- CHAPTER 5 -
- ISS Hopolite, Deck 2, Outside Captain's quarters, 8:01AM -
Ulysses looked down and saw for the first time the carnage the short battle had wrought. He sucked breath through clenched teeth in shock and was rewarded with a fresh stab of pain from his ribcage. The influx of breath wasn't the only sound. With it came a wet rasping sound as a mixture of blood and air flowed around the dagger sticking out of the left of his chest. He again looked at McBride, expecting to see his gloating eyes staring back at him.
Instead he saw ones that were confused, and growing more so by the minute. Ulysses couldn't for the life of him figure out why that should be. After all, HE was the one with a dagger lodged deeply into his chest, he was the one about to die, so why was McBride confused? The neuro toxin was beginning to affect Ulysses' mind, making it sluggish. Why? Why was McBride confused? Part of his mind coldly analyzed his situation, despite the rising veil of fog falling upon his cognitive functions. If McBride wasn't going to kill him quickly, at least the poison coursing through his system would bring death soon. Now why was his right hand wet? His mind worked slowly, like it was moving through taffy. His hand wasn't supposed to be wet. He looked down again, and got an even bigger shock than seeing the knife still lodged in his ribcage.
His hand was gripping his dagger's handle so hard his knuckles were white. Or would have been white if he could still see the skin of his hand. A crimson liquid was flowing over his hand, hiding the skin from view. His mind finally made the connection. McBride's blood! His hand was being covered by McBride's blood! It was coming out in a stream as steady as a metronome. In the eye blink of time when both Ulysses and McBride had clashed, both had scored a blow on their opponent. It just happened by pure blind luck that Ulysses' blow had pierced McBride's cold black heart. He looked into Garret McBride's eyes and saw consciousness fading from them, saw them loose focus and eventually fix on a point in space, never to see again.
With what was almost a sigh, Garret McBride's legs lost their ability to support him, and he slowly collapsed to the ground. Ulysses just stood there, casting a very macabre figure with his face deathly pale, left arm lifeless from the shoulder down, right arm still clutching his knife with blood coating everything up to the elbow, and a dagger jutting out of his chest. The sheer revulsion of what he had done came crashing down on Ulysses. What have I done? DEAR GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE!?! An animal cry of anguish came from Ulysses vocal cords even as a howl of victory rose up from the demons in his soul that had taken over his actions despite his best efforts to keep then under control. He fell to his knees in front of the man he had slain. His tears began to fall, his body wracked by violent sobs, and the spasms of pain they caused when they jolted the blade lodged in his lung. As his respiration increased, so did the wet rasping sound coming from his wound. Ulysses brain, stupefied by drugs, horror and regret, kept trying to tell him he was forgetting to do something. Yet all he could see was the blood on his hands. He turned to the side and vomited. That proved too much for his tortured body. Almost mercifully he passed out, falling backward, the fine metalwork on the handle of the dagger shining brightly as it stood straight up, perpendicular to his chest. Just like a tombstone.
- Borg Research Center A875 34B9-001, 8:02 AM -
The engineering team had worked through the night, and finally had fruits to show for their efforts. The Hopolite's Chief Engineer, Cmdr Clay Heidberg stared down at the nearly completed job, his gray eyes nearly glowing with satisfaction. Of the entire team working to bring the ex Borg facility fully back online, only he knew what the facility's purpose had been when it was operational. But the other engineers on the Hopolite's staff were a pretty sharp bunch. They had nearly figured out the base's purpose all on there own, just by trying to put it back together. They would have been done a lot sooner if it hadn't been for that Asshole McBride making Lt. Cmdr. Vanguard bring the station's main systems online by himself. Granted, he was the only ex drone on the Hopolite, and as such most familiar with Borg technology. But even a single set of extra hands would have done the job in less than half the time it had taken the Second Officer working alone.
This station had taken a heck of a beating from something, Clay thought, and that something had to be either really powerful or highly exotic to do this to the Borg.
Surprisingly, the actual damage to the systems vital to the research project had been relatively light. It had taken considerably less time than originally projected to bring the station fully online and capable of initiating its primary purpose. 24th Fleet would be in for a surprise when it showed up in about 11 hours. They were expecting a dead station. What they were getting was one ready and rearing to go.
What had been a Borg control console had been ripped out and was laying off in a corner. An Imperial one was just being put in its place. It would simplify matters when it finally became time to activate the project. Four crewmen were manhandling the table-sized console into position when one of them let it slip. It fell down and smashed the toe of his boot with predictable results.
"Stop your wailing Higgins!" Heidberg ordered the squealing engineering officer. "If you weren't such a klutz, you would have nothing to cry about."
"Damn it Cmdr, but this things heavy!" Higgins whined. "Can't we use the anti grav hauler to position it?"
