Chapter XXIII
Onboard the attack plane, Picard sat in the left seat, Data in the central seat, and Geordi in the seat on the right. As Data kept the attack plane steady, the two humans could feel the g-forces on their bodies, something they were not accustomed to. Geordi looked towards Picard.
'I'm going to check the invasive program, Admiral. It had a few flaws in it when we used it on the Borg Queen.'
Picard stared at Geordi for a long moment, and felt a chill run through him at the innocent comment. 'You might have mentioned that,' he said eventually.
'Sorry, sir,' said Geordi, but he had a smile on his face. Picard looked away at the stars streaking past.
'Have a look into it now then, Geordi, by all means. We have a long voyage ahead of us and I don't want the Aralla to have a chance.' La Forge nodded, and picked up the tricorder he had brought. Data sat quietly, piloting the ship towards the mother ship. Picard moved around, attempting to get comfortable in the seat that was built for an Aralla body. 'ETA at the Aralla fleet?'
'Twenty hours, Admiral.'
'That's cutting it a bit close,' said Picard, mildly concerned.
'We could come out of warp nearer to the Aralla, but that would risk their detecting the warp core before we can shut it down and eject it.'
Picard shook his head. The fighter would come out of warp out of Aralla sensor range, shut down the warp core and eject it, thus avoiding Aralla suspicion at a fighter equipped with a separate power source. 'Too risky. Twenty hours it is.'
Data nodded and returned his attention to the screen. Picard looked back Data for a moment, and then felt a familiar tickle in his brain –
'We have been ordered to assume positions in a plan not submitted to the Collective. Orders?'
Picard sent his approval, along with a message that the Collective were to consider Ben Sisko's orders as if they were his own without referring to him first.
'Understood.'
That was all communicating with the Borg was now. Picard was pleased that he had managed to put his power out of his mind for a while. It showed that he was accepting his fate at last.
Well, one fate at least. There were still other things – and other people – to consider. One of those was a certain dark-haired Lieutenant-Commander on the Enterprise. At the very least, he would stay alive for her – and make sure the Aralla did not threaten her or them.
For a lengthy journey like that, the time went by surprisingly quickly. Before Picard knew it, he was ejecting the warp core of the ship, preparing for the final leg of the journey.
Geordi glanced at Picard. 'I've been through the program six or seven times, Admiral. It's ready as it'll ever be.'
'Good.' Picard stared out at the stars, aware of the Aralla ships just out of his sight. He took a breath, and settled himself into combat mode. 'Data, have you picked the Aralla fleet up on sensors?'
'Yes, sir. They are approximately fine hundred million miles directly ahead. They appear to be moving into an advancing formation. I would estimate that they are about to begin their attack.'
'Agreed,' said Picard. 'Very well, Mr. Data. Take us in.'
The fighter lunged towards the distant Aralla fleet.
Ten minutes passed before Geordi made a short stabbing gesture out of the window. 'There they are!'
Viewing them from the Enterprise's viewscreen, at distances further away than this, the Aralla ships had been intimidatingly large. From the tiny shell of an attack plane, they filled the view before the fighter, terrifying in their enormity. The huge fangs of the mother ships hung in space like the incisors of some vast prehistoric animal, and along the decorated surface were the shell-like hulls of the city destroyers, resting, poised for release, to destroy and conquer in the name of the Aralla. Slowly, the attack plane moved towards them.
Data was watching the scanners as they approached, making sure that they were passive scans of the massive bulks. He glanced aft. 'It appears that all city destroyers are present, Admiral.'
'I wonder why they went at the preparation in such a roundabout way,' said Picard.
'We may never know, sir,' replied Geordi. 'Maybe it was what the Aralla call psychological warfare.'
Amazingly, given the tension, Picard managed a smile. 'Geordi, those ships on their own are psychological warfare personified.'
'Good point,' said the engineer, but he did not smile. Instead, he said, 'They're going to launch their assault immediately then?' he asked, knowing the answer.
'Yes, Geordi,' replied Data. 'I can see several attack planes heading back to the mother ships. I suspect that we have arrived just in time.'
'Good,' said Picard. 'In all the commotion, they may ignore a tiny fighter like ours. Any indication that they have accessed the computer?'
'No, sir. You may be right.'
'Let's hope so,' murmured Picard, as the attack plane drew closer to the mother ship.
Suddenly, the ship shook. Data released control of the ship to the mother ships' tractor beam and reported, 'We have been taken in tow by the mother ship. We will dock in five minutes.'
As the attack plane flew over the huge hull, the three officers could see the decorations and embellishments below them. Data spotted something and said, 'It has just come to my attention that the decorations on the Aralla ships are in a spiral formation, towards the central firing point on the Cyclops-class ships, and just to a natural ending on the Colossus-class.'
Picard looked at him. 'Why didn't you notice that before?'
Data shrugged. 'I was not looking for it.'
Abruptly, the attack plane flipped over and was swallowed by darkness. 'We have entered the mother ship,' said Data unnecessarily, but Picard and Geordi's eyes were fixed on the sight emerging before them.
Like Odo, Worf, and Data himself before, they were stunned by the sheer size of the hangar bay. The familiar blue mist rose up from the decks, and the vast pillars loomed at them from out of that cloud of vapour.
Unlike the previous times, they were not given the journey that they were usually treated to. They found a docking berth empty, and were quickly manoeuvred into it. A pair of clamps secured the fighter, and a long boarding tube attached itself to the side of the fighter. The door slid open, and for a moment, the away team believed that they had been caught.
No-one stood there. Picard let out a breath. 'Get yourselves equipped quickly,' he ordered.
Data and Geordi strapped the utility belts on, and Data threw one to Picard, who did the same with his. To those, they attached their phasers, although when Data tried to pass one to Picard, he shook his head, and patted the phaser he had carried with him – the one which had killed Beverly Crusher. Picking up a phaser rifle, he placed five photon grenades into the belt. Setting the rifle to kill he glanced at the others, both equipped similarly, although Geordi had a tricorder in place of one grenade, and Data carried Worf's bat'leth. Picard frowned at him. 'Why the bat'leth?'
'For Worf, sir,' replied Data, and that was that.
Picard looked out at the boarding tube, and said, 'I'll take point. Data, you cover the rear.'
'Aye, sir.'
And, then, with a deep breath, the away team stepped out onto the Aralla mother ship.
For the next twenty minutes, they proceeded down a long, twisting corridor, with Geordi continuously scanning the way ahead, searching both for Aralla, and also for the concentration of computer networks that signalled a command centre. There, they would upload the virus.
Suddenly, a huge tremor swept through the ship, and the away team was forced to brace themselves for support. After a moment, it passed away, and Picard stared at Geordi. 'What was that?'
'The Aralla mother ship has just gone to warp, sir. I think they're about to go to transwarp –' He was cut off by another tremor, more gentle, but still enough to make Picard stumble. 'I think that proves my point,' added Geordi once the tremor had passed.
'I just hope the Fleet is ready.'
The Fleet was ready. Sisko had ordered the entire Fleet to move to attack readiness shortly after Picard had left. The entire Borg fleet rested in between the planet and the Aralla entry point. About two light-years away, the rest of Fleet, in its various Battlegroups and sub-orders of that, was waiting.
