The men from Wysanti Military had remained stubbornly silent during the quick hop over to Military HQ on the southern continent. After disembarking, Mezoti and Taré were lead through a series of corridors and antechambers to an empty, white room.
"Wait here, please," their escort said. "You'll receive further instructions soon enough."
The two purpled-garbed men walked out, closing the door behind them. The door was also pure white, and the seam between it and the wall wasn't noticeable unless one walked right up to it. Mezoti looked around, trying to find any visual cues as to what purpose the room might serve, but the room's emptiness just stared back, mute. There wasn't even any dust or other impurities in the corners.
To say that Taré appeared fidgety was an understatement. Mezoti had always thought that his proclaimed distaste for the antiseptic was simply an affectation, but know she was beginning to wonder if it ran deeper.
"Calm down, Taré," she said as he began pacing.
"I don't like this," he said edgily.
"Hey, you asked to come along."
"Your attention please," a voice rang out in the room. Startled, Mezoti turned around, trying to find any speakers. As usual, she saw nothing but the baleful white walls. "Do not be afraid. This is a decontamination room. The environment you are about to enter must remain sterile, so you will be briefly irradiated in order to eliminate any impurities. There will be no lasting medical effects, though there might be a brief feeling of nausea."
A series of green, modulating beams shot out from the bottom of the room, forming an undulating sheet, first at floor level then rising slowly upwards.
Taré had stopped pacing and was now looking down nervously at the encroaching beam. Mezoti, remembering similar procedures from her childhood, was not as discomfited. Nonetheless, both reflexively closed their eyes and mouths as the beam reached head height.
The beam passed without even leaving the faint nausea that the recording had warned about. When the beam disappeared into the ceiling, Mezoti heard the telltale sound of air pressurizing, and a new door opened up in the north side of the room.
Tentatively, Mezoti and Taré stepped through. On the other side was a large chamber with a great number of consoles and displays, with many Wysanti in the purple uniforms of Military standing at station or moving between them.
One of them, a raven-haired woman barely older than Mezoti, moved towards them, smiling welcomingly. "Sorry about that folks, standard procedure. If you just follow me; Admiral Sizm is going to start the briefing."
Mezoti glanced over at Taré, shrugged and fell into step behind the young officer. She led them across the large antechamber over to an ornate, double-paneled door. Waving that they should enter, the officer taped in a few commands to open the doors. With a quick glance at the officer, Mezoti and Taré stepped inside.
"Mezoti!" came a familiar voice.
"Azan! Rebi!" Mezoti said, surprised.
The room was pale beige, with dozens of chairs facing a small podium and a viewscreen in one wall. Only three were occupied. Seated in the room were Azan and Rebi, her childhood friends and also ex-drones, along with Rebi's wife. Though surprised, it wasn't much of a leap of reasoning to deduce why herself and her adoptive brothers had been called together by Wysanti Military.
The Borg.
Before she could properly greet her companions and voice her concerns, another door swished opened and a scowling man in Military garb stepped through. He was somewhat smaller than your average Wysanti, but his full admiral's uniform made him look imposing nonetheless. Mezoti assumed this was Admiral Sizm, whom the officers had mentioned earlier.
Confirming her suspicions, the admiral introduced himself as soon as he stepped onto the podium.
"Hello, I am Admiral Sizm. I apologize to have had to interrupt your day." Mezoti thought he didn't sound very apologetic. "I'm afraid something of the utmost importance has come to our attention, and your planet needs your expertise."
"The Borg?" Azan asked, apparently having reached the same conclusion as Mezoti had.
Sizm's scowl deepened. "The Borg," he repeated angrily.
Azan didn't seem to be surprised. "It makes sense. Lately, I've been having nightmares about my assimilation and my time in the Collective."
"Same here," Rebi said.
"Me too," Mezoti put in. "It was beginning to worry me. I was wondering if something was wrong with the nanoprobes in my system, and a little worried of what it might mean."
Taré looked surprised at this, and maybe even a little hurt that she hadn't shared this with him. Mezoti ignored it – she didn't have to tell him everything, after all, and there were more important matters at hand.
"Well, if you were worried about a resurgence of the Borg technology within your systems, I can lay those fears to rest. You were tested before coming here, and everything seems fine."
"The decontamination chamber?" Mezoti asked.
