go help the Warrior-"
Harry leaned forward, looking slightly worried. "Didn't you hear about our plan modification?" He asked in a hushed tone. "Any moment now-"
He was interrupted by a silent scream from the fabric of the space-time continuum. In front of them, a violent green wreath of energy swirled into existence, and tore apart with an imagined popping sound. From within the monstrous energy portal burst forth a gargantuan cube of terrible light and metal. It charged forth with menacing speed and soared, immense, over the two ships. The Borg Cube sailed past, obscuring the viewscreen, and let loose a deadly array of phaser blasts.
"Oh, dammit!!" He grabbed the controls and swerved wildly downwards even as the ship took a hard hit from the starboard and shook violently. He moved into a dancing pattern, trying to evade the attacker-which was fairly pointless-since the Cube was so huge he had nowhere to run.
"I believe the battle has only just begun," noted Tuvok dryly.
Janeway and Chakotay plunged wildly down the dark corridor. "It's only five hundred meters ahead," said Chakotay. "The entrance should be about right her- argh!"
His cry of pain was accompanied by a loud thud in front of her. Fearing the worst, Janeway lifted her light to see-
-and was met with the image of herself, a large ceremonial knife in hand.
Janeway dived instinctively towards her, reaching out for her throat as the blade descended downwards. The momentum of her impact shoved the Intendant back, causing the knife to embed itself mere centimeters from Chakotay's head. The Intendant rolled, and lunged for Janeway's throat.
As the two captains wrestled, Janeway caught a glimpse of Chakotay's anxious face. 'Go," she gasped, "complete the task. I'll handle her." Chakotay only had time for a brief nod before the Intendant slammed her head hard on the deck. Brilliant stars exploded in her head, white-hot and burning.
When she regained her senses again, Chakotay was gone- and her counterpart stood facing her, knife in hand.
"So.." she drawled, smiling menacingly, "finally we meet." Her grin widened wolfishly, and she leapt forward.
Annika Hansen was climbing out of the tubing when it happened. There was this sudden, silent flickering of something somewhere… it was only a slight shudder, perhaps, but Annika felt it in her bones- they'd shut down the functional systems. The fools! She raged.
Then, underneath the silence, she heard something else. Yes… she could not have possibly imagined it… a silent, deep rumbling that was not only coming from all around her, but from deep within as well. She stifled a cry with her wrist-the only other time she'd felt something like this was when- when-
The Borg were here. She knew it.
As if to confirm that fact, the ship suddenly lurched, hard, to port, smashing her hard against the opposite bulkhead. Her cheek smarting painfully, Annika quelled the rising fear in her throat. "The dilithium," she reminded herself. "The dilithium." She continued her climb upwards, trembling from both the ship's vibration and her own trepidation. "It's only a storage facility… no Borg there…" So saying, she flipped the hatch cover open and climbed out.
Her immediate thought was that it was all horribly wrong, and the Borg had, indeed, invaded the Warrior, for the first thing she saw was the unmistakable blue-gray metal of a Borg implant flashing before her.
The she glanced at the owner of the implants, and her heart froze.
It was herself.
Yet… it couldn't be herself. How could she be... one of them? The terror she'd struggled so hard to suppress came springing back at her, clutching at her throat, clogging her lungs. She couldn't breathe. Her Borg-self reached out, and Annika leapt back, shrieking in fear. "Don't come near me!" she yelled.
Her Borg-self was reaching for something. A weapon! Years of self-defense training knocked some sense back into her. She grabbed a class-two storage pod and hurled it at herself with the greatest force possible. The object weighed nearly ten kilograms, but her counterpart caught it with ease-and most startlingly, crumpled it a little before dropping it to the floor.
Annika gave up. "You're not human!" she screamed, as her Borg-self advanced on her. "Get away from me, you aberration!" She threw anything within her reach at her Borg-self, but it was pointless. As an abrupt darkness descended on her, her last thought was, she must have called them here. Am I really allying myself with the abomination in the supposed wonderful parallel universe?
Seven of Nine stared down, oddly disconcerted, at her mirror self lying unconscious on the floor. She said I wasn't human, she thought distantly. Then she blinked, bringing her focus back on the moment. She took out the communicator unit the rebels had given her and composed a message to Paris. Then she picked her alternate self up and headed for the bridge.