The plan was simple. The Aralla would come out of warp, engage the Borg, and the rest of the Fleet would warp in behind, and trap them in what Sisko called a "hammer and anvil tactic." Theoretically, the attack would result in the enemy being trapped and pounded by the combined attack on two fronts – but tactics and theory had all too often gone out of the window against the Aralla. Sisko knew that if Picard could not lower the shields of the Aralla ships, then he would be very lucky if he could extricate any ships from the battle. And almost certainly, any hope of victory would be irrevocably crushed.
This was, in more than one way, the last battle.
Now, they waited for the Aralla.
'Sir!' Hedly's shout carried across the bridge. 'The tachyon detection grid has been broken! The Aralla are attacking!'
Sisko nodded, and he felt his heartrate increase. 'All ships, this is the Enterprise. Red alert. Battle stations. Activate Borg modifications.'
The away team had emerged onto the familiar walkway alongside the black abyss. Data now theorised that this was a major intersecting corridor, for he had traversed it every time he come aboard. Picard agreed, but he largely concentrated on what was immediately before them.
Geordi suddenly gasped. 'Sir, I'm picking up a huge power drain just ahead.'
Picard stared for a moment, and made out a door inset in the wall. 'I think I can see the entrance.'
He led the way slowly, and stood before the door. It slid open silently, and Picard leapt in, dropped to one knee, and levelled the rifle. Checking it was clear, he signalled to the others. As they entered, Geordi made his way to a form of control console. He examined it, and gave a grunt of dissatisfaction. 'No, this isn't connected to the main computer.'
Picard frowned. 'Then what's the immense power drain.'
'Perhaps this, sir,' said Data, and Picard turned to see that the android was staring through a small glass partition. Picard stepped closer – and gasped in awe and horror.
Before them, as far as the eye can see, there stretched tier upon tier of unmoving Aralla bodies. All seemingly identical, they formed what was a chilling tableaux of unmoving horror. But even worse, they seemed as though they were imitating the Borg in their motionless statue-like sleep.
Picard turned away, unable to look any longer. 'We've spent enough time here.' Without answer, he led the way from the room.
The huge Borg fleet waited silently for the Aralla. What passed through the minds of the drones that waited in readiness could not be fathomed, but it could not be denied that even the Collective, as far as it was capable, was feeling very tense itself.
The Aralla, it understood, could not be defeated, but here was the Collective, spurred on by the fire that controlled it's leader, trying desperately to defeat them – something that could not be done, or so it had believed.
It was confusing to the logical systems of the Collective, but it had a get-out clause that other logical systems may not have had. It had to follow its orders, and that was a directive burned into the very being of the Borg. Its orders were to do the impossible. It would be done.
'I'm picking something up, sir,' said Geordi, as the away team continued along the chasm-edged walkway.
'What is it?'
'Looks like heavy computer activity,' said the engineer. 'I think it's what we're looking for.'
'Can you see an entrance, Admiral?' asked Data.
'The walkway appears to wind away into a covered corridor,' said Picard. 'I suspect what we're looking for lies through there.'
'Agreed,' said Geordi.
'Let's be careful,' added Picard. They advanced forward again.
The commander of the Aralla fleet had observed the actions of the Fleet from a distance. The presence of one of the children aboard their flagship had presented an unrivalled opportunity for espionage. It was a pity that the child had been discovered.
Nonetheless, the attack was now underway. The humans and their allies would not stand a chance. The commander had already made his decision as to the future of the Aralla. Their time in space had weakened them, he believed, and it was clear that they needed a new planetary base of operations. It would only be poetic justice for the new home of the Aralla to be the old home of humanity.
Scanners were coming into range of the Borg Unicomplex. The Aralla knew they had already been detected by a tachyon detection grid. This merely meant that the enemy had more time in which to cower in fear at the approach of their death.
Picard levelled his rifle again, and eyeballed the corridor that the three of them traversed.
Large columns, glowing with internally suppressed power, stretched from the deck to the ceiling, narrowing in the centre, and widening again to spread into the ceiling. These lined the bulkheads of the corridor at regular intervals.
After ascertaining that the corridor did not contain any Aralla, Picard signalled the others forward. The away team spread out, advancing cautiously, weapons raised, eyes casting about.
After a few moments, Geordi brought his tricorder up and stopped. He faced one of the walls. 'This is it?'
'This is what?' asked Picard.
'The computer activity is definitely emanating from within that room, sir,' said Geordi. 'I can't detect any entrances.'
Picard could agree with that, as the corridor went straight ahead for what must have been miles. 'How do we get through?'
'Photon grenades,' said Data. Geordi nodded his agreement.
'I think it's the only way, sir.'
'And if the Aralla spot us?'
'I don't think we have a choice, Admiral,' said Data, unstrapping a pair of grenades and setting them on the deck.
Reluctantly, Picard backed away from Data's work, and took cover behind one of the wide pillars. Geordi did the same further down the corridor.
Data twisted a dial on both of the canisters and dashed down the corridor, barely getting into cover before they exploded with a massive roar that blew out the entire bulkhead and spat fire into the corridor. After a moment, waiting for the dust and smoke to settle, Picard and Data took a step forward and gazed in through the hole.
Before them rose a vast bank of screens, monitors and computers, all linked by thousands of tiny connecting fibres to one single vast twisted black pillar, much like those in the docking bay. As the away team stepped through the hole, Data looked up, but could not see where the pillar terminated, dwindling away into the inky darkness above. The giant room itself stretched away in all directions, darkness filling every direction.
'I think that this is definitely what we're looking for,' said Geordi, taking out his tricorder again. Scanning, he said, 'I need to find some form of access terminal.'
Picard took point again as the away team penetrated deeper into the Aralla mother ship. At that moment, a shudder passed through the enormous ship again, and the away team held on as the tremor faded. Picard looked at Geordi and Data, needing no information to know that the Aralla had left transwarp. 'We'd better hurry.'
The Aralla commander stared at the darkness of space for a moment. He was not surprised by their enemy's failure to materialise, and had prepared for the eventuality. He waited patiently for the results of the scans, and was told that their scanners had picked up a massive transwarp trail leading to a small planet nearby.
The Aralla launched themselves into warp again, not far from their final reckoning.
'Gotcha!' Geordi's exultant cry summoned Picard and Data to his side.
'What is it?' asked Picard.
'This is a direct access panel to the main computer network, Admiral. I'm going to upload the virus from here and activate.'
'How long?'
'Twenty minutes,' said Geordi, and without waiting for comment, he placed the tricorder beside one of the computer consoles that he had illuminated with a torch. Looking at the tricorder, it scanned his optical wavelength on his implants, and accessed the invasive program. The tricorder began finding a way into the main computer.
Hedly's head jerked upward as she stared at Sisko. 'Admiral, I have detected the Aralla fleet bearing 457 mark 547. They are proceeding at warp five towards Vegryo VII. ETA is five minutes.'
'Any reading on their shields?' Sisko's question was directed at Thames, and his tone was hopeful.
'I cannot be certain at this range, sir,' said Thames.
Sisko nodded, face calm, but his stomach churning. 'Signal the Fleet. Warp five, matching the Aralla course.'
