"Ten seconds to firing capability, my lord," said the weapons tech.
Vader watched his prey intently. He could not feel them for the moment, as he was still recovering from the shock of being ejected from the collective mind by his own anger. A vengeful wrath flowed through what was left of Vader's veins, helping his Dark Side powers to strengthen.
"Five…four…three…"
Suddenly, the cube moved. A quick, yet lazy motion. It spun around the vertical axis until an edge of the cube, not a face, was directed at the Death Star.
"Two…one…mark!"
Before Vader could give the order to fire, The Borg cube jumped away in pseudomotion. No flash of engines, it simply appeared to move away at high speed, then vanish.
Vader watched the viewscreen for a second, then turned to Motti, who was standing a respectable distance away.
"They…they must have predicted our readiness to fire," ventured Motti.
"No," said Vader, approaching the obviously nervous Admiral. "I saw their mind, their purpose. They are not capable of such predictions. Tarkin must have told them."
"N-no, my lord," stuttered Motti, knowing his death was soon, "Governor Tarkin is loyal to the Empire only…"
Vader reached out and grabbed Motti by the throat, lifting him off his feet. Motti gasped for every molecule of air he could pull through his compressed windpipe as Vader's grip tightened.
"You disappoint me again, Motti. I grow weary of having to teach you humility in my presence."
Motti, on the verge of passing out of asphyxiation, mouthed an apology. To his surprise, Vader released his throat, dropping him to his knees on the cold alloy steel floor. He drank in gulps of air as if he were breathing for the first time in his life. Vader simply walked past him and said, "Don't disappoint me again, Motti."
Vader strode up to the sensor tech and asked, "What was their last trajectory?"
"My lord, their propulsion signature is like none we've ever seen. Normally, when a ship jumps to hyperspace, its propulsion trail is visible for only an instant before the ship enters hyperspace. The Borg ship never entered hyperspace. They are actually moving faster than light, within realspace." The tech explained, not knowing Vader's distaste for long explanations.
However, Vader was intrigued. A small shadow of his past, the young adventure-seeker he once was, was curious about this new type of propulsion.
He asked the tech, "What is their speed?"
The tech replied, "At the instant they left our sensor range, their speed had leveled off at nearly ten thousand times the speed of light."
Vader calculated for a second. Hyperdrive was not true faster-than-light travel. Rather, it pulled two points in space closer together in a parallel universe called hyperspace. There, distances between two points were drastically reduced. It was the temporary passing out of this universe that made a ship in hyperspace untraceable during flight. The Death Star's relative speed in hyperspace was several tens of thousands of times the speed of light, at least in realspace. And the Death Star was a relatively slow hyperdrive vehicle.
"What was their heading?"
The tech checked his astronomical chart readout, and said, "Their last known course would take them directly to…Coruscant, my lord." The tech's lips quivered. Coruscant, the seat of the Empire. If the Death Star couldn't defeat The Borg, Coruscant didn't have much of a chance.
"Set an intercept course!" ordered Vader. "Place us directly in front of them, and prepare the main weapon to target them the instant they slow to sublight!"
The Borg seemed very bold, but for all their haughtiness, they would not knowingly make a suicide plunge into the Death Star's surface. And, even if they did, the space station could probably survive the impact with no major damage.
Moments later, the Death Star jumped to hyperspace, chasing down the foolish aliens who dared challenge the Empire.
The Borg ship moved at its standard cruising speed, what was known in their galaxy as warp 9.995. Their destination was the home planet of the Empire, Coruscant. Tarkin had already begun to share his tactical and strategic genius with the cybernetic aliens.
If Coruscant were destroyed or assimilated, even if the Emperor survived, there would be a period of mass confusion in the Empire. If the Emperor himself were destroyed, There were few that could take his place. Vader, for all his psychic powers and commanding presence, didn't have what Tarkin felt was needed to run an Empire. There were a few Grand Admirals and Grand Moffs that could probably rally the Empire back under one command, but The Borg will have had enough of a head start to be able to neutralize any central command structure that would try to marshal the Empire's forces. Tarkin's intimate knowledge of the structure of the Imperial command would be very useful to The Borg.
He knew they were not accustomed to such a surgical attack on a culture's infrastructure. Normally, The Borg would simply assimilate the most convenient target, and then work its way to the core like a virus. Now that Tarkin held the reins of The Borg's conquest strategy, they would become a new definition of terror in the galaxy.
The Queen watched him intently as he lay on the assimilation table. Tarkin was in a meditative trance, not unconscious, but not consciously aware of what the drones were doing to his body. His left eye had been removed and replaced with a multidimensional scanner/refractor. His skin, before slightly pale and human, was now nearly white with purple splotches. Both his hands had been left intact, for now, but his arms had been fitted with retractable scanners. And his physical strength, augmented by the deep- tissue penetration of The Borg nanoprobes, had been increased fivefold.