Commandant Chakotay was worried; he'd quickly established a communications link and gone to find the others as fast as he could. There was no sign of either Janeway anywhere. He slunk along the darkened corridors , searching for her, calling her name. Nothing.
Finally he ran into the other team on Deck 11, aglow with triumph. His mirror counterpart saw him coming and his manic grin faltered. "Where's the captain?"
Commandant Chakotay looked uneasily back over this shoulder, savoring the darkness. "I don't know." He retold much of the incident as possible, watching his counterpart's expression twist into one of horror. "What if anything happened to her?" he asked accusingly.
The Commandant was about to reply when a sudden loud booming threw him off his feet. "The Borg attack!" exclaimed Hairs in alarm. "I thought the Voyager would be covering our back…"
"They are," said Commandant Chakotay through gritted teeth. "That was no phaser blast- it was a suicide thermal detonator."
Hair's eyes widened with horror. "The Intendant."
The Commandant nodded grimly. "Which means… that they both could be dead."
Janeway dodged to the side just in time as her counterpart charged forward at her, pointed end of knife in hand. Her momentum carried her forward, and she slammed into the bulkhead-with her hand still firmly gripping the knife. The other sharp end sank into her midsection with considerable force.
With a cry of pain, the Intendant pulled herself free and stared at Janeway with uncontrolled anger, blood running down her uniform. If anything, the combination of her wound and her angry grimace served to make her look like an angry lioness. With abrupt suddeness, she sprang forward, aiming the knife's edge at Janeway's neck. Janeway barely managed to duck in time and she hit the floor, rolling. She felt something swish past her ear, and there was a burning sensation on her left arm as the knife's blade grazed it, drawing blood. The Intendant smashed her boot into the side of her head, and her head rang, still not fully recovered from the earlier impact. Janeway stopped, disoriented and confused. She tried to stand up, but the Intendant kicked her hard in the shoulder, forcing her down. She stood above Janeway, knife raised high.
Janeway thought of Chakotay, and suddenly felt weary. Had she provided enough distraction for him? Either way, there was not much more she could do now. It was a pity they couldn't get to know each other better. 'Go ahead," she told the Intendant, "kill me." When she didn't make a move, Janeway added. "Do it. I know how much you want it."
She hesitated, her knife trembling in her hand. The Intendant took a deep breath, and plunged the knife downwards. Janeway shut her eyes, waiting for impending doom-
Nothing. The blade had stopped centimeters from her throat. The Intendant was staring shakily down at her. "No," she whispered, "I can't do it…"
Taking advantage of her temporary weakness, Janeway reared her knees up and slammed her feet into the Intendant's injured midsection. She stumbled backwards, and Janeway leapt to her feet. Angry, the Intendant rushed forward-
And Janeway grabbed the upper half of the insulated handle unexpectedly and shoved backwards, hard as she could-
The knife stabbed backwards, deeply into the Intendant's chest. Her face a mixture of shock and horror, she collapsed to the ground, still breathing, but barely.
And something rolled out of her pocket. It was small, spherical and gray, and the moment it touched the cold duranium deck, it started beeping and flashing. A timed detonator! Janeway thought in horror. She had meant to destroy the ship's functional systems to prevent the rebels from getting their hands on it.
Well, that was not going to happen. Janeway looked into the room where Chakotay had gone into-it was empty. In it were dozens of humming consoles-the communications control room, no doubt. On a side panel, she could make out the faint outlines of what looked like a safety button. She slammed her fist on it and ducked out just as the blast doors began to slide close. She gingerly picked up the detonator, then hurled it as far away from the control room as possible. She was beginning to head for the upper deck when she paused and looked back. The Intendant was still lying on the floor, eyes closed, breathing shallowly.
A sudden pang of guilt stabbed at Janeway. She could have killed me, but she didn't, she realized. And I did this to her. Janeway blinked and tried to think clearly, but there was no time to think. At any rate, it would be wrong to leave her here like this… Against all better judgement, she went back, extricated the knife from the Intendant's body, wincing at the fresh flow of blood that poured fourth, and hoisted her up under one shoulder. Staggering under her weight, Janeway dragged her along the corridors to Deck 11.
Atoms pulled the Voyager into a steep dive, narrowly missing one of two photon torpedoes converging on them. The other hit their shields hard and penetrated. The ship shuddered violently.