'All Battlegroups acknowledge,' said Hedly.
'Engage.'
Geordi stared at the console, watching as the tricorder wormed its way into the Aralla computer network. The first symptom of the virus' infiltration into the system was that localised computers lost control of their functions. Lock-out commands and passwords that restricted access would fail, and this is exactly what happened now. 'I have control of this console, Admiral,' said the engineer, not taking his eyes from the tricorder.
'Can you give me a status check on the Aralla position?'
'I can do better than that,' said Geordi, pleased with himself. 'This particular console has command of a large bank of exterior sensors. I can call up an image of immediately outside the mother ship.'
'Do so,' ordered Picard. Geordi pressed a few controls, and a monitor slightly above and to the left of the away team flickered into life.
Strange alien symbols shimmered across the screen occasionally, but that was not what held the away team's attention.
What was before them was the vast Borg fleet, closing on the Aralla position.
And at that moment, another shimmer of motion rippled through the Aralla mother ship, as the entire Aralla fleet dropped out of warp.
The second the Aralla fleet emerged from warp speed, the Borg fleet leapt as one at the mother ships. The Cubes swept forward, firing their weapons as they came, the blasts dissipating against the shields, and they curved past the Aralla ships, still firing, as the second wave crashed into the Aralla.
Within moments, the Aralla returned fire. Balls of blue fire mixed with the green torpedoes and purple beams of cutting energy responded to the shimmering green energy of Borg weapons. Within moments, five Borg Cubes were blown apart, and another three Spheres lay burning in space.
'The Borg have engaged the Aralla,' reported Hedly. 'Our ETA is one minute.'
'Sisko to Engineering.'
'Torres here.'
'Can you give us anymore speed, engineer?'
'I'll try, sir.'
The mother ship shook again, but very slightly. 'We are coming under fire, Admiral,' said Data.
Picard watched as another Borg ship was destroyed in a ball of fire. Every time that happened, it felt as though a tiny part of his soul was being torn away from him. He could hear, through his connection, the calm unhurried orders of the Collective, ordering more ships to crowd the Aralla.
Hordes of attack planes spilled from the Aralla hangar bays, and opened fire on the Borg fleet. As they did so, smaller scoutships from the Borg fleet rushed to engage them. A moment later, the two new fleets joined in battle, lances of blue and green fire being sprayed randomly across space.
At that moment, the Alliance Fleet broke out of warp astern of the Aralla.
Sisko grinned wolfishly. 'All ships, open fire at will. Order all fighters to engage the attack planes, and keep them off the cruisers for as long as possible.'
Sweeping forward, the Fleet opened fire on the Aralla. Phaser beams, disruptor blasts and photon torpedoes all slammed into the green shields defending the Aralla. In return, the Aralla opened up on the Fleet, savagely bombarding them with blue energy. Unlike the Borg, their weapons could not penetrate the Fleet's shields as easily. Thus, the Fleet could match the Aralla blow for blow.
That is, until another new reading caught Thames' eye. She turned to face Sisko, face worried. 'Sir, they're launching the city destroyers!'
'How many?' asked Sisko, determined to keep calm.
'All of them.'
Detaching themselves from the bulk of the mother ships, the city destroyers rotated away from their dark mass, and split up, most heading to engage the Fleet, and the rest moving to intercept the Borg. Before too long, the Fleet was forced to divert its fire from the mother ships onto the advancing city destroyers, which arranged themselves as a defensive wall between the Fleet and the planet. This wall opened fire on the Fleet as their attendant attack fighters rushed to engage the defenders.
The Battlegroups swarmed forward to attack the city destroyers, the faster ships spraying their phaser fire across the shields, protecting the larger cruisers, following up behind, attempting to save their firepower for the shields to come down.
The Defiant swooped under the belly of the most forward of the city destroyers, firing at random. It was immediately pursued by a large number of attack planes.
Kira smiled, her strategy working perfectly. She had direct control of the helm, and immediately swung the incredibly manoeuvrable starship around, bearing down on her erstwhile pursuers. The phasers blasted out, and most of the fighters were caught in the first volley. The attack planes tried to get out of the way, but they exploded under the concentrated phaser barrage. The Defiant pulled away from the city destroyer, dodging the return fire.
Astern, a squadron of Keldon-class warships, escorted by a wing of birds-of-prey, opened up on a city destroyer. The return barrage broke through the shields, devastating two ships and damaging another badly. The squadron broke up, fleeing from their enemy.
In the centre of the formation, Admiral Jaled's Warbird took a savage beating from one of the city destroyers. As it's escort ships attempted to distract the Aralla, the Warbird tried to evade, but to no avail. Another salvo of fire disabled the Warbird's engines, and another severed the bridge section from the main hull. A fireball erupted, which consumed the Warbird as its escort continued the attack.
The Challenger, alone on the flank, opened fire, hitting a mother ship with a severe barrage. The answering onslaught broke through its shields, destroyed a warp nacelle, and caused a warp core breach. The Challenger blazed into light and the ball of fire illuminated the blackness of space for a short while until the light from the weapons that discharged around it drowned out its glittering brightness.
Picard watched the destruction of the Galaxy-class Challenger in horror, as Data bowed his head. But all was forgotten a moment later, when Geordi suddenly yelled in delight. 'It's in!' They turned to see all of the monitors suddenly fill with a geometric pattern, which was the modified Borg invasive program.
Picard sighed with relief, feeling long months of preparation coming into fruition. 'If the Aralla isolate the problem, can they deactivate the program?'
'Only if they track it to the exact console,' replied Geordi after a moment's thought.
Picard nodded calmly. He levelled his phaser rifle, and said, 'Stand back.'
The others jumped out of the way as Picard sent a sustained beam of energy into the computer console, and it exploded in a blaze of sparks. Geordi stared for a moment at the wreckage, and then glanced up at the screens. The geometric pattern remained on the screen, indicating that it had infiltrated other computers. Soon, very soon, the program would spread insidiously into the massive pillar, which Geordi privately theorised was the main Aralla computer net. And from there, it would knock out the shields, weapons and engines, leaving the Aralla dead in space.
Picard motioned to the others. 'Come on, our job's done. Let's get out of here.'
A Borg Cube swooped low over the hull of a mother ship, and opened fire. The blasts glanced off the shields easily, and in return, the mother ship tracked the Borg Cube. As it pulled away from the mother ship, a barrage of fire joined the Cube to the mother ship briefly. The Borg ship shattered into a fireball, which swept on away from the battle.
The Enterprise pulled past the fireball that barely missed it and unleashed a storm of fire into the shields of the mother ship. Explosions larger than the Enterprise herself flashed into being along the shields, illuminating the green field of energy.
But, as the blasts faded, the crew of the Enterprise could see that there was a wound in the hull of the mother ship, glowing orange with the fire that burned into space.
Sisko slowly stood, staring for a moment, all thoughts of the battle having disappeared for a moment as he gazed at the Aralla ship. 'Commander Hedly, fire.'
The Enterprise fired again, and this time the result was unequivocal. A massive torrent of fire boiled from the hull of the mother ship. Hull plates were blown apart, allowing the weapons of the starship to find their way inside and tear the interior apart.
