"Belay previous orders!" I said as soon as the bridge reappeared. "Get us out of here!"
It was a credit to the crew serving under me that, despite their looks of confusion, there was no hesitation in carrying out the strange order. I guessed by those looks, however, that they did not even know I had been gone.
"Aye, Cap'n," Tex said, though by the time he said it we were already turning back around and exiting the inside of the sphere. We were rocked by several blasts as we exited, and I had to struggle to my chair.
"Damage report," I said.
"Primary shields down to seventy-two percent," Spock said. I tapped my communicator.
"Allen to Weston."
"Weston here, sir."
"Report," I said.
"We tried to beam them out, but they have some kind of personal transport inhibitors. We've dispatched about half of them, and haven't lost anyone yet," she replied. I thought I could hear a bit of pride in that voice. Just as well, I mused. Hell, I was proud of her.
"Good work, Commander. Keep it up, then get back up here as quickly as you can. We need everyone we can get."
"Aye, sir," she said. I tapped my communicator again.
"Allen to Engineering. Demansky, please tell me something good."
"All right," he replied, sounding flustered. "I've got the ventral shielding back up, but I suggest you don't try taking many hits down there for a while. They're only holding on at thirty percent."
"That'll have to be good enough," I replied. "Helm, take us back to rejoin Martok's fleet."
"Aye, Cap'n."
"Captain," Spock said, "might I inquire as to why we turned around?" Before he had even finished his sentence, we were hit again. It was a grazing hit, but the bridge shook beneath us nonetheless.
"I'll have to explain it later," I said.
"Understood," Spock replied, returning his gaze to his console.
"Sir," Johnstone said, "We're being hailed by one of the Romulan ships."
"On screen," I said. The screen lit up with the interior of a Romulan warbird, and I saw the face of Praetor Donatra.
"Captain," she said, "I'm glad to see you're still alive.
"Not as glad as I am," I said.
"No doubt. Our sensors indicate that we have very little time to destroy the sphere, yet you seem to be moving away from it."
"Yeah," I said. "You're just going to have to trust me about that. Concentrate your fire on the outside only; for the moment, it's the only thing that we can do."
"If you say so, Captain. I hope this isn't a mistake." Her face disappeared from the screen.
"I hope so, too," I muttered.
"Captain," Johnstone said, "there's another Federation starship joining us.
"TheEnterprise," I said, already knowing. "Hail them." I saw Picard, his face not looking any better than it had a few minutes ago.
"Any good ideas, Mike?" he asked. I rubbed a hand over my face and felt stubble. How long had it been since I'd shaved? Or taken a shower, for that matter…
"I think we'd better find the Queen," I said. Something tells me we're not going to get anywhere unless we get to her first."
"Agreed," Picard said. "Form an assault team, and I'll do the same. We'll find a hole in their shields – or make one – and beam aboard."
"Understood. Give me five minutes," I said, and cut the transmission. If the whole bridge crew had gasped, it would have been no more awkward. I turned around, looking at all of them. This was not going to be an easy decision.
"Are you really goin' in there, Cap'n?" Tex asked, his face white.
"I am," I said. "This mission is going to be extremely dangerous. I'm not going to order anyone to come with me, but…" before I could finish, people were already stepping forward. Spock, Tex, Johnstone, and Julie stood in front of me at attention. I looked at them with pride, feeling the tears welling up. There was one person missing…
"I see," I said, smiling to hide the bleary eyes. I looked briefly at Julie, wanting to tell her not to come. But I knew that this was part of the job, and my feelings for her could have nothing to do with it. At that moment, the doors to the bridge opened, and Weston entered. She looked like someone had beaten the royal shit out of her; her uniform was torn and her face bleeding. But she had a malevolent grin on her face that told me there had been a fantastic victory in the lower decks of this vessel.
"No casualties?" I asked. Weston nodded. I reached forward and shook her hand. It was uncharacteristic and informal, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
"What are my orders?" she asked, almost cheerily.
"I need you to babysit again," I said. "Picard and I are leading teams into the sphere to try to find the Queen."
"Sir," she said, "according to regulation, I should be the one to go." I laughed.
"Don't you know by now that nobody ever listens to that order?" I said. "Besides, there's something I know that you don't, and I don't have time to explain it. Please, just do as good a job with the ship as you did with those drones."
"Aye, sir," she said, and that was that. It struck me that for once, I was much less worried about leaving my ship. I knew that it would be in good hands. It was a very good feeling, in a time when good feelings were hard to come by.
"Hail the Enterprise," I said. Picard's face reappeared. "We're ready," I told him.