"Shields down to thirty percent," reported Kim from the rear. "We're not going to hold out for very long…"
"Anyone has any idea at all how to get rid of these critters?" exclaimed Atoms, as he pulled the Voyager into another endless loop. Ensign Kesin, at Tactical, managed to squeeze off a few shots before the ship's trajectory brought the Cube out of range. "I mean, after all the experience you guys have had with these things…"
Kim took a deep breath. "What we need is a solution that is quick and effective-and only needs to to its job once. Then the Borg will be unable to adapt to it."
"Like a sudden energy release within their ship!" exclaimed Kesin suddenly. "The dilithium-"
Before he could complete the sentence, a trill emanated from the conn. "They've got her secured down!" reported Kim. "For most part, at least. The transfer of dilithiun is coming over any moment now, we'll have to drop our shields." As the ship shook violently once more, he added under his breath, "Like it's going to make any difference."
Tuvok, in the command seat, frowned. "Beaming a dilithium explosive into the ship might be an option, but it will be a tricky one."
The Doctor nodded in agreement, ever eager to chip in his two cents' worth. "The hardest part is not going to be the construction of the dilithium explosive, but getting the Borg Cube to lower its shields."
Atoms Paris gave him a wicked smile. "Why, I do believe I have an idea…"
Tom Paris' communicator, it seemed, was being indunated by messages. He tried replying to them with one hand while the other held the glowstick aloft as he hurried down another corridor, but he found it an incredibly difficult task. "Okay… Lenn Torres: I got your message. Cargo Bay One, pronto." He turned the corner to what he hoped was Cargo Bay One, and true enough, Seven was already waiting there for him. "I'm sorry I took so long," he said apologetically. "I had to turn back and couldn't remember the way I came… which bascially means I got lost."
Seven glowered at him, but it seemed that her glower was less forceful than usual. She seemed to be in deep thought. Paris understood at once. "An alternate universe encounter,' he said.
Seven smirked. "Much more than just a mere… encounter. I had to knock her unconscious."
Paris chortled. "Well, look at it this way. You don't get to stun yourself everyday."
Seven glared at his lousy humor, but said nothing.
Lenn Torres appeared at the scene, looking flushed and harried in the eerie blue glow of the glowstick. "Oh. It's the alternate her." She sounded less than enthused.
"I take it that the two of us are not exactly on the best of terms," Seven noted dryly. "Some things never change."
Paris snorted in amusement. 'Well, you'll be happy to know that Seven here just knocked Annika out and dumped her on the bridge."
Lenn started to laugh, then stopped. "Seven?" She gave Seven a once-over, then frowned. "She is… was once of them?"
Paris nodded. "For eighteen years," Seven added brusquely.
Lenn raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips for a moment, assimilating the information, then she handed a stack of transponders to them. "To work. One transponder to each stack of dilithium; then contact the Voyager and you guys are home free." She grinned lopsidedly. "And the ship will be ours. Now, let's look sharp! Chop chop!"
Janeway was nearly at the entrance to Deck 11 when the detonator went off. The shock wave hit her hard in the back, and she stumbled, falling over herself and the Intendant. A brief wave of head swept over her, and then it was gone.
Janeway opened her eyes and sat up. The coast was clear.
"Why did you do it?"
Janeway looked down, bemused, at the Intendant. "Try to kill you, or save your life?"
"Save my life." She struggled to sit up, her eyes flashing. "You didn't have to do it."
Janeway pushed her back into a supine position. "Lie down." She scrutinized her strangely. "Why did I do it? It would have been wrong to leave you there, that's why."
"Wrong." The Intendant shut her eyes and snorted. "Who's to tell what's right and what's wrong? What's right to you may be wrong to me."
Janeway frowned. "You mean you didn't want me to save your life?"
The Intendant shook her head. 'It's not just that." To Janeway's amazement, she managed to stand up. "There are a lot of things involved… in right and wrong. So many things can't be judged by a simple right and wrong."
Janeway stood as well. "Like the running of this ship," she prodded.
The Intendant nodded. "Just best and worst."
Janeway glanced down at the Intendant. "You're no longer bleeding."
