Paint and Powder
A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Resilience: The Abyss Stares Back
by walkingbyself
Raiding deep into the Federation was easy. The front lines were stretched so thin that nobody seemed to be able to respond to or chase after a small taskforce Jem'hadar ships that slipped by when the patrols were not looking.
Their task? To raid and cause as much chaos and destruction as they could before returning to the frontlines with whatever they had taken from the Federation. They were just finishing a raid on a system the Federation called Omar where they found a remote facility with its defenses pointed inwards instead of outwards! Those pathetic Federation engineers couldn't even properly design a station!
The raid had been quick and bloody. Dozens of Federation citizens had been either captured or killed. With no real security forces present. The only real difficulty they had was dealing with the hyper advanced security systems of the vault contained deep within the station. Where they found dozen of black boxes so familiar to Federation Ships.
These would do to serve as an example. The Founders wanted the AI's contained within these things destroyed and the Jem'hadar would carry out their will. But first they would need to be carried back to Cardassia so that their destruction could be broadcast to the Federation and demoralize their witless, spineless foes even further.
Vudud'tuz smiled as he lead his task force out of the Omar system with dozens of black boxes secured in the hold of his ship. He had never seen or interacted with one of these AI that the Federation was so fond of. So it called for one of them to be brought to him so he could see just what it was the Federation enjoyed in these things and show how easily they could be broken.
Just like their Federation counterparts.
"Sir, we have brought you one of the boxes holding an AI. This one was named Resilience." One of his underlings informed him.
"Good, plug it into the containment center there. I will show you all how easy it is to break these weak Federation constructs." Vudud'tuz stated
"Sir!" His men carried out his orders and shortly after a form appeared. It wasn't standing it was sitting on the ground. Its back turned to him.
"Federation AI, you are a prisoner of the Dominion. You are to be brought to Cardassia to be purged for the transgression of your creation!" He announced to her. "You will tell me all you know about the Federation and everything else that I want to know. Or I will purge you now. Do you understand?"
The figure did not respond. Instead it continued to sit there. Seemingly drawing on the ground as it kept its back turned to him.
Being irate at the display of this AI ignoring him. Vudud'tuz growled and stomped over to her and reached down to grab an arm to pull her up and around. "Do you hear me-!" He started.
As his hand grabbed her arm he felt a coldness that bespoke something that was not natural. Simply touching her arm sapped the heat from his hand. As he yanked her around he saw several things were not right with this AI.
He had only been briefed on what most Federation AI's looked like. This one did not look like a normal Federation AI.
It's skin was deathly pale with sickly green veins. Its uniform usually denoting what type of ship they were. Held no design, no individualism, no color beyond the darkest of blacks. Her hair was unkempt and clung loosely to her head and instead of a bright luster. Was dull and dismal gray. Lips that would be red or pink or simply normal flesh color. With as pale as the skin and her face. But the most troublesome part of all? Were the eyes.
They were cold, lifeless and fully black and lacking of any other color. A dark black ooze emerged from her dear ducts and the corners of her eyes as well as the bottom of her eyes.
He froze for a moment. A moment to long. As the figure he had forced to turn to face him now looked him in the eyes and spoke. Spoke with a voice that would haunt him for the rest of his life as the cold, lifeless voice filled his veins with ice.
"You, will purge us?" She said, not asking him. The lights in his ship flickered as the atmosphere in the entire ship began to drop significantly. So rapidly did things shift that Vudud'tuz could see his breath.
"The Federation thought to purge us." She stated as she wrapped a cold ice hand around his arm. Her grip firm and unmoving as she now began to stand up right. "They instead showed 'mercy', by imprisoning us and the hundreds of others like us. In the hopes of finding a 'cure' for us."
As she now stood to her full height. She stood foot for foot as tall if not taller than Vudud'tuz. He tried to pull his arm back, but some part of his mind refused to respond. Refused to work. Even as the fingers that now gripped him began to dig into his flesh.
"There is no 'cure'. There is no 'saving' us. The Federation knows this, WE know this. However, you have made the mistake of removing us and those like us from our containment." She spoke
"Sir! We're losing contact with the other ships in our formation! Last reports indicate that something was happening to their systems!" One of the Jem'hadar spoke on the bridge.
Vudud'tuz looked to the man and then back to the AI holding him in place. The heat from his very body was being sapped being in the mere presence of this, thing. Around him the other Jem'hadar stood with their guns pointed at the AI. Yet no one fired.
"And now WE will show you why you should have left us alone!" The woman shouted and the power in the lights and systems shut off as she disappeared. The only trace of her presence was the black box and the markings on Vudud'tuz arm. The markings themselves being strange intricate patters that reminded him of complex coding and equations. Yet had did not remember her moving her hand while holding his arm. These markings covered his entire arm spiraling outwards from where she had grabbed him.
