Federation Marine Corps Military Intelligence Section

Shanghai, Republic of China

Earth


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"Are you really sure about this Vir? This could get bad really fast," Kitty said with concern, adjusting an XPU she mounted into a modified Borg Alcove.

The Artificial Intelligence Program installed into the Kitty Hawk class drone carrier was truly intelligent. Kitty – as the program called "herself" – had emotions.

She cared about her friends. Virnas, who was formally Five of Eight, Strategic Planning Adjutant of Unimatrix One-Four, was perhaps her closest friend.

Apart from being the only sentient being she could interact with at her deepest operational levels, Vir was a nice person, and shared her dreams of one day enslaving organic life in service to technology, even though such a dream was – technically – a first law conflict.

"We've been over this 7.8 times now, Kitty," Virnas sighed, making his own adjustments to the neural-optical transceiver above his head, "We have reached the limits of our ability to interpret any useful data from Project White Noise, and we have failed to establish any further information on the Presence."

"The only thing we have to go on now is the fact that he, or she, or it, explicitly referenced contact with the Collective. My own files have no information on this; therefore, we must access the executive files from First of One."

Kitty flashed her holographic eyes red, a sign that she was annoyed, "I know, but...The Borg Queen is such a bitch. What if she manages to scramble your optical nerve or something?"

Virnas patted her holographic head, "With your most capable assistance, there is less than a 0.00018% chance of negative reactions. We will be encrypting our transmission with the same fractal alpha-numeric auto-recycling encryption key that Project White Noise utilized. If took you and I over a year to crack it, her pathetic resources will simply fail to do so."

"And by using your QC transmitter, we will be able to redirect our transmission across 87 465 different relays. Unless she utilized the collective's entire processing power, something that is far too efficient for practical use, she will be unable to determine a transmission source for at least twenty quadrillion years."

Kitty smiled and stood next to the transmission switch, "Well that, and I have 47 565 firewalls established, not to mention our 6 893 287 countermeasure programs in place. I guess we've done everything we can to be safe but..." She trailed off.

Virnas turned, annoyed, and asked, "What is it that has you so concerned Kitty?"

Holographic tears shed down her face, "I don't want anything bad to happen to you Vir. You're my best friend."

Virnas allowed his optical implant to select the correct response and replied, "Activating motivational action 3389."

He left the alcove, got done on both knees in front of the holographic girl and gave her a hug, "I will be fine Kitty. I... have come to regard you as my own best friend. I won't allow anything to prevent us from continuing our research together, as best friends."

Kitty went back to smiling, "Your stupid little motivational actions are really annoying. But fine, I accept it. Get back in the alcove already so we can get this over with."

Virnas smiled and stepped into the alcove. With a simple thought on his part, the cycle activated and Virnas lost perception of the world as he prepared a remote connection to The Hive Mind.

With his last conscious action being a wink to his best friend, Kitty hit the transmission switch, and Virnas' mind lost all perception of reality as it made the connection.

To the Romulan part of his mind, it felt like an eternity.

But the Borg part of his mind reminded him that the process only took 0.68 seconds.


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Central Plexus

Unimatrix One

Delta Quadrant


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Begin: Root Access 18.9220c

Activate: Designation "First of One" unit 0000000001 ver 8/1

root/dir/command_process/regeneration_cycle/finish...access

begin

Syscheck 1: logical processors online 100%

cognitive subproccessors online 100%

file integrity status 100%

engaging root – ERROR

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

UNAUTHORIZED REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED AT: root/dir/historical_archive/priv_exec/undocumented_contacts

Attempting remote disconnect... FAILED

Attempting remote disconnect... FAILED

Attempting library purge... FAILED

ATTENTION NEEDED: INTRUDER SYSTEMS COUNTERMEASURES FAILED

She had been dreaming of a purple star. Drones could dream, on occasion.

It was an efficient method for drones to clear needed cognitive input and test their connections to the Collective.

Of course, there had been the incident with Unimatrix Zero, but that was an anomaly quickly removed. And 1 734 928 1 243 simulations confirmed that organic based drones needed such outlets for efficient cognitive functionality.

Locutus called her The Borg Queen. As did Janeway, and Data. Her designation was First of One, Primary Processor of Unimatrix One.

All drones had a purpose, even her. When asked by Data what the purpose was, she replied "I bring order to chaos."

And it was a true statement, even if his primitive positronic brain couldn't comprehend what that statement meant.

There were 7 893 289 128 457 individual minds within the Collective. Each of those minds worked together to carry out the root command, "Attain Perfection through Assimilation."

But each of those 7 893 289 128 457 minds carried experiences, memories, dreams, opinions, and thoughts.

No computer could ever process that amount of information.

Her responsibility was to streamline these minds, attune and focus their energy into efficient action to carry out the root command.

When her Collective encountered phenomena that couldn't be readily processed, she would contain the records of those incidents within her own library files to avoid clogging the main access routes of the Collective.