She smiled almost sadly. "The wonders of genetic engineering. We heal fifty times faster than normal human beings." She bent down, kicked the cover off a side panel and pulled out a large phaser rifle. For a moment, Janeway feared that she was going to be shot, but the Intendant merely tossed her the rifle and pulled out another, which she locked and loaded. "You're a remarkable woman, Captain," she told Janeway. "In so many years, no-one had ever succeeded in changing my mind about anything. You and your crew are the first."
Janeway smiled slightly. "Maybe it's the shock of seeing yourself in another life, another role… and beginning to consider ways that you might have tried to do the same thing, but did not."
The Intendant nodded, and gestured to Deck 11. 'The upper levels have yet to be taken."
Together, rifles at the ready, they descended into the maw of the pit of hell.
In Engineering, Lt. Torres fought back a wave of frustration as she misconnected the leads on the dilithium explosives for the umpteenth time. One little mistake, and we're all going to be blown into kingdom come in a blaze of glory, she thought bitterly. "This little plan of yours had better work, Tom…" she furiously snapped the last two wires into place and signaled the bridge. "They're ready."
"Affirmative," said Kim's voice. "Prepare to beam them over to the following coordinates on my mark."
As Kim read out the coordinates of the Borg power core to her, Torres felt her heart flutter and her adrenaline levels surge up. This was it, she thought. Double or nothing. Either they'd blow up the Borg Cube and manage to get away with some dilithium at the same time, or they'd all be blown to pieces faster than you could say "oops." Rolling her eyes, Torres muttered, "We're Starfleet… weird, risky and desperate tactics are part of the job."
A sillier Fanfic written by TaTTooGaL™
And across the voids of space, the Borg Cube, a menacing hulk of snarled metal, speeded up as if answering a silent siren call. Before it, a shimmering vortex of luminescent green and electric blue opened up. It yawned wider, finally swallowing the vast Cube in one gulp. It swirled close, leaving turbulent eddies behind it.
Inside the energy portal, the Cube raced at breakneck speeds towards its destination. The portal's other end swirled open and deposited the Cube in the middle of a wild fray.
The Borg had joined the party.
Annika ran along the corridor, sniggering. Her head still hurt a little, but it was nothing compared to the triumph of outwitting that stupid Klingon traitor. Did she really think that one punch like that could have knocked her out? What a fool. The Rebels were all so naïve and stupid. How could they ever amount to anything? Annika had always prided herself on her resourcefulness. Lots of people on board the ship thought she was a complete coward-idiots, all of them. She was as fearless as any other rebel: she wasn't afraid of anything in the universe-except maybe the Intendant.
And the Borg, of course…
Just thinking of the Borg again made her spine tingle. If anything, they were capable of scaring her. She found them like some freakish nightmare she might have had when she was a child- all gray and black and slimy, ruthlessly conquering and mutilating without emotion, without feeling. Not even greed or maliciousness. That she would have understood-even admired. But not this… this aberration. And their assimilation whereby they recruited new of their kind… she shuddered. And the Terrans thought the Alliance was bad…
She hated the Borg, plain and clear.
The deck of the ship shuddered and she stumbled slightly. Drat those inches-thick platform soles. She regained her balance-and the lights went out.
She blinked, slightly disorientated. Damn those rebels! Did they think they could stop her like this? Didn't they need lights to see as well?
Apparently, they did. Around her, glowsticks suddenly lit up, and Annika realized that she'd been so preoccupied with her hatred for the Borg that she hadn't noticed the Rebels hiding along the corridor, all dressed in black. She couldn't see them now, but she knew they could see her reflective black leather suit.
Annika took a deep breath and told herself not to panic. She had a photographic memory and an excellent sense of direction. A little dark wasn't going to hinder her at all. She dived for the floor and rolled towards the direction of where a Jeffries access tube would be. Around her, the rebels yelled, confused as to where she had gone. Eyes shut-it didn't make much difference anyway- she concentrated on her other senses and pushed the access door open.
Too late the rebels realized what she was doing. One of them made a wild grab for her legs as she slid into the tube, but missed. Grinning wildly, Annika rolled down the tube and landed at an intersection.
"It must be the stupid dilithium which is causing all this trouble with the Borg," she mused to herself. "It can't be such a wonderful coincidence, can it?" Now, which way should she head? She did a quick mental calculation and decided that it would be left.