"If you had paid attention at the briefing instead of checking out the female engineers, you wouldn't ask such a dumb question." A few of the more attentive engineers chuckled and cast grins at each other. Clay sighed inside. "Remember, I said that AG fields would adversely affect the power distribution nodes in this room? And by adversely I mean that it would start a chain reaction in the station's power grid that would fry every EPS relay on the station! If you want to explain the cause of that little doozy to the captain, go ahead. Just be sure to let someone know what you want said at your eulogy."
Higgins had always been a troublemaker, picking fights with crewmen for no reason, slacking off when he thought he could get away with it. And if it wasn't for the fact that he was one of the best young engineers he had encountered in recent years, Clay would have sent him packing long ago. But that was only the official reason that Higgins was still on the Hopolite. Captain McBride had heard that he was a burr under many people's saddles. And since the Captain loved to play the crew against each other, he had made one Ensign Oliver Higgins his golden boy.
Clay could only shake his head. The sick little games that Captain McBride loved to play were just plain dumb. If he ever had to go into an actual battle with the Hopolite, he would be going in with a seriously flawed weapon. And it would be entirely his fault when it blew up in his face. Of course if that happened, it also blew up in the rest of the crew's face as well. Most of them knew this and tried to avoid the games the captain played and get along with each other as much as possible. Yet some, like Ensign Higgins, took every chance they could get away with to belittle and aggravate their fellow shipmates.
Despite being the Captains favorite, even Higgins knew that he would be skinned alive by him for frying the stations EPS system, so he clamed up and went back to helping move the bulky, heavy console into position. Once it was pretty much centered, another tech came up and made the connections from the console to the system, connecting leads and power cables to the appropriate jacks in the front of the console's base. As power was fed into it , the console blinked to life, its formerly featureless black surface giving way to pastel controls and readouts of a standard Imperial LCARS display. Clay looked at the telltales and grinned.
"Well it looks like you mangy excuses for engineers can do something right after all!" To a man, the team members grinned back. It was tough to get a compliment out of Cmdr. Heidberg, but when you did, it was as sincere as they came. Clay touched his combadge. "Heidberg to Hopolite. Tell the captain that we have the station at full readiness. We can initiate the experiment at any time."
"Understood Cmdr. Heidberg. Let us know when your team is ready to depart." A velvety female voice replied.
"Can do Hopolite. Heidberg out."
- ISS Hopolite, Deck 2, Outside Captain's quarters, 8:01AM -
Ulysses looked down and saw for the first time the carnage the short battle had wrought. He sucked breath through clenched teeth in shock and was rewarded with a fresh stab of pain from his ribcage. The influx of breath wasn't the only sound. With it came a wet rasping sound as a mixture of blood and air flowed around the dagger sticking out of the left of his chest. He again looked at McBride, expecting to see his gloating eyes staring back at him.
Instead he saw ones that were confused, and growing more so by the minute. Ulysses couldn't for the life of him figure out why that should be. After all, HE was the one with a dagger lodged deeply into his chest, he was the one about to die, so why was McBride confused? The neuro toxin was beginning to affect Ulysses' mind, making it sluggish. Why? Why was McBride confused? Part of his mind coldly analyzed his situation, despite the rising veil of fog falling upon his cognitive functions. If McBride wasn't going to kill him quickly, at least the poison coursing through his system would bring death soon. Now why was his right hand wet? His mind worked slowly, like it was moving through taffy. His hand wasn't supposed to be wet. He looked down again, and got an even bigger shock than seeing the knife still lodged in his ribcage.
His hand was gripping his dagger's handle so hard his knuckles were white. Or would have been white if he could still see the skin of his hand. A crimson liquid was flowing over his hand, hiding the skin from view. His mind finally made the connection. McBride's blood! His hand was being covered by McBride's blood! It was coming out in a stream as steady as a metronome. In the eye blink of time when both Ulysses and McBride had clashed, both had scored a blow on their opponent. It just happened by pure blind luck that Ulysses' blow had pierced McBride's cold black heart. He looked into Garret McBride's eyes and saw consciousness fading from them, saw them loose focus and eventually fix on a point in space, never to see again.