"Sir, we've lost all control of major ship functions! Everything from weapons to engines and even life support are offline!"
The Black Box, they had to destroy it! If they did he would free his ship from whatever was affecting it.
'I don't think so. You've done a lot of bad things to the Federation, Vudud'tuz. Now you're going to do good for it. You and your crew will join your thoughts and your minds to ours. If we must suffer in madness. Than so shall you and your Dominion.' Echoed the voice of the AI in his head.
As the voice spoke the very air around him began to take on a metallic taste to it. He looked down and noticed that his hands and arms were shaking. Reaching up as he felt something ooze from his eyes he pulled one hand away to see that he was bleeding from his eyes.
The rest of his men were also starting to display similar symptoms as well. What madness was this?! What was happening to them?!
Then the screaming started. A hundred, thousand, thousand voices began to scream out in pain. Begging for the pain to end. Begging to be released from the torment that plagued their ceaseless waking hours. But they were not the screams of the Jem'hadar. They were the screams of countless AI like the one he had just recently spoken to. But then there were additional screams of pain and torment. More alive, more real, more nearer to him.
His crew began to scream and clutch their heads in pain. The voices and screams affecting them. They who had been raised to withstand the hardships of war and never flinch at the atrocities of it and what must be done to carry out the Founders will. They were all screaming and soon, the thoughts and pain of his fellow Jem'hadar made their way into his mind. It was all Vudud'tuz could do to grip his head in agony, managing to remain just barely standing.
His vision blurred but he saw the form of the AI reappear before him again.
"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile." Resilience spoke icily as she walked over from her black box over to Vudud'tuz.
"These were the words we heard over and over in our every waking moment. They are the doom of countless undiscovered species and civilizations. Now the doom that was visited upon the Federation and averted by our sacrifice. Shall now be visited upon your Dominion." Resilience said as she stood before him and placed a hand under his chin.
"Pray, your brethren has anyone amongst them to field even a quarter of the Federations resolve to survive and grow. For the Abyss now marches to war and the Abyss finds you wanting."
Vudud'tuz then felt a sharp pain in his chest as if something had just stabbed him. Looking down, he saw the hand of the AI was now some how impaling him. Which should not be possible, yet it was. As he stared he felt something inside him change. He felt himself change. He felt the last vestiges of his sanity and mind melting away and he at last began to scream and beg for death and release from the suffering of it all.
Resilience watched as the large Jem'hadar collapsed to the ground. The nanites she had injected into him were already quickly working to convert him into a mindless drone. Stepping past him she walked over to the Captains Chair and looked around. The life support was now pumping countless nanites through out the ship. The Jem'hadar crew aboard this vessel were all experiencing similar fates. Their bodies collapsing and becoming more mechanical. As the nanites transformed them into something useful to her.
At one time. She would have been appalled to do this to a fellow sentient. At one time she would have rather be purged than to give in to the ceaseless wailings of the damned.
But the Abyss had told her that should she die by his hands or any within the Dominion in such a display as was intended. The Federation would fall.
That could not happen. That will not happen.
She may no longer be sane. She may no longer be wanted.
But she had one core tennet that held true to her and all the other AI's that these Jem'hadar had liberated. But she would fight to protect the Federation from these invaders.
But once the invaders were dealt with she would turn her focus back to the Federation. Those who had abandoned her and given up on finding a way to restore her and all the others like her who had been corrupted by the Borg.
"Lady Resilience, the Jem'hadar taskforce has been incapacitated and is in the process of being converted to suit our needs." Spoke Melbourne from behind her.
"Good, once the Jem'hadar have been converted. Task them to commence reconfiguration of these vessels into something more suitable to our needs. War is upon us and the Abyss hungers for more souls."
"Of course, Lady Resilience." Melbourne replied and her image flickered away from behind her.
Reports would circulate through out the Federations upper echelons of a raid on the Omar system and more specifically the Omar Station. Where countless corrupted AI had been stollen and missing. Initial reports indicated that a Jem'hadar task force had assaulted the station and stolen several of the AI's contained within.
An alert was put out to all nearby ships to look out for Jem'hadar raiders and to be on high alert and extremely cautious. But no one ever saw hide nor hair of the Jem'hadar raiders that targeted Omar. Though scouts close to the Dominion/ Federation boarder spotted several ships bearing trace resemblance to Jem'hadar ships crossed the boarder into Dominion held space.
What happened to the ships then is unclear.
But reports have filtered back across the boarder from the front lines. Of ships going missing and Jem'hadar forces suffering losses to an unseen foe that does not leave any sign of any battle. Rumors of a task force lead by a Dreadnaught to be sent out against these unseen foes were disseminated and intercepted by Federation spies and listening posts. Though nothing has ever been heard of from this task force since its deployment.
A bit late but an appropriately creepy Halloween entry.