Wait- there was one more thing. Groping, she reached into a recess in the bulkhead and felt for the emergency supply kit. It had a glowstick in it somewhere, she knew. Ah-ha. Here it was. She pulled it out, and fingers funbling in the dark, unhitched the clasp and pulled out the lightstick. She flipped in on, and the eerie blue glow lit up the tubes with a soft undertone. Perfect for the setting. Annika headed for the holding bays.
Captain Kathryn Janeway ducked behind a large storage unit to avoid the crimson bolts searing the air above her head. "How many of them are there out there, Chakotay?" she yelled over the din.
"About ten, I'm not sure," replied the Chakotay closer to her-which would make him her own Chakotay. "Commandant, how long more is this going to take?"
"Not very long, at this rate," he replied, as another shot burned a large hole in the bulkhead next to him. Chakotay dived out from behind his cover, squeezed a few shots off, then dived back in.
Hair's comm buzzed-another message. He dropped his rifle and scooted behind the relative safety of the storage unit to read it. "What now?" asked Janeway.
"Everybody prep your glowsticks!" he yelled to the Rebels. "We are going into the night!"
Janeway unfastened her glowstick from her belt and snapped it on, then fixed it to her phaser rifle. "Any moment now…" muttered Hairs.
The lights went out.
There was a general chorus of confusion from the enemy quarters. With a yell of triumph, Janeway jumped out from behind her cover and fired furiously into their stronghold. There were thuds of bodies hitting the floor. Around her, rebel elements, framed by the surreal blue glow of the sticks, fired, and soon there were no more confused yells.
"Way to go, Lenn, Tom!" yelled Hairs, pummeling the air in victory. "Alright!"
"Now," said Janeway, "we disable the main function systems, take control of the conn and wait for things to bide our way."
Commandant Chakotay shook his head. "We're running on a very thin margin here," he grumbled. "We only have at most a minute between systems shutdown and the establishment of the communication links. I shudder to imagine going up against those Borg things without operational status and no-one to cover for us."
"I shudder to imagine going up against the Borg, period," muttered Chakotay dryly.
"Okay," said Hairs, "here's what we do. We'll split into groups of two each, one to take out the functional systems, the other to set up a working comm system. Once we take complete control, we can bring the systems back on-line."
The floor of the ship started shaking uncontrollably. "It won't be long now…" muttered Janeway. "Better get moving, people."
"I'll take the main systems," said Hairs. "Commandant, I think it's best you stick with Madame." He winked at Janeway. "Could get lost in the dark, you know."
The Commandant nodded. "Come this way," he said, gesturing to Janeway. She followed, picking her way unsteadily over the prostrate enemy forms.
On the bridge of the Starship Voyager, Atoms let out a loud cheer as the firing from the Warrior came to an abrupt halt. "All right, Hairs, you've done it!" he gloated, hands raised in the air in victory. He turned around and gave Harry a wink. "Not bad."
"Hmpf." Harry looked slightly nonplussed.
The silence on the bridge made Atoms slightly nervous. "What's the matter with you guys?" he asked. "I mean, we just finished the battle, right?" He glanced from one nervous face to another. "Maybe we should all go help the Warrior-"
Harry leaned forward, looking slightly worried. "Didn't you hear about our plan modification?" He asked in a hushed tone. "Any moment now-"
He was interrupted by a silent scream from the fabric of the space-time continuum. In front of them, a violent green wreath of energy swirled into existence, and tore apart with an imagined popping sound. From within the monstrous energy portal burst forth a gargantuan cube of terrible light and metal. It charged forth with menacing speed and soared, immense, over the two ships. The Borg Cube sailed past, obscuring the viewscreen, and let loose a deadly array of phaser blasts.
"Oh, dammit!!" He grabbed the controls and swerved wildly downwards even as the ship took a hard hit from the starboard and shook violently. He moved into a dancing pattern, trying to evade the attacker-which was fairly pointless-since the Cube was so huge he had nowhere to run.
"I believe the battle has only just begun," noted Tuvok dryly.
Janeway and Chakotay plunged wildly down the dark corridor. "It's only five hundred meters ahead," said Chakotay. "The entrance should be about right her- argh!"
His cry of pain was accompanied by a loud thud in front of her. Fearing the worst, Janeway lifted her light to see-
-and was met with the image of herself, a large ceremonial knife in hand.
Janeway dived instinctively towards her, reaching out for her throat as the blade descended downwards. The momentum of her impact shoved the Intendant back, causing the knife to embed itself mere centimeters from Chakotay's head. The Intendant rolled, and lunged for Janeway's throat.