For a moment, silence reigned on the Enterprise bridge, and then spontaneous cheering broke out as the crew celebrated the success of the away team's mission. Sisko turned to Hedly, who bore a vicious grin. 'Tell all ships to fire at will. The Aralla are vulnerable at last.'
It seemed that the message to fire had been unnecessary. All across the Fleet, crews cheered as they saw the mighty Aralla fall victim to the invasive program. Within moments, the Fleet had closed to point-blank range with the city destroyers, blowing holes in the shield which now tried to defend the mother ships. Attack planes swarming around the Fleet were being caught in the devastating attack and blown to shreds. If not, the superior firepower of the Alliance fighters gave them a decisive advantage.
On the other side of the battle, the Borg began firing in earnest. Their weapons pounded the huge ships, and blasted the hulls apart, destroying attack planes and causing tremendous damage. It appeared as though they had only been toying with Aralla. In moments, the first city destroyer fell, as forty starships ganged up on the vast cruiser, destroying it in a massive conflagration, which burned brightly in the midst of the battle. By the light of the burning city destroyer, the Fleet pounded the Aralla fleet.
The Aralla commander stared, dumbfounded, at the screen which showed him the disastrous turn the battle had taken. He turned his anger onto his subordinates, but they could not help him. In a fit of anger and hatred, he ordered all-out attack by the Aralla. They still outgunned the Alliance and the Borg.
At that moment, the geometric pattern appeared on the screens throughout the small control room. The Aralla all stared, stunned, as it made it's way through the system and drained power.
The Enterprise led Battlegroups Enterprise and Alpha into the midst of the firefight. Phaser beams etched their way along the dark hulls, as quantum torpedoes rent the interior open to space, spilling oxygen and fire out into the void.
Sisko flinched slightly as a Defiant-class ship, the USS Valiant, exploded directly ahead. The Enterprise took revenge on a city destroyer, passing it to starboard and firing a devastating phaser salvo into it. As it moved astern, the city destroyer concentrated a blast on the flagship.
The explosion threw Sisko and Dax from their seats, and Truper against the turbolift. Amazingly, Thames and Hedly held on, but Hedly shouted, 'We've lost shields, Admiral!'
'Divert –' The crew was thrown to their feet, cutting Sisko off as another explosion rocked the starship.
A beam of cutting energy passed directly through the port warp nacelle, shattering the clear material shielding it, and exploding the Bussard Collector on the forward end. As the nacelle went dark, the beam continued on its way, striking the stardrive section hard.
A huge explosion blasted two engineers from the upper levels of the Engineering deck, killing them, and gas began to billow from the warp core. Joseph Carey, standing in for Torres who was on the bridge, stared for a horrified moment as the gas billowed towards him. 'Coolant leak!' he shouted above the noise. He made the wrong decision. 'Try and plug that breach -!'
Another explosion shut down the lights in the section, and the huge doors that protected the crew from coolant leaks came crashing down from the ceiling, their computer control severed. As the light from the warp core eerily illuminated the room, Carey and his engineers hammered on the doors, screaming for help. At that moment, Ensign Vorik glanced back and said, 'Look!'
The trapped engineers saw their worst nightmare. Carey turned to the others. 'Get to the upper levels!'
'Carey to bridge!'
'Sisko here,' gasped the admiral in pain, having just struggled to his seat. He thought his wrist was broken. Dax had taken over the helm console from the injured Truper.
'Sir, we have a serious problem. The magnetic interlocks have failed, and we'll have a warp core breach in six minutes. There's nothing I can do.'
Sisko stared for a moment at Dax, horror etched into his face. Behind him, at the bridge engineering console, Torres said, 'Can you get your people out, Joe?'
'No, Commander,' replied Carey, his voice deathly calm. 'We're trapped on the upper levels. The plasma tanks have had a small leak punched in them. The plasma coolant's flooded the lower compartment. We can't get out.'
Sisko felt nausea flood run through him, while Torres looked physically sick. Plasma coolant dissolved organic matter on contact. Carey and the trapped engineers were condemned to a horrifyingly bad death. 'You have my thanks, Mr. Carey,' said Sisko. He did not cut the commlink, allowing Carey that privilege.
'Thank you, sir,' said Carey. 'Get home B'Elanna,' he added. 'Carey out.'
Immediately, Sisko leapt to his feet. 'All hands, this is Admiral Sisko. Abandon ship.'
Hedly headed to the lift, pausing to take Torres in tow, whose eyes were vacant, stunned at the loss of her engineering crew. She followed Hedly as if she was a zombie. At the same time, Thames helped Truper to his feet and left in the port aft turbolift along with Hedly and Torres. The other bridge crew left in the starboard aft turbolift.
Sisko stared in black hatred at the Aralla mother ship looming over the Enterprise, defending itself desperately. Every so often, a salvo of photon torpedoes or a volley of phaser fire would crash into its vast hull, blowing out balls of fire the lit up the ship for miles.
Shaking himself from his reverie, Sisko said, 'Computer, time check please.'
'Four minutes to warp core breach.'
Sisko looked at Dax, who still sat at her console. 'Let's go.'
Dax stood and turned, resting her hand on the console.
The Aralla mother ship unleashed another salvo into the Enterprise.
The console exploded behind Dax. She was struck by shrapnel and electrocuted at the same time. She screamed and collapsed to the deck. Sisko dived to her side.
'Dax! Dax! Old Man, come on!' Her body lolled in his arms, bleeding from a dozen cuts, and her uniform badly burned. Tears of fury filled Sisko's eyes. Her face was black from burns, and her hands were the same.
Picking her up, fury and bitter rage sweeping through his mind, he carried her to the turbolift.
Torres allowed herself to taken most of the way to the escape pods before her mind came back to her. She pulled herself free from Hedly's grip and began running down the corridor, ignoring the shouts from the crew for her to come back. Turning the corner, she fled blindly towards the Engineering section.
At that moment, the Aralla blasted their fatal salvo into the starship. The ship rocked hard and threw B'Elanna to the deck, hitting her head. As consciousness faded, she thought she heard feet approaching...
Seven of Nine stopped dead when she saw Torres' body recumbent upon the deck. She had just left Engineering having tried her hardest to free Carey, Vorik and the trapped engineers. Now, she found the Chief Engineer knocked out on the deck. Seven did not even worry. She picked up Torres' body and carried her to the escape pod.
'One minute to warp core breach.' Did it know of its own impending doom? Or was it just Sisko's imagination that it was saying the words rather sadly? He cared not.
The doors of the turbolift slid open and admitted Sisko to the deck. Bashir saw him and turned. 'Hurry, Admiral!'
At that moment, the Aralla, who seemed on wiping the Enterprise, their scourge throughout the war, from existence, fired again. This beam severed the port nacelle from the strut connecting it to the starship, sending it careering into space. As it did so, the beam ripped apart a large section of the saucer section.
The explosion ripped from the hull, sending a ball of flame billowing along the corridor towards Sisko. Bashir grabbed him, and yanked him into the escape pod. As Sisko was pulled, he lost his grip on Dax. Her body fell to the deck as Sisko watched the pod door close before his eyes and the pod launched.
Sisko whirled on Bashir, stunned fury written in his face. 'I dropped her body!'