"Good. We're detecting a collapse in shields in sector zero-zero-four. Be ready to beam out in the next three minutes.
"Understood," I said. "Allen out." I cut the transmission, and silently, we all quickly filed into the turbolift, headed for the transporter room."
I noticed two frightening things as we materialized aboard the sphere. One was that there were a lot of drones in our immediate vicinity. The other was that they were already moving toward us.
"I guess we're a threat," I said, and fired my phaser at the nearest one. He – it – fell, spasming as it went down. I could see Picard's team a little further down the corridor. The only person I knew from the team besides Picard was Geordi LaForge. He was firing with pinpoint accuracy at several drones near them. Two went down, and the third adapted. The team quickly turned and headed for us. I looked both ways, and saw that one direction seemed less populated than the other. Picard's team joined us, and we began to sprint in the direction of relative safety.
"How are we going to know where to go?" I asked. Picard looked at me midstride, a smile creeping to his face.
"I can hear them," he said. A thought popped into my mind, one that seemed to intone that a circle had just been completed. We were now going to use the worst thing that the Borg had done to Picard to destroy them forever. At least, I hoped that was what was going to happen.
For several minutes, we ran like hell. I had hoped for a straight line, but Picard had us turning left and right so many times, partly to avoid thick groups of drones, and partly to get us where we needed to be.
"How much further," Tex panted beside me. I could tell that he still wasn't fully recovered from the injuries he'd suffered, and running was not easy for him. It wasn't exactly easy for me.
"We have about three kilometers to go," Picard said. At first I groaned inwardly, but then I realized that, comparitively, it wasn't really all that far. The sphere had to be the size of a small planet, and we just had to navigate one cube of it. And how Picard had known which cube to go to (since they were all separated by now) was amazing to me. In fact, it seemed odd that the cube that she was on would be the one we were able to beam onto. It was almost as if some unseen force had played a bit part in all of this. Q, I thought, trying to smile while panting for breath.
Three kilometers was no easy feat – it felt like ten. LaForge had been messing with a tricorder as we ran, and each time he did, we were able to get a few more shots off before the Borg drones adapted. Several times, it saved our skin.
It struck me that there seemed to be no doors on this ship. But, once I thought about it, it made perfect sense. The Borg had no need for privacy, so why have doors? It was comic thoughts like these that allowed me to ignore my protesting legs and lungs as we ran. Several times, I turned my head to check on the rest of my team. Everyone was keeping up, but Spock and Tex lagged toward the back, panting harder than the rest. At one point, we simply had to stop for a minute so that they wouldn't be lost behind us. Tex seemed ashamed, but Spock held his stoic pride. He was, after all, not a young man, even by Vulcan standards.
When we finally reached the outside of the Queen's chamber, we had to halt. Eight drones, who had been standing guard outside the chamber, immediately began walking toward us.
"Hold your fire," I said, and everyone looked at me in astonishment.
"What is it?" Picard asked. The drones were only thirty feet away; they would be upon us in mere moments.
"They're going to adapt before we can take them all out," I said. "So everyone needs to aim at a different drone, and we need to all fire at the same time." Picard's face lit up with a surprise that turned to hilarity.
"Excellent idea," he said. Thank you multiplayer video games! I thought. We stood in a line, each of us aiming at a different drone.
"Fire," I said, and the eight drones went over like bowling pins. Without a word, we rushed to and over them, and into the chamber.
There were several drones in the chamber, already moving toward us. We tried to repeat the move we'd pulled on the others, but only four drones went down. There were still three of them coming toward us. Geordi was looking down at his tricorder, his fingers moving furiously. But it was not fast enough. The first of the drones reached us, and in an instant, a hand shot out and grabbed it by the neck. It was Spock's hand. He gripped the drone's throat so hard that it let out an audible popping sound as the windpipe was crushed. When he released the drone and it fell to the floor, there were imprints of his fingers. In a second, he was in front of us, dispatching the other three. He snapped the necks of the first two with quick, violent twisting motions. He shoved his palm into the third one's face, driving its nose deep into its brain. It went down as quickly as the others, twitching electrically as it did. I felt nauseous watching this, but it gave me a burst of positive adrenaline as well.
The drones were out of commission, but I knew that we'd have to hurry with what we needed to do, because more were undoubtedly on their way. It was imperative that we find the Queen, and decide what needed to be done about her as quickly as possible. We didn't have to wait long to see where we needed to go. The figure of the Queen slinked out from the darkness, and stood before us. Beside her, also appearing out of the darkness, were two other figures.
One was Prefect Valeris.
The other was Admiral Heaton.