As the two captains wrestled, Janeway caught a glimpse of Chakotay's anxious face. 'Go," she gasped, "complete the task. I'll handle her." Chakotay only had time for a brief nod before the Intendant slammed her head hard on the deck. Brilliant stars exploded in her head, white-hot and burning.
When she regained her senses again, Chakotay was gone- and her counterpart stood facing her, knife in hand.
"So.." she drawled, smiling menacingly, "finally we meet." Her grin widened wolfishly, and she leapt forward.
Annika Hansen was climbing out of the tubing when it happened. There was this sudden, silent flickering of something somewhere… it was only a slight shudder, perhaps, but Annika felt it in her bones- they'd shut down the functional systems. The fools! She raged.
Then, underneath the silence, she heard something else. Yes… she could not have possibly imagined it… a silent, deep rumbling that was not only coming from all around her, but from deep within as well. She stifled a cry with her wrist-the only other time she'd felt something like this was when- when-
The Borg were here. She knew it.
As if to confirm that fact, the ship suddenly lurched, hard, to port, smashing her hard against the opposite bulkhead. Her cheek smarting painfully, Annika quelled the rising fear in her throat. "The dilithium," she reminded herself. "The dilithium." She continued her climb upwards, trembling from both the ship's vibration and her own trepidation. "It's only a storage facility… no Borg there…" So saying, she flipped the hatch cover open and climbed out.
Her immediate thought was that it was all horribly wrong, and the Borg had, indeed, invaded the Warrior, for the first thing she saw was the unmistakable blue-gray metal of a Borg implant flashing before her.
The she glanced at the owner of the implants, and her heart froze.
It was herself.
Yet… it couldn't be herself. How could she be... one of them? The terror she'd struggled so hard to suppress came springing back at her, clutching at her throat, clogging her lungs. She couldn't breathe. Her Borg-self reached out, and Annika leapt back, shrieking in fear. "Don't come near me!" she yelled.
Her Borg-self was reaching for something. A weapon! Years of self-defense training knocked some sense back into her. She grabbed a class-two storage pod and hurled it at herself with the greatest force possible. The object weighed nearly ten kilograms, but her counterpart caught it with ease-and most startlingly, crumpled it a little before dropping it to the floor.
Annika gave up. "You're not human!" she screamed, as her Borg-self advanced on her. "Get away from me, you aberration!" She threw anything within her reach at her Borg-self, but it was pointless. As an abrupt darkness descended on her, her last thought was, she must have called them here. Am I really allying myself with the abomination in the supposed wonderful parallel universe?
Seven of Nine stared down, oddly disconcerted, at her mirror self lying unconscious on the floor. She said I wasn't human, she thought distantly. Then she blinked, bringing her focus back on the moment. She took out the communicator unit the rebels had given her and composed a message to Paris. Then she picked her alternate self up and headed for the bridge.
Commandant Chakotay was worried; he'd quickly established a communications link and gone to find the others as fast as he could. There was no sign of either Janeway anywhere. He slunk along the darkened corridors , searching for her, calling her name. Nothing.
Finally he ran into the other team on Deck 11, aglow with triumph. His mirror counterpart saw him coming and his manic grin faltered. "Where's the captain?"
Commandant Chakotay looked uneasily back over this shoulder, savoring the darkness. "I don't know." He retold much of the incident as possible, watching his counterpart's expression twist into one of horror. "What if anything happened to her?" he asked accusingly.
The Commandant was about to reply when a sudden loud booming threw him off his feet. "The Borg attack!" exclaimed Hairs in alarm. "I thought the Voyager would be covering our back…"
"They are," said Commandant Chakotay through gritted teeth. "That was no phaser blast- it was a suicide thermal detonator."
Hair's eyes widened with horror. "The Intendant."
The Commandant nodded grimly. "Which means… that they both could be dead."
Janeway dodged to the side just in time as her counterpart charged forward at her, pointed end of knife in hand. Her momentum carried her forward, and she slammed into the bulkhead-with her hand still firmly gripping the knife. The other sharp end sank into her midsection with considerable force.