Bashir's eyes registered the horror of what Sisko said. 'Jadzia...' he whispered, closing his eyes with the pain that tore into his very soul.
Sisko turned to sit at the porthole of the pod, watching the Enterprise recede in the distance. A white flash rippled along the starboard nacelle and a memory returned, fleeing the USS Saratoga; his security officer, Zar, pulling him from the body of his wife, Jennifer, trapped under girders; the pod launching; the Saratoga vanishing into the distance. The Saratoga -
The entire destruction of the Enterprise echoed the death of the Saratoga. As the escape pod soared away from the Enterprise, Sisko pushed his face against the porthole, seeing not the dying starship, but, in his mind's eye, Dax's body lying against the bulkhead.
'No.' His whisper was to the burning starship that listed in space before him. As the Enterprise's final second approached, Sisko's minds eye watched the fire creep through the decks.
'No!' A bitter shout of loss. As the white-blue fire consumed the stardrive section, Sisko saw Dax's body burn.
'NO!' As the Enterprise vanished in a blue-white cloud of flame, the warp-core breaching and sustaining itself to create the flagship's fiery grave, Sisko knew he had failed Curzon and Jadzia Dax. He screamed to the night.
Seven of Nine had also watched the silent ball of fire that had blown the Enterprise to atoms. But her concern was on the other occupant of the escape pod.
Torres had still not awoken from her sleep, and Seven could see a livid bruise forming on her forehead where she had hit it. Resisting a sudden impulse to linger, Seven brushed Torres' hair aside so that she could see the bruise better.
After a moment, she was satisfied that her companion was safe from danger, and she turned her attention to the battle outside.
The Enterprise's fiery death had not left any debris that could endanger the fleet of escape pods that fled from it, and the only danger was being shot down by the Aralla.
The Aralla, however, had turned their attention to the rest of the Fleet in the wake of the Enterprise's destruction. But that Fleet, outgunned as it was, was used to fighting battles on unequal terms, and without the defence of their shields, the Aralla ships were proving themselves inadequate to the task. As were their tactics.
The Aralla had been able to rely on those shields to protect them whilst their weapons battered their way through any defences. But that reliance was misplaced now those shields had failed. Although their centralisation had been the flaw that had been exploited, their complacency had been their true failing.
Seven glanced at Torres, who gave a groan and sat up. She took in her surroundings and stared at the drone. 'Where am I?'
'I got you aboard an escape pod before the Enterprise was destroyed,' answered Seven. Torres took in this information sadly.
'Carey? Vorik?'
'Both dead,' said Seven sadly.
Torres bowed her head for a moment. 'I was trying to get to Engineering to save them,' she said after a moment.
Seven nodded. 'You wouldn't have been able to do anything. The doors were jammed shut.'
Torres sighed. 'I know. But I wanted to try.' Saying no more, she gazed out at the battle raging around them.
Picard, Geordi and Data dashed along the corridor, fleeing from the destruction of the Aralla ship. To all sides, they could hear explosions breaking out and the groans of the hull being demolished.
From one of the adjoining doors, a group of Aralla burst out into the corridor directly before them. Without pausing in surprise, Picard levelled his phaser and shot one down. As Geordi blasted another, the Aralla reacted belatedly. The foremost grabbed Picard's rifle and cast it to one side, and lashed out again, catching him around the neck. The others moved forward, intent on avenging themselves on their hated enemy.
Data sliced down with the bat'leth, chopping the tentacle in half. Pressing forward, he took on another while Geordi fired again, catching an Aralla in the head. Picard managed to disentangle himself, and blasted another with his phaser.
Another loomed over him, and as Picard stared, unable to do anything, it swept down with a killing blow.
It caught a bat'leth directly above Picard's head. The baakonite resisted the tentacle. Data pushed up with his android strength, no expression on his face. The Aralla fell backward.
Data attacked viciously, allowing the Aralla no respite. In his mind swam images of his friends slaughtered by their onslaught, and although his emotion chip did not provide him with the satisfaction of their vengeance, he could at least give himself the comfort of the safety of his friends.
Slashing across the Aralla, he feinted upwards, and thrust forward, sinking the point into the sternum of the creature. The blade withdrew, the Aralla fell, and Data raised the bat'leth for the killing blow. Like an executioner, he beheaded the creature.
Picard watched the android sadly. Relieved as he was at their victory, he was saddened by Data's submission to his violent emotions. Even though his emotion chip was removed, and he could not directly have those feelings, he knew what they were now, and knew what he should be feeling. He could not avoid the android's expression of almost-anger. 'Let's go.'
The trio ran on.
The Voyager evaded a blast from a city destroyer and returned fire. The photon torpedoes ripped a gash in its hull that was followed up by a salvo of disruptor fire from the Klingon attack cruiser that Voyager was escorting.
Chakotay stared resolutely at the nearly dead city destroyer that they had fired upon. Fires blazing from its hull, holes that pockmarked the surface – it was in bad shape. Chakotay turned to Tuvok. 'Get me Commander Krellok.'
'Aye, sir,' replied the Vulcan. A moment later, the Klingon's face appeared on the screen.
Chakotay faced him. 'Commander, I recommend that we break off and attack another ship. We should call in a Borg taskforce to finish it off.'
'Agreed. Set course for the second mother ship.'
'Yes, sir,' answered Chakotay. Krellok vanished and Chakotay glanced at Foster.
'Course plotted –'
'Attack planes to starboard!' interrupted Kim. 'They're on an attack course!'
'Fire phasers!' order Chakotay immediately.
A beam of energy washed out and hit the attack plane formation dead-on. Two were blown to pieces, and another was hit by the flying debris, sending it careering into the void. The others stayed on course and opened fire.
The Voyager's shields were already badly weakened and now they collapsed under the heavy fire. An explosion burst from the saucer section as the Aralla fighters swept on, turning for another hit.
Chakotay staggered as the attack planes hit the starship, only barely registering Tuvok's report. 'Shields down! Hull breach on deck 3! Emergency forcefields in place and holding.'
Chakotay stared at the fighters on the screen as they bore down on the vulnerable starship. Any moment now, he thought, they will fire.
Any moment now.
The moment came, and went. The Aralla swept overhead and flew on. Chakotay whirled to face Kim. 'Why didn't they fire?'
Kim's face broke out in a beaming smile. 'Sir, the Aralla fleet has stopped firing. The invasive program has taken their weapon systems out.'
Chakotay wore a fierce grin as well. 'Then let's get them.'
The Voyager pulled away from the city destroyer, heading for the mother ship that the rest of the taskforce had already headed for. But at that moment, the city destroyer astern was blown apart by a storm of Borg fire. One vast explosion consumed it, and the huge shockwave swept outward and caught Voyager, spinning the starship around and carrying it along in the tidal wave of destructive energy.
The bridge rolled. Chakotay was thrown to the deck as a plasma conduit exploded under the strain, sending a blast of fire across the bridge. The flame caught Foster and fried her immediately. She didn't have time to scream. Her body collapsed to the deck, a charred and blackened skeleton.
Chakotay struggled to his feet, and stared at the approaching horror on the main screen. The vast hull of the mother ship was looming fast towards the starship, far faster than was possible on their engines. He felt despair and failure in his heart as he realised his death.