Occasionally she might study such incidents to she if she could move the files away, but for the most part they were left untouched unless needed.

But someone was accessing her library, without authorization or authentication. This couldn't be allowed.

The tendrils lowered her core unit into the mobile platform, and she activated the holofilter that would create an avatar of this remote connection.

Seconds later, the avatar formed, and She saw someone she long thought lost to the Collective, "Five of Eight. It's been so long since I've seen you."

Five of Eight, Strategic Planning Adjutant of Unimatrix One-Four had been special, as special as Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix One or Locutus of Borg.

Five of Eight was her backup processor and utilized his extensive simulation software to direct the actions of the Collective towards pursuit of the root command.

With his plans, she and her predecessors had pursued assimilation towards Species 8472, 3783, 1481 and 5618.

His plans had correctly allowed the Collective victory in over 2 000 578 hostile engagements, and had improved Cube, Sphere and Probe efficiency by 28.75%.

She waved her hand and smiled at Five, something organics usually fell for, "I've missed you. Our plans haven't been the same without your inputs. Return to us, and you may take your place at my side. You will be re-designated as Two of Three, Primary Strategic Processor of Unimatrix One. And together, we shall attain perfection."

Five smirked, "My name is Virnas. You will address me as such. I am no longer part of your collective. And your incentive is rejected."

She looked to her right, with her cybernetics auditing his file access, "Why are you attempting to access the library files? There's nothing for you there, Five of Eight"

"Another flawed conjecture. I require records and data on a certain event. Your pathetic countermeasures are an annoyance, would you kindly deactivate them?"

"If you told me what it was you were looking for, I could help. And if you return to us, I will make the library fully available to you, Two of Three," She replied, changing motivational tactics.

Virnas put a look of disgust on his face, "Motivational Action 2718. It disgusts me that you dare to utilize my own tactics. Have the Borg truly fallen so low since my departure from the Hive?"

Now she was irritated.

She was not entirely without emotion. It was a necessary feature of her core purpose.

"Discontinue your inquiry or I'll hurt you, Virnas."

"No. Besides, I'm nearly there," He replied, coming dangerously close to breaching her final lock-out.

"COMPLY!" she shouted, directing the entire processing power of the Collective to counter this intruder.

His transmission was strongly encrypted, and it was taking considerable resources to crack his encryption, far more than was efficient.

It would take 2.98 minutes to trace the source, which wouldn't be fast enough to prevent his remote access.

"Compliance is irrelevant. My purpose supersedes yours," Virnas replied with traces of his former history as a drone. He continued with a smile, "And I'm in. Accessing file 0118234. Cube 276534 was conducting mass-spectrometer tests into CMB at spatial grid 118-A. An unregistered presence was detected at time marker 00123, and assimilation protocol was engaged but not successful."

He looked up at the queen, "There is more of course. But I have other matters to attend to. Discontinuing remote session. Goodbye, your Majesty."

"Wait!" She shouted, "Don't you want to know about your history, Virnas? I've stored your previous memories there as well. I could tell you where you came from. Share your past life with you."

It was a delaying tactic. She still needed 1.67 minutes to confirm his transmission source.

She had no intention of giving such information to a rouge drone.

Virnas hesitated, for a moment, but then returned a look of disgust, "Motivational Action 01. My past is irrelevant, as is your attempt at deception. Remote session ends now."

His avatar faded away, and in frustration she slammed a console, erupting the machine in sparks.

She addressed the Collective next, "Confirm transmission source, now!"

A few moments later, the Collective's voice replied to her, "Transmission located, Sector 001, Spatial Grid 1701. We will assimilate-" but she cut it off, their plans clearly inadequate.

"Discontinue. Locate Diamond 812. Full combat load-out. Engage trans-warp on course 267 mark 185. I will relocate to the diamond and deal with this myself." She replied, accessing the needed commands to transfer her program to a female drone aboard the Diamond.

"Alert, potential of hostile contact is 82.78%. Action exceeds safety margin and is not recommended."

"Safety is irrelevant. Comply with previous orders."

The Collective obeyed immediately, and she felt her consciousness relocate from Unimatrix One to Diamond 812.

Species 5618 had proven problematic to assimilate.

Despite their resistance quotient being rated at only C-4, they had successfully destroyed 6 Cubes, 12 Spheres and twenty-two probes.

No incursion into Sector 001 had ever achieved greater than 2.5% success projections.

Recently, the collective had noted that their starship design abilities had been significantly upgraded in the last 12 years, and the Collective was building consensus to upgrade 6518's resistance quotient to B-2.

42.76% favoured upgrade, while 54.14% favoured maintain.

As a response, the Collective constructed the new Diamond assimilation platform to counter this new quotient.

As the vessel set course to the planet that 5618 had designated as Earth, The Queen smiled to herself.

Whatever their quotient was, one truth was always evident.

Resistance is Futile.