With a cry of pain, the Intendant pulled herself free and stared at Janeway with uncontrolled anger, blood running down her uniform. If anything, the combination of her wound and her angry grimace served to make her look like an angry lioness. With abrupt suddeness, she sprang forward, aiming the knife's edge at Janeway's neck. Janeway barely managed to duck in time and she hit the floor, rolling. She felt something swish past her ear, and there was a burning sensation on her left arm as the knife's blade grazed it, drawing blood. The Intendant smashed her boot into the side of her head, and her head rang, still not fully recovered from the earlier impact. Janeway stopped, disoriented and confused. She tried to stand up, but the Intendant kicked her hard in the shoulder, forcing her down. She stood above Janeway, knife raised high.
Janeway thought of Chakotay, and suddenly felt weary. Had she provided enough distraction for him? Either way, there was not much more she could do now. It was a pity they couldn't get to know each other better. 'Go ahead," she told the Intendant, "kill me." When she didn't make a move, Janeway added. "Do it. I know how much you want it."
She hesitated, her knife trembling in her hand. The Intendant took a deep breath, and plunged the knife downwards. Janeway shut her eyes, waiting for impending doom-
Nothing. The blade had stopped centimeters from her throat. The Intendant was staring shakily down at her. "No," she whispered, "I can't do it…"
Taking advantage of her temporary weakness, Janeway reared her knees up and slammed her feet into the Intendant's injured midsection. She stumbled backwards, and Janeway leapt to her feet. Angry, the Intendant rushed forward-
And Janeway grabbed the upper half of the insulated handle unexpectedly and shoved backwards, hard as she could-
The knife stabbed backwards, deeply into the Intendant's chest. Her face a mixture of shock and horror, she collapsed to the ground, still breathing, but barely.
And something rolled out of her pocket. It was small, spherical and gray, and the moment it touched the cold duranium deck, it started beeping and flashing. A timed detonator! Janeway thought in horror. She had meant to destroy the ship's functional systems to prevent the rebels from getting their hands on it.
Well, that was not going to happen. Janeway looked into the room where Chakotay had gone into-it was empty. In it were dozens of humming consoles-the communications control room, no doubt. On a side panel, she could make out the faint outlines of what looked like a safety button. She slammed her fist on it and ducked out just as the blast doors began to slide close. She gingerly picked up the detonator, then hurled it as far away from the control room as possible. She was beginning to head for the upper deck when she paused and looked back. The Intendant was still lying on the floor, eyes closed, breathing shallowly.
A sudden pang of guilt stabbed at Janeway. She could have killed me, but she didn't, she realized. And I did this to her. Janeway blinked and tried to think clearly, but there was no time to think. At any rate, it would be wrong to leave her here like this… Against all better judgement, she went back, extricated the knife from the Intendant's body, wincing at the fresh flow of blood that poured fourth, and hoisted her up under one shoulder. Staggering under her weight, Janeway dragged her along the corridors to Deck 11.
Atoms pulled the Voyager into a steep dive, narrowly missing one of two photon torpedoes converging on them. The other hit their shields hard and penetrated. The ship shuddered violently.
"Shields down to thirty percent," reported Kim from the rear. "We're not going to hold out for very long…"
"Anyone has any idea at all how to get rid of these critters?" exclaimed Atoms, as he pulled the Voyager into another endless loop. Ensign Kesin, at Tactical, managed to squeeze off a few shots before the ship's trajectory brought the Cube out of range. "I mean, after all the experience you guys have had with these things…"
Kim took a deep breath. "What we need is a solution that is quick and effective-and only needs to to its job once. Then the Borg will be unable to adapt to it."
"Like a sudden energy release within their ship!" exclaimed Kesin suddenly. "The dilithium-"
Before he could complete the sentence, a trill emanated from the conn. "They've got her secured down!" reported Kim. "For most part, at least. The transfer of dilithiun is coming over any moment now, we'll have to drop our shields." As the ship shook violently once more, he added under his breath, "Like it's going to make any difference."
Tuvok, in the command seat, frowned. "Beaming a dilithium explosive into the ship might be an option, but it will be a tricky one."
The Doctor nodded in agreement, ever eager to chip in his two cents' worth. "The hardest part is not going to be the construction of the dilithium explosive, but getting the Borg Cube to lower its shields."