Behind him, Tuvok acknowledged his end with his Vulcan calm. Kim simply dropped his head.
The Voyager slammed into the mother ship nose-first. The explosion rent the ship apart, and the warp core exploded. The shockwave ripped into the mother ship, causing thousands of secondary explosions, and savagely battering it's interior. Seeing an opportunity, the Fleet struck home. All of Battlegroup Beta, Martok's group, swung into action.
Romulan Warbirds pummelled the surface, while Klingon warships and smaller Starfleet vessels strafed it with phaser and disruptor fire. Cardassian warships joined in, and a moment later, the Borg assisted.
The mother ship could not resist the barrage of fire. Listing heavily, it tried to flee, but barely kept itself moving. A moment later, it seemed to reel away, and then it broke up in a series of vast explosions. Debris and spinning hull fragments spiralled away, and then the power centre exploded.
The detonation vaporised the immense ship, taking several Fleet vessels along with it. Fire rolled out with a faster shockwave to consume other unshielded Aralla vessels. Two city destroyers fell victim to its fiery death, as well as countless attack fighters.
The conflagration was ignored by the far-off escape pods of the Enterprise, who floated far away from the battle. Only one occupant had seen this.
Seven of Nine's enhanced sight permitted her to see things further away than most humans, and she had relayed the destruction of the Voyager in horrified tones, not thinking of the impact her words would have on the already shaken Torres.
'Chakotay?' said Torres suddenly, her voice shocked. 'Tuvok? Harry? Neelix? All dead?'
Seven turned to look at her companion, and saw the bitter pain there. 'B'Elanna –'
Nothing would stop the Chief Engineer. She began rocking back and forth, tortured by her own self-delusory anger. Then the tears came and she wept openly, ignoring Seven of Nine's astonished look. 'I should have been there! They're all dead and I -' She began sobbing in tortured anger and pain.
Without thinking, Seven reached out and took the other woman into her arms and allowed her to sob at the released anger and sadness she had held suppressed ever since Tom Paris' death.
The other ships in the fleet renewed their attack on the Aralla after seeing the death of one of the once indestructible mother ships. The city destroyers began to fall in fiery conflagrations, until they were in retreat, fleeing from their nemesis. Across the entire Fleet, victory could be sensed. The attack planes were beaten, and the larger cruisers all heavily damaged. The firing intensified, though no order was given.
As had been found by the Enterprise long ago, once the shields were down, the Aralla ships were woefully inadequate to the task of interstellar combat. The hulls, made of the flexible polymorphic metal, were now being torn apart by the weapons of the Fleet. Despite their vast size, a single starship was perfectly capable of destroying even a mother ship. A concentrated attack would destroy a city destroyer in a few short minutes.
Phaser beams lanced into the black hulk, drawing out immense gouts of flame that could consume an entire squadron of starships, which burned briefly in the darkness of space before fading. After the phasers, glittering photon torpedoes slammed into the ships, shattering the hulls that had dominated the minds of those from the Alpha Quadrant for so long.
As Picard had once hoped, the Fleet showed them no mercy.
On the lead mother ship, Picard and the others had reached the attack plane. It was still clamped in place. Why it had not been used in the attack, nobody knew, but it was there. They boarded it, and closed the hatch. Data sat at the controls, and activated the engines.
They wouldn't fire up. Data stared at the controls for a moment, surprise written across his face. He tried again, but there was no response from the engines.
Picard came to the front and stared worriedly at the controls. 'Can you do anything?'
Data stared for a second at the controls before a crazy plan occurred to him. 'Stand well back, Admiral. This might not work.'
Picard looked at him, mystified, and then did as he was asked. A moment later, Data pressed the triggers.
The attack plane spat forth twin blasts of energy into the pillar before them. The explosion blew the plane free of the clamps. The engines activated and Data swung the plane around, and accelerated from the ship. It began curling around the huge pillars, not slowing down, with Data relying on instinct to pilot them safely away from the huge ship.
A squadron of starships, led by the Defiant, closed with a city destroyer and fired its quantum torpedoes. The explosions ripped into the firing circle. The blast ripped apart the superweapon, causing an energy recoil. The explosion spread through the ship, and it was consumed by fire as the Defiant's squadron roared away.
As Kira looked about, the screen was clear, and it only showed a few attack planes swarming about, being hunted down by the smaller fighters. Her second in command's voice, Lieutenant Morla, came over her shoulder. 'There are no city destroyers left, Major. We are ordered to begin searching for escape pods while the Borg finish off the mother ships.'
Kira nodded, without turning to look at the other Bajoran. 'How many ships lost?' Moral looked at her panel, and her face dropped for a moment.
'Just over three hundred, mainly Borg Cubes in the first minutes of the attack.' Kira nodded and returned her attention to the screen. Her senses had finally become accustomed to the horrendous losses that the Fleet had been sustaining. There would be little fighting left if they had any luck.
She hoped Sisko and Dax had got off the Enterprise.
Sisko stared silently from the escape pod. Bashir watched him worriedly, for Sisko had not said a word after screaming when the Enterprise had been destroyed. He had merely stared pensively out at the battle. Now that the pod was well away from the last of the fighting, he had merely stared into the middle distance.
He owed his life to Dax, in one form or another, and to lose both her body and - what was worse? – the symbiont that held the memories of his friends from the past – that was a crime that he might never forgive himself for.
The attack plane sped through the interior of the mother ship, the blue mist clearing. There was a continuous danger from flying debris, but Data's reactions were up to the task. The attack plane entered the tunnel. Fire reached out to the attack plane from all sides, but the Starfleet officers could at last see the blackness of space.
Their last line of defence, the city destroyers, gone from them, the mother ships of the Aralla invasion force were trying desperately to flee from the Borg onslaught, but to no avail. The green beams and torpedoes slammed into the vast ships, who could not fight, could not flee, because of the debilitating effect of the invasive program that had once been meant for the Collective that destroyed them.
Although three of the survivors tried to make for the blackness of space, the fourth, which was the leader of the Aralla fleet, headed towards the planet. As the others diverted the Borg at the cost of their lives, the last mother ship lumbered towards the Unicomplex of the Collective.
The Borg reacted slowly to this threat, and they waited until two of the three mother ships were dead in space before diverting any ships to the defence of their Unicomplex, as the Fleet fielded the other. A desperate race began, with the Aralla struggling to reach the base for some unknown purpose, while the Cubes, Spheres and Diamonds flitted around it, firing green bursts of energy into the ship. Somehow, the ship struggled on.
The last shots were fired into the mother ship, and as it broke up, the Defiant picked up an escape pod's homing beacon. Cruising alongside, it beamed the occupants aboard.
Sisko and Bashir, both battered and singed, emerged onto the bridge of the Defiant. Kira turned to face them, a smile on her face, which faded slightly as she noted the despairing look in Bashir's eyes, and the silently raging expression on Sisko's. She also noted an absentee. 'Where's Jadzia?'
Sisko took his seat, not looking at Kira, focussing his attention on the destruction of the mother ship, and in the distance, the image of the Borg attacking the last Aralla vessel. It was left to Bashir to say, bitterly, 'Jadzia's dead, Nerys. She died on the Enterprise.'
Kira stared at the doctor for a moment, not comprehending the full horror of the news. She turned her face away before Bashir could see the tears.