Eventually, if Tarkin lived up to her expectations, she would have his consciousness fully integrated into the collective as hers was. Then, he could exist with multiple bodies across The Borg's domain, bodies with nothing but the essential components needed to house consciousness and interact with other species on a one-on-one basis. He would be a living torso with a fully mechanical body for locomotion, at his option.
The Queen felt him call her through the voices of the collective. "My Queen," he said, "the Death Star can track us while we are at warp. Their hyperdrive can quickly overtake us if they have a good enough pilot guiding them. And Vader is one of the best."
"You are concerned they will try to block our path," she cooed.
"Yes," he replied smoothly. "Although we are very powerful, I sense that this ship does not have enough power to adapt to and survive even a low- powered blast from the Death Star's superlaser."
"Yes, such a blast would overpower the limited energy generators on board our ship. Only one of our planet-wide power nets could generate enough power to deflect such a weapon."
"That is why I believe we should make a change in our tactics for this mission," said Tarkin. "We could easily assimilate Coruscant if the Death Star were not in hot pursuit of us, which I can assure you they are.
"If we make them believe they've destroyed us, even for a short time, that would give us the head start we would need to gain a foothold in the galaxy and create the new collective."
The Queen listened to Tarkin's battle plan and was instantly satisfied. Surely, her choice of an Equal was correct.
The Borg cube, now fully repaired from its rough trip across space and time, and then its battle with the Death Star, began to separate around its middle. Pipelines were disconnected and rerouted, the command network split itself into two fully-functioning systems, and the two halves separated themselves with the atmospheric and radiation forcefields that The Borg ships used instead of a less-efficient outer hull. The two halves morphed into two separate, perfect cubes. A capability The Borg had learned when it assimilated its first regenerative abilities, this was something they had not had opportunity to use in a millennium. The Queen oversaw the separation, and was proud of their infinite ability to adapt and change.
The two cube ships flew together at the same trajectory for a moment. Then, the rear cube dropped out of warp and instantaneously shot off in a different direction. That cube, now carrying the bodies of Tarkin and the Queen, had a new mission.
The first ship would be an effective, if expensive, diversionary tactic. But The Borg would prevail.
Vader watched his prey intently. He could not feel them for the moment, as he was still recovering from the shock of being ejected from the collective mind by his own anger. A vengeful wrath flowed through what was left of Vader's veins, helping his Dark Side powers to strengthen.
"Five…four…three…"
Suddenly, the cube moved. A quick, yet lazy motion. It spun around the vertical axis until an edge of the cube, not a face, was directed at the Death Star.
"Two…one…mark!"
Before Vader could give the order to fire, The Borg cube jumped away in pseudomotion. No flash of engines, it simply appeared to move away at high speed, then vanish.
Vader watched the viewscreen for a second, then turned to Motti, who was standing a respectable distance away.
"They…they must have predicted our readiness to fire," ventured Motti.
"No," said Vader, approaching the obviously nervous Admiral. "I saw their mind, their purpose. They are not capable of such predictions. Tarkin must have told them."
"N-no, my lord," stuttered Motti, knowing his death was soon, "Governor Tarkin is loyal to the Empire only…"
Vader reached out and grabbed Motti by the throat, lifting him off his feet. Motti gasped for every molecule of air he could pull through his compressed windpipe as Vader's grip tightened.
"You disappoint me again, Motti. I grow weary of having to teach you humility in my presence."
Motti, on the verge of passing out of asphyxiation, mouthed an apology. To his surprise, Vader released his throat, dropping him to his knees on the cold alloy steel floor. He drank in gulps of air as if he were breathing for the first time in his life. Vader simply walked past him and said, "Don't disappoint me again, Motti."
Vader strode up to the sensor tech and asked, "What was their last trajectory?"
"My lord, their propulsion signature is like none we've ever seen. Normally, when a ship jumps to hyperspace, its propulsion trail is visible for only an instant before the ship enters hyperspace. The Borg ship never entered hyperspace. They are actually moving faster than light, within realspace." The tech explained, not knowing Vader's distaste for long explanations.
However, Vader was intrigued. A small shadow of his past, the young adventure-seeker he once was, was curious about this new type of propulsion.
He asked the tech, "What is their speed?"
The tech replied, "At the instant they left our sensor range, their speed had leveled off at nearly ten thousand times the speed of light."