Atoms Paris gave him a wicked smile. "Why, I do believe I have an idea…"
Tom Paris' communicator, it seemed, was being indunated by messages. He tried replying to them with one hand while the other held the glowstick aloft as he hurried down another corridor, but he found it an incredibly difficult task. "Okay… Lenn Torres: I got your message. Cargo Bay One, pronto." He turned the corner to what he hoped was Cargo Bay One, and true enough, Seven was already waiting there for him. "I'm sorry I took so long," he said apologetically. "I had to turn back and couldn't remember the way I came… which bascially means I got lost."
Seven glowered at him, but it seemed that her glower was less forceful than usual. She seemed to be in deep thought. Paris understood at once. "An alternate universe encounter,' he said.
Seven smirked. "Much more than just a mere… encounter. I had to knock her unconscious."
Paris chortled. "Well, look at it this way. You don't get to stun yourself everyday."
Seven glared at his lousy humor, but said nothing.
Lenn Torres appeared at the scene, looking flushed and harried in the eerie blue glow of the glowstick. "Oh. It's the alternate her." She sounded less than enthused.
"I take it that the two of us are not exactly on the best of terms," Seven noted dryly. "Some things never change."
Paris snorted in amusement. 'Well, you'll be happy to know that Seven here just knocked Annika out and dumped her on the bridge."
Lenn started to laugh, then stopped. "Seven?" She gave Seven a once-over, then frowned. "She is… was once of them?"
Paris nodded. "For eighteen years," Seven added brusquely.
Lenn raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips for a moment, assimilating the information, then she handed a stack of transponders to them. "To work. One transponder to each stack of dilithium; then contact the Voyager and you guys are home free." She grinned lopsidedly. "And the ship will be ours. Now, let's look sharp! Chop chop!"
Janeway was nearly at the entrance to Deck 11 when the detonator went off. The shock wave hit her hard in the back, and she stumbled, falling over herself and the Intendant. A brief wave of head swept over her, and then it was gone.
Janeway opened her eyes and sat up. The coast was clear.
"Why did you do it?"
Janeway looked down, bemused, at the Intendant. "Try to kill you, or save your life?"
"Save my life." She struggled to sit up, her eyes flashing. "You didn't have to do it."
Janeway pushed her back into a supine position. "Lie down." She scrutinized her strangely. "Why did I do it? It would have been wrong to leave you there, that's why."
"Wrong." The Intendant shut her eyes and snorted. "Who's to tell what's right and what's wrong? What's right to you may be wrong to me."
Janeway frowned. "You mean you didn't want me to save your life?"
The Intendant shook her head. 'It's not just that." To Janeway's amazement, she managed to stand up. "There are a lot of things involved… in right and wrong. So many things can't be judged by a simple right and wrong."
Janeway stood as well. "Like the running of this ship," she prodded.
The Intendant nodded. "Just best and worst."
Janeway glanced down at the Intendant. "You're no longer bleeding."
She smiled almost sadly. "The wonders of genetic engineering. We heal fifty times faster than normal human beings." She bent down, kicked the cover off a side panel and pulled out a large phaser rifle. For a moment, Janeway feared that she was going to be shot, but the Intendant merely tossed her the rifle and pulled out another, which she locked and loaded. "You're a remarkable woman, Captain," she told Janeway. "In so many years, no-one had ever succeeded in changing my mind about anything. You and your crew are the first."
Janeway smiled slightly. "Maybe it's the shock of seeing yourself in another life, another role… and beginning to consider ways that you might have tried to do the same thing, but did not."
The Intendant nodded, and gestured to Deck 11. 'The upper levels have yet to be taken."
Together, rifles at the ready, they descended into the maw of the pit of hell.
In Engineering, Lt. Torres fought back a wave of frustration as she misconnected the leads on the dilithium explosives for the umpteenth time. One little mistake, and we're all going to be blown into kingdom come in a blaze of glory, she thought bitterly. "This little plan of yours had better work, Tom…" she furiously snapped the last two wires into place and signaled the bridge. "They're ready."
"Affirmative," said Kim's voice. "Prepare to beam them over to the following coordinates on my mark."
As Kim read out the coordinates of the Borg power core to her, Torres felt her heart flutter and her adrenaline levels surge up. This was it, she thought. Double or nothing. Either they'd blow up the Borg Cube and manage to get away with some dilithium at the same time, or they'd all be blown to pieces faster than you could say "oops." Rolling her eyes, Torres muttered, "We're Starfleet… weird, risky and desperate tactics are part of the job."