The fighter burst from the confines of the dying Aralla ship. Instantly, Picard and Data saw what lay before them. But it was Geordi who said, 'How did we get that close to the Unicomplex?'
At that moment, they entered the Collective's desperate field of fire. Green fire rained down upon the fighter, aimed at the mother ship. Behind them, the mother ship loomed over the Unicomplex, which itself began firing desperately. But there was no stopping the Aralla's last act of apocalyptic destruction.
To Data, Geordi, Picard and the Fleet, who all watched in stunned silence, it appeared as if it were a battle between two huge prehistoric creatures. Somehow staying intact under the sustained hail of fire, the mother ship completed its last mission.
The Aralla commander stared silently, vacantly, at the dead bodies of its subordinates scattered all around the command room. It was alone for the first time, surrounded only by the dead and dying. He too, was dying, although perverse fate had chosen it to be the last surviving Aralla to witness his race's final reckoning.
It was nearly over, ending a universe away from where it had all begun when the Borg had attacked the Triumvirate. By now, the Aralla trapped on the other side of the dimensional rift would have been destroyed by the humans, and his race would be extinct. The commander knew in his last seconds that he had failed his entire race personally. But there was one last piece of vengeance, and he intended to live to see it carried out.
Slowly, stiffly, he stood up and watched on the last surviving screen as the Unicomplex drew closer, and closer.
And at the moment of impact, he triggered the power centre.
The black Aralla mother ship crashed, almost gently, into the equally black surface of the Borg Unicomplex. At the very moment of collision, a vast explosion burst out of the mother ship, blowing apart the huge ship in sections, from the stern heading forward. As the explosions consumed the vessel, it claimed the Unicomplex as well. Flame washed over the Unicomplex, burning the hull, and igniting hundreds of secondary explosions. Then, as the final fireball ripped the last Aralla ship apart, the Unicomplex was vaporised as well.
The numerous Borg ships that had harried the mother ship for so long tried to flee, but they were doomed as well. As the Unicomplex died, their connection to the dying Collective was severed. They ground to a halt in space, and then ripped themselves apart in a single explosion.
Although the Collective was directed by a single mind, the Borg had to be controlled via the Unicomplex. Once the Unicomplex was destroyed, the Collective and all the drones, Cubes, Spheres, Diamonds and scoutships died with it. As the Aralla had known they would.
Within seconds, the Borg ships all across the Fleet had started exploding. The Borg, as they had been known to the entire Alliance and the entire galaxy, became extinct in moments. It was the ultimate price they would pay for their relentless march across the galaxy and the universe.
As their nemesis, the Aralla, died, so did the Borg.
And Picard felt it all.
His mouth opened in a soundless scream as the shockwave from the Unicomplex and the Aralla's destruction caught the attack plane, tossing it like a leaf in a breeze, before casting it into the atmosphere. That physical shockwave could not be matched in intensity by the mental shockwave that struck Picard in his brain. He felt their deaths, all of them, felt his connection snap from his mind. He stumbled and knocked Data from his seat as the android fought to control the fighter.
There was nothing any of them could do to alter the ultimate fate of the last vestige of the Aralla's existence. The fighter came tumbling from the sky in a blaze of fire. Data struggled to his seat again and tried to correct its tumble and level its descent. It scraped the ground, and smashed along the surface, tearing up rocks in its wake. The plane gave one last bounce, and slammed, nose-first, into the surface. It buried its nose in the ground and crashed to a halt. Geordi, Picard and Data were thrown about like helpless toys as the plane stopped moving. At the point of impact, the entire cockpit was smashed open and dirt poured in, burying the bodies of the three heroes. Inside, all was silent.
Picard awoke to see sunlight, shining through a rent in the hull onto his face. He tried to move and found his leg was trapped under a seat. He leaned over and tried to move it, and it just slid off. Amazingly, after that crash, he could still feel all of his limbs, and move them. His suit was tattered, but otherwise he was only slightly injured. Abruptly, he realised that having his leg trapped under the seat had saved him. If he hadn't been kept in one place, the crash would have thrown him about the back of the ship, hitting all the bulkheads, and probably causing serious injuries.
And then he felt it – the emptiness in his mind, the space where there should have been the innumerable, whispering voices of the Borg. For a moment, Picard simply sat and stared silently, unused to solitude after even the limited contact of his mind to the Collective. He now understood what it was to be severed from the Borg.
And then he saw something which put that out of his mind altogether. 'Data! Geordi!'
Picard clambered over to where his friends' bodies lay. 'Geordi!' he called desperately as he examined his Chief Engineer's face, and felt for a pulse. There was none. His body was cold, and badly burnt. He had been killed in the crash. Sadly, Picard closed the artificial eyes, which stared into the ceiling.
Picard looked across at Data. 'Data, are you still functional?' The android moved stiffly. As he got up, Picard gasped in horror, for part of his face was burnt away, revealing badly damaged circuitry and erratically flashing lights. Data looked across at Picard.
'C-C-Captain?' It became apparent that Data was badly damaged.
'Data, can you run a self-diagnostic?' Data seemed to look inward. He looked at Picard with glazed eyes.
'Memory failing, power at twelve percent. Expected lifespan of this unit, thirty seconds.' The voice of Data slurred badly, and sounded metallic. Suddenly, his face cleared.
'Switching to back-ups. Operational expectancy, two minutes until final auto-shutdown.' He looked up at Picard.
'Captain, where are we?' Picard gripped Data's shoulder.
'Don't worry about it.' All he could do was to make Data's final time as fair on the android as possible. 'Geordi is dead also.' Data's head turned slowly towards La Forge.
'Geordi? Our helmsman?' Picard frowned and then realised what was happening. As Data's memory failed, his memory was regressing. That is why he called Picard captain, which he had not been known as for two years now. He preferred it to Grand Admiral.
'Where is Worf? Doctor Crusher? Commander Riker?' Data gripped Picard's arm, his eyes failing as his friend disappeared from his view. 'Where are they?'
Picard could not bring himself to tell the dying android the truth. 'They're all waiting for you, Data,' he said. 'You will see them again. Data,' Picard tried to think of something encouraging to say to his friend, seeing his last link with the past disappear before his eyes, which themselves were tearing, 'Data, well done.' The android smiled, albeit very puzzledly.
'Thank you, sir.' His eyes looked past Picard. 'My name is Data. Hello, Doctor Soong.' Suddenly, his eyes glazed over, and the lights on his skull flickered once, and died. Data lost the vital force that made him a vibrant living person instead of a lump of cold inanimate metal.
He died in Picard's arms, who set him down and wept for his dead crew.
Their long voyage together was over.
The Fleet had recovered all of the escape pods after the battle. Most of the Enterprise crew had survived the destruction of their ship. Thames and Truper had been retrieved by the Cardassian ship Elmar, and Seven and Torres by the USS Appalacia.
Sisko had remained on the Defiant, even though most of the crew had left for the surface to join the celebrations beginning below. After naming the day as a holiday, he had sat in the captain's chair, brooding darkly.
After an hour, Bashir entered the bridge, his face worried. 'Sir, do you wish to come down to the surface? People are beginning to –'
'People can take care of themselves,' said Sisko, not looking around. 'I wish to stay here.'