With what was almost a sigh, Garret McBride's legs lost their ability to support him, and he slowly collapsed to the ground. Ulysses just stood there, casting a very macabre figure with his face deathly pale, left arm lifeless from the shoulder down, right arm still clutching his knife with blood coating everything up to the elbow, and a dagger jutting out of his chest. The sheer revulsion of what he had done came crashing down on Ulysses. What have I done? DEAR GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE!?! An animal cry of anguish came from Ulysses vocal cords even as a howl of victory rose up from the demons in his soul that had taken over his actions despite his best efforts to keep then under control. He fell to his knees in front of the man he had slain. His tears began to fall, his body wracked by violent sobs, and the spasms of pain they caused when they jolted the blade lodged in his lung. As his respiration increased, so did the wet rasping sound coming from his wound. Ulysses brain, stupefied by drugs, horror and regret, kept trying to tell him he was forgetting to do something. Yet all he could see was the blood on his hands. He turned to the side and vomited. That proved too much for his tortured body. Almost mercifully he passed out, falling backward, the fine metalwork on the handle of the dagger shining brightly as it stood straight up, perpendicular to his chest. Just like a tombstone.
- Borg Research Center A875 34B9-001, 8:02 AM -
The engineering team had worked through the night, and finally had fruits to show for their efforts. The Hopolite's Chief Engineer, Cmdr Clay Heidberg stared down at the nearly completed job, his gray eyes nearly glowing with satisfaction. Of the entire team working to bring the ex Borg facility fully back online, only he knew what the facility's purpose had been when it was operational. But the other engineers on the Hopolite's staff were a pretty sharp bunch. They had nearly figured out the base's purpose all on there own, just by trying to put it back together. They would have been done a lot sooner if it hadn't been for that Asshole McBride making Lt. Cmdr. Vanguard bring the station's main systems online by himself. Granted, he was the only ex drone on the Hopolite, and as such most familiar with Borg technology. But even a single set of extra hands would have done the job in less than half the time it had taken the Second Officer working alone.
This station had taken a heck of a beating from something, Clay thought, and that something had to be either really powerful or highly exotic to do this to the Borg.
Surprisingly, the actual damage to the systems vital to the research project had been relatively light. It had taken considerably less time than originally projected to bring the station fully online and capable of initiating its primary purpose. 24th Fleet would be in for a surprise when it showed up in about 11 hours. They were expecting a dead station. What they were getting was one ready and rearing to go.
What had been a Borg control console had been ripped out and was laying off in a corner. An Imperial one was just being put in its place. It would simplify matters when it finally became time to activate the project. Four crewmen were manhandling the table-sized console into position when one of them let it slip. It fell down and smashed the toe of his boot with predictable results.
"Stop your wailing Higgins!" Heidberg ordered the squealing engineering officer. "If you weren't such a klutz, you would have nothing to cry about."
"Damn it Cmdr, but this things heavy!" Higgins whined. "Can't we use the anti grav hauler to position it?"
"If you had paid attention at the briefing instead of checking out the female engineers, you wouldn't ask such a dumb question." A few of the more attentive engineers chuckled and cast grins at each other. Clay sighed inside. "Remember, I said that AG fields would adversely affect the power distribution nodes in this room? And by adversely I mean that it would start a chain reaction in the station's power grid that would fry every EPS relay on the station! If you want to explain the cause of that little doozy to the captain, go ahead. Just be sure to let someone know what you want said at your eulogy."
Higgins had always been a troublemaker, picking fights with crewmen for no reason, slacking off when he thought he could get away with it. And if it wasn't for the fact that he was one of the best young engineers he had encountered in recent years, Clay would have sent him packing long ago. But that was only the official reason that Higgins was still on the Hopolite. Captain McBride had heard that he was a burr under many people's saddles. And since the Captain loved to play the crew against each other, he had made one Ensign Oliver Higgins his golden boy.
Clay could only shake his head. The sick little games that Captain McBride loved to play were just plain dumb. If he ever had to go into an actual battle with the Hopolite, he would be going in with a seriously flawed weapon. And it would be entirely his fault when it blew up in his face. Of course if that happened, it also blew up in the rest of the crew's face as well. Most of them knew this and tried to avoid the games the captain played and get along with each other as much as possible. Yet some, like Ensign Higgins, took every chance they could get away with to belittle and aggravate their fellow shipmates.
Despite being the Captains favorite, even Higgins knew that he would be skinned alive by him for frying the stations EPS system, so he clamed up and went back to helping move the bulky, heavy console into position. Once it was pretty much centered, another tech came up and made the connections from the console to the system, connecting leads and power cables to the appropriate jacks in the front of the console's base. As power was fed into it , the console blinked to life, its formerly featureless black surface giving way to pastel controls and readouts of a standard Imperial LCARS display. Clay looked at the telltales and grinned.
"Well it looks like you mangy excuses for engineers can do something right after all!" To a man, the team members grinned back. It was tough to get a compliment out of Cmdr. Heidberg, but when you did, it was as sincere as they came. Clay touched his combadge. "Heidberg to Hopolite. Tell the captain that we have the station at full readiness. We can initiate the experiment at any time."
"Understood Cmdr. Heidberg. Let us know when your team is ready to depart." A velvety female voice replied.
"Can do Hopolite. Heidberg out."