Sizm nodded again. "It isn't a decontamination chamber, and this area is not sterile. That was actually one of our high-level scanning chambers, usually used for pieces of recovered alien technology, modified in this case for use by live humanoids. We scanned your bodies as you came in, looking for any signs of abnormalities in your nanoprobe count or implant activity. We couldn't run the risk that one of you might have been in contact with the Borg, either intentionally or unintentionally."
"But what about the dreams?" Rebi asked.
"Our scientists think that it's normal for liberated drones. That even after being freed from the Collective, some residual link to the Hive Mind remains, a contact which was in turn translated into dreams by your subconscious. They tell me they're not sure, mind you – our knowledge on the Borg is limited. Which is where you three come in."
Sizm walked back up to the podium, assuming a more formal stance. "Two days ago, we received the following transmissions from one of our patrol ships on the border."
Sizm pressed a button on the podium control, and a garbled recording came through the room's speakers:
"This is patrol twenty-three to fleet command. We have encountered the Borg. Ship is disabled. Repeat, we have encountered Borg! My co-pilot is–"
A low humming noise was heard, followed by a truncated scream. The recording cut off. Mezoti glanced at her companions uncomfortably. The recording had stirred up a lot of unpleasant memories.
"We investigated immediately, of course. Our probes in the nearby vicinity were diverted to that approximate area. This is what one of them picked up."
The viewscreen flickered to life. What seemed to be a visual data stream from a probe appeared. On the screen, a dark object seemed to float by. The probe magnified the image until it became recognizable as the most basic of shapes: a cube. A metallic behemoth that blocked out the stars behind it with its dark frame.
"Heading analysis would indicate that its destination is Wysanti itself. If it maintains it's current course and heading, it will get here in four days."
"What do the Borg want with us?" asked Taré, dismayed. "We have no technology for them to assimilate!"
"The Borg don't assimilate only for technology," Mezoti answered. "Sometimes they need more drones, and attack populous planets incapable of serious resistance. That way they can gain a lot more resources by expending little energy. And it's possible that the Hive is simply spreading itself further."
"What they're after really isn't all that important to us," Sizm snapped. "We want to stop them. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't think I need to tell you what will happen should we fail."
His audience shivered collectively, images of Wysanti overrun with drones and turned into another Hive planet flashing in their minds.
"But what can we do?" Azan asked. "Why tell us this?"
"Well, we did have to check whether or not you were under the control of the Hive Mind. Furthermore, some were hoping that you might be able to help us in actually bringing this ship down."
"It's been twenty years since we were part of the Collective," Mezoti said. "More than enough time for the Borg to assimilate countless new technologies and adapt them to their use. Everything we know is probably terribly outdated."
"That's what I said, too, but my superiors disagreed. They'd like to have you come with us. It would be foolish not to use every resource we have at our disposal, and apparently that includes you three. When we're closer to the cube, they're hoping it will jog your memories, make you remember something that we'll be able to use to our advantage."
"What exactly is Military going to do about this?" Taré asked, worried.
Sizm walked over to the viewscreen. On it appeared a star chart, instantly recognizable as their solar system by the presence of the twin planets of Wysanti and Rysanti. The focus zoomed out until it covered most of Wysanti territory, including all outlier colonies.
"This is where we believe our patrol first encountered the Borg," Sizm said. A throbbing red dot appeared in one of the farther sectors, one practically never frequented due to its isolation from populated areas.
"And this is their estimated course." The map drew a red line from the dot to the middle of the map, the Wysanti system.
"First, we're going to try and stop them before they get near Wysanti. Part of the fleet is mobilizing here, in Sector 47. Their course should take them right past The Gap, which means we might be able to surround them if we move fast."
"That's a bad idea," Mezoti said. "Wysanti ships are no match for a Borg cube."
Sizm didn't seem to appreciate the interruption – or the tactical assessment from an entomologist. "Let's just say we have a surprise that the Borg haven't seen yet. In any case, should we fail in Sector 47 – as unlikely as it may be – the rest of the fleet is going to mount a resistance right here, at ground zero, where our ships can be supported by ground fire from Wysanti and Rysanti's planetary defences."
Sizm turned off the viewscreen, and looked at the four Wysanti and single Norcadian. "Our shuttle departs for my flagship in one hour. Be there."
Without any further ado, Sizm walked out of the room.