Unsuccessful. Bashir tried another tack. 'Has there been any word on Grand Admiral Picard and the away team?'
Sisko shook his head. 'No. However, it would be nearly impossible to tell in the amount of residual energy and debris that we've got covering the planet after the Unicomplex was destroyed. We'll have to wait until that clears before we can mount a proper search.'
Sisko's voice was calm, unmodulated, revealing no trace of his feelings inside. Bashir sighed, and turned away.
After a few hours, the residual energy had mostly faded, allowing for scans that could sweep the planet. It was the USS Gorkon that spotted the unusual metallic mass that rested on the surface of the planet. Polymorphic metal was a unique artificial alloy, and thus the Aralla attack plane showed up plainly on scans.
Oddly, then, Sisko ordered the Gorkon to back off, and personally took the Rio Grande, one of those runabouts from DS9, and went to retrieve whatever remained of the away team. It could only be conjectured as to why Picard or the others had not communicated with the Fleet or the base. The residual energy had not blocked communications at all.
The runabout sped low over the surface of the planet, heading north. That was where the unusual signal had been picked up, somewhere just below the polar circle that surrounded the northern polar ice cap.
Sisko kept a careful eye on the scanners, but his mind continually cast back to what had happened during the battle. He did not want to fail another friend. He would not allow Picard to die because of another mistake that he, Ben Sisko, had made. Maybe, if he could complete the Fleet's victory by returning their leader to them, he might be able to sleep again at night without seeing Dax's face in his dreams.
Nightmares would be a more accurate description for the tortured images his consciousness cast into his mind to torment him.
Sisko was startled by the bleep of the scanner. He quickly analysed what it told him and smiled in triumph. It showed a large mass of polymorphic metal, and a single life-form nearby. Sisko quickly altered course and increased his speed, confidence swelling in his heart.
The Rio Grande shot towards the crash site, and Sisko could see the large mass that signalled the attack plane's final resting place. He set the runabout down, and opened the door.
Immediately, he felt the cold rush of air that signalled how close to the pole he was. Although there was no ice, the ground was barren, and it was a sure bet that before too long, this area would be frozen solid. Already he could see high mountains in the distance through the clear, frigid air that bore glacial snow on the lower slopes.
He stared for a moment at the wreck. The attack plane had hit the ground hard, and skidded a long way before coming to a halt. He could see the actual impact crater about a quarter of a mile to the north.
'Admiral Picard! Captain Data! Commander La Forge!' He stepped closer to the wreck, trying for a look inside, almost fearful for what he might find.
'You won't find anyone alive there, Ben.' Sisko turned at the voice, and saw Picard walking towards him. His uniform was tattered, and the Admiral looked exhausted. But his eyes shone with the realisation of victory.
'Thank God I've found you,' breathed Sisko, his eyes worried. 'Why didn't you contact the Fleet?'
'Our commbadges were destroyed in the crash,' said Picard shortly. 'How did the battle go?'
Sisko forced a smile. 'We won.'
'I know that,' said Picard impatiently. 'How badly did we fare?'
'I assume you realised that the entire Borg fleet was destroyed when the Aralla mother ship rammed the Unicomplex.' At Picard's nod, Sisko continued, 'We lost more than three hundred starships from all across the Fleet. However, the majority of our strength is still intact. I believe that we can claim a total victory.'
'Did any Aralla ships survive?'
Sisko did smile genuinely this time. 'No. Not one.'
Picard smiled as well, his countenance becoming relieved. He muttered to himself, 'Avenged.' Sisko did not have to ask what he meant by that.
'However,' said Sisko, 'we took some personal losses.'
'How so?'
'First of all, Admiral Jaled and Gul Dukat were killed during the battle.' Sisko had seen Dukat's ship go down fighting off more than a thousand attack planes as his squadron managed to destroy a pair of city destroyers.
Picard bowed his head. 'I am only grateful that we did not lose more Battlegroup commanders.'
'Secondly, Voyager was destroyed.'
Picard's expression became saddened. 'I feel personally responsible for those deaths. I asked Captain Janeway's crew to join us, believing it was the best way for them to complete their journey. And look what it got them.'
Sisko did not agree, but he continued, 'Lastly, the Enterprise was destroyed.'
Picard drew in his breath sharply. 'I told you to look after her. My crew?' Thames?
'The bridge crew survived,' began Sisko, and then his face fell, remembering the only one who had not. Picard saw his face, and stepped closer to Sisko.
'What happened?' he asked quietly.
'My first officer, Jadzia Dax – she died –' Sisko's eyes filled with tears and he turned away, angry with himself. Picard laid a hand on the younger man's shoulder.
'I know what she meant to you, Ben. I'm sorry. I know that there's nothing that I can say to make the situation better, but you have my condolences.'
Sisko nodded, blinking back the tears. 'Thank you, Admiral.' His mind cast back to nearly two years before, when Picard castigated him for succumbing to his depression at the deaths of Jake and Kasidy. He had not thought of those names for so long!
Picard recognised in Sisko what he had gone through so long before. He had lost everything to the Aralla scourge, and now that he was avenged, he could afford to give Sisko some comfort in his loss. They had both suffered so much, and neither of them had anything or anyone to lean on for support – except, possibly, each other.
Picard slowly withdrew his hand, and realised that Sisko had something to lean on now, unlike his superior. Sisko had those people who cared for him, the survivors of his crew, and the post of President to occupy him in future. He would recover from the tragic losses of this war, eventually, slowly.
Picard had used the Aralla as his psychological crutch for so long, and he had forgotten what it was like to have nothing to blame or to brood on that it was an alien sensation to him. Now, he had nothing. He had handed over the reins of power to Sisko. Even his positions as Praetor of the Romulans and Acting Chancellor of the Klingons would fall by the wayside under the new agreement for alliance. Sisko had taken those roles onto his own shoulders, and Picard had nothing. By his own hand.
The man who had looked to the future whilst remaining in the present had been consumed by the hatred and actions of the past. Picard, for the first time in his life, was alone. Totally alone.
Sisko had recovered his composure now. He faced Picard and brought the situation Picard had just realised into stark relief. 'Where are Captain Data and Commander La Forge?'
Picard stared at him vacantly and jerked a thumb vaguely over his shoulder. 'They're over there. Killed in the crash.'
Sisko closed his eyes for a moment, and then stepped over in the direction that Picard had indicated. Two long graves marred the ground, and a shaped section of the hull beside them marked what Picard had used for a shovel. Sisko stood there for a moment before he felt Picard standing beside him. 'They were good men.'
Picard nodded. 'I was privileged to serve with them all and we sometimes take what we are privileged to have for granted. They were the best crew in Starfleet.'
Perhaps in older days, Sisko might have disagreed in the name of crew solidarity, but Picard had merely spoken the exact truth. No hyperbole, no prideful boasting - just a simple acknowledgement of the sheer abilities of the crew which had led the war against the Aralla from the front right from the beginning.
Will Riker, Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Data, Geordi La Forge, and even those who had left to join DS9's crew – Worf and Miles O'Brien. Those names would live in the memories of all those came after, so that their achievements and deaths would not be in vain.
The two men stood at the graves silently until the sky was dark.