Vader calculated for a second. Hyperdrive was not true faster-than-light travel. Rather, it pulled two points in space closer together in a parallel universe called hyperspace. There, distances between two points were drastically reduced. It was the temporary passing out of this universe that made a ship in hyperspace untraceable during flight. The Death Star's relative speed in hyperspace was several tens of thousands of times the speed of light, at least in realspace. And the Death Star was a relatively slow hyperdrive vehicle.
"What was their heading?"
The tech checked his astronomical chart readout, and said, "Their last known course would take them directly to…Coruscant, my lord." The tech's lips quivered. Coruscant, the seat of the Empire. If the Death Star couldn't defeat The Borg, Coruscant didn't have much of a chance.
"Set an intercept course!" ordered Vader. "Place us directly in front of them, and prepare the main weapon to target them the instant they slow to sublight!"
The Borg seemed very bold, but for all their haughtiness, they would not knowingly make a suicide plunge into the Death Star's surface. And, even if they did, the space station could probably survive the impact with no major damage.
Moments later, the Death Star jumped to hyperspace, chasing down the foolish aliens who dared challenge the Empire.
The Borg ship moved at its standard cruising speed, what was known in their galaxy as warp 9.995. Their destination was the home planet of the Empire, Coruscant. Tarkin had already begun to share his tactical and strategic genius with the cybernetic aliens.
If Coruscant were destroyed or assimilated, even if the Emperor survived, there would be a period of mass confusion in the Empire. If the Emperor himself were destroyed, There were few that could take his place. Vader, for all his psychic powers and commanding presence, didn't have what Tarkin felt was needed to run an Empire. There were a few Grand Admirals and Grand Moffs that could probably rally the Empire back under one command, but The Borg will have had enough of a head start to be able to neutralize any central command structure that would try to marshal the Empire's forces. Tarkin's intimate knowledge of the structure of the Imperial command would be very useful to The Borg.
He knew they were not accustomed to such a surgical attack on a culture's infrastructure. Normally, The Borg would simply assimilate the most convenient target, and then work its way to the core like a virus. Now that Tarkin held the reins of The Borg's conquest strategy, they would become a new definition of terror in the galaxy.
The Queen watched him intently as he lay on the assimilation table. Tarkin was in a meditative trance, not unconscious, but not consciously aware of what the drones were doing to his body. His left eye had been removed and replaced with a multidimensional scanner/refractor. His skin, before slightly pale and human, was now nearly white with purple splotches. Both his hands had been left intact, for now, but his arms had been fitted with retractable scanners. And his physical strength, augmented by the deep- tissue penetration of The Borg nanoprobes, had been increased fivefold.
Eventually, if Tarkin lived up to her expectations, she would have his consciousness fully integrated into the collective as hers was. Then, he could exist with multiple bodies across The Borg's domain, bodies with nothing but the essential components needed to house consciousness and interact with other species on a one-on-one basis. He would be a living torso with a fully mechanical body for locomotion, at his option.
The Queen felt him call her through the voices of the collective. "My Queen," he said, "the Death Star can track us while we are at warp. Their hyperdrive can quickly overtake us if they have a good enough pilot guiding them. And Vader is one of the best."
"You are concerned they will try to block our path," she cooed.
"Yes," he replied smoothly. "Although we are very powerful, I sense that this ship does not have enough power to adapt to and survive even a low- powered blast from the Death Star's superlaser."
"Yes, such a blast would overpower the limited energy generators on board our ship. Only one of our planet-wide power nets could generate enough power to deflect such a weapon."
"That is why I believe we should make a change in our tactics for this mission," said Tarkin. "We could easily assimilate Coruscant if the Death Star were not in hot pursuit of us, which I can assure you they are.
"If we make them believe they've destroyed us, even for a short time, that would give us the head start we would need to gain a foothold in the galaxy and create the new collective."
The Queen listened to Tarkin's battle plan and was instantly satisfied. Surely, her choice of an Equal was correct.
The Borg cube, now fully repaired from its rough trip across space and time, and then its battle with the Death Star, began to separate around its middle. Pipelines were disconnected and rerouted, the command network split itself into two fully-functioning systems, and the two halves separated themselves with the atmospheric and radiation forcefields that The Borg ships used instead of a less-efficient outer hull. The two halves morphed into two separate, perfect cubes. A capability The Borg had learned when it assimilated its first regenerative abilities, this was something they had not had opportunity to use in a millennium. The Queen oversaw the separation, and was proud of their infinite ability to adapt and change.
The two cube ships flew together at the same trajectory for a moment. Then, the rear cube dropped out of warp and instantaneously shot off in a different direction. That cube, now carrying the bodies of Tarkin and the Queen, had a new mission.
The first ship would be an effective, if expensive, diversionary tactic. But The Borg would prevail.