There were only six people on the bridge. I suppose I should have been happy about that, but I wasn't. They outnumbered us two-to-one. However, we did have the advantage in that we were readily armed. None of the wide-eyed officers looking at us seemed to be near a phaser.
"Everyone back away slowly from their stations," I said. "Hands up."
Captain Harker stood and peered down the end of my phaser. He was in his mid-thirties, I guessed, with close-cut black hair and the faint hint of a beard. His eyes blazed at me, conveying the message that he had no intention of doing whatever it was I was going to ask him to do.
"Computer," he said, "lock out…"
It was all he got out before I shot him. He fell to the deck, dead as the admiral that had commanded him. This got the attention of the remaining five officers. Clearly, they had not anticipated lethal force. They raised their hands higher, and moved a step further away from their panels.
"Computer," I said, continuing for the fallen traitor, "accept emergency command transfer, Captain Michael Allen."
"Command transfer completed," the computer chimed.
"Re-route all command functions to the bridge, and lock out the main computer except to bridge terminals. And seal off the bridge."
The computer chimed again, indicating these things had been done. I turned to the remaining bridge crew.
"What is your mission?" I asked. I didn't expect them to tell me the truth, but I didn't want to kill them for no reason, either. I was surprised at the answer I got.
"Our mission is to survive the Borg conquest, and rebuild humanity," a young officer said. His companions gave him sharp looks, but I smiled at him.
"Thank you," I said. "Is the entire crew aware of this mission?"
"Yes," the young man answered. "We've known for about two months. That's why we've been on radio silence."
"I see," I said, frowning. He had given me the information I needed to know. The entire crew compliment of this vessel – thousands of people – had been in on the plot with Heaton. Maybe some of them weren't in on it willingly, but enough of them must have been, since there had been no mutiny. "I want all of you to go into the Ready Room," I said. They looked frightened as they went, and when their backs were turned to me, I set my phaser to stun. Let them think I was going to kill them, I mused. Once they were inside, I stunned all five of them, one at a time. They slumped over each other on the floor. If the ship survived, then perhaps so would they. At this point, I didn't much care what happened to them. I returned to the bridge, and my three companions had each taken stations.
"Our orders, Captain?" Julie said. I looked at her face, scuffed and battle-weary, but lovely nonetheless.
"We need to find out where we're at, exactly," I said. Geordi looked down at his tactical screen.
"According to this, Captain, we're in the center of the sphere, about twelve hundred kilometers from the superstructure."
"On screen," I said. He tapped a button, and the image of the sphere popped into view. We were very close to the cubes, which by now had grown very far apart from one another. From where we sat, I could see Earth very near the sphere; it had almost expanded enough to engulf the planet on the closest end. In the center of the sphere, glowing brighter than ever, was the superstructure that we needed to destroy. I noticed, as we flew past cube after cube, that none of them was firing at us. That was good. The Queen was obviously too busy fighting with Q to give any orders right now, and the Borg had that nasty habit of only attacking something they felt was a threat. Thus the superstructure was ours for the taking, it seemed. As we drew nearer to it, I could finally see the its actual form behind the glow. It appeared to be nothing more aesthetic than a gigantic suspended column, having that same patchwork metal quality that all materials made by the Borg had. I remembered the Queen's tale, and immediately I connected the dots. This pillar, which had been the birth of the Borg, would now represent the sword of its final conquest over everything in every universe. It was the final point of convergence for every quantum reality that had ever and would ever exist.
We had to destroy it.
"Does it have any shielding around it?" I asked. Geordi looked down for a moment, then back up at me. His crystal-blue mechanical eyes held disappointment, and I knew I wasn't going to like the answer.
"Like nothing I've ever seen," he said.
I refused to accept the answer at first. I looked at him, then at the structure, then back at him.
"That's it?" I said. "Isn't there some way to penetrate them?" Geordi shook his head.
"Not anything I can tell," he replied. There was a thick silence, then Tex spoke up.
"What if we ram it? The way we tried to earlier?" he asked.
"Maybe," Geordi said, tapping at the console. "But I don't think so."
"You're telling me that thing will sustain a warp core breach?" I asked, astounded.
"I think it would. What's worse, we're too close to Earth to do that. If the breach penetrated the shields on the superstructure, then maybe it would absorb enough of the impact and keep from damaging the planet. But if they don't…" he trailed off.
"What?" I asked.
"Well, we'll do more damage to the planet than they have," he said.
Fine. So that was out. Now what?
"Cap'n!" Tex half said – half shouted. I looked up, and immediately saw his cause for concern. Six Scimitar-class vessels had just decloaked on the far side of the sphere, and were headed our way. The Bek'Tal had finally decided to join the fight.
"They're powering up weapons," Julie said.
"Shields!" I said. "Mr. Newman, get us as close to that thing as possible. If we can dodge a few of their shots and weaken the shields on the superstructure at the same time, let's do it."
"Aye, Cap'n," Tex said, his voice now quieter, but thick with tension. On the screen, I could see that we were veering to port, headed for the giant glowing pillar.
The first volley hit us, but not hard. This ship was, after all, a floating city, and it would take a significant beating before having any real problems.
"Return fire!" I said. "Phasers and quantum torpedoes!"
TheByzantium released a volley of torpedoes at the approaching ships, which danced across the lancing beams of phaser fire at their targets. Several of them hit the mark. The rest either veered off into space, or were fortunate enough to hit one of the cubes that had pock-marked this region of space.
"Be careful to keep our course from putting us between them and Earth," I said. I didn't want my plan to backfire on me.
"Aye, Cap'n," Tex said distractedly. He was concentrating on avoiding the next few shots from the Bek'Tal.
We were hit again, and this time the bridge shook a little. But some of the shots went wild, missing us and raking the shields of the superstructure. I was happy for that, but not so happy about being hit.
"Damage report!" I said.
"Ventral shields down to ninety-six percent and holding, Captain," Geordi said with some satisfaction. "She's a beast, all right."
"Yeah, well let's hope that's enough against six of them."
Somewhere on the bridge, I heard a chirp.
"We're being hailed, Captain," Julie said. I looked at her.
"On screen," I said, bewildered.
Weston's face appeared.
"Captain," she said, "I've signaled the fleets on both sides. Hold on, because we're coming in to help out."
Once again, the surge of pride filled me, threatening to bring tears to my eyes.
"Excellent work, Commander. Remind me to recommend your promotion when this is over."
"Thanks, Captain. I look forward to that. Weston out."
She disappeared from the screen, and once again I could see the six ships charging us.
"The fleets are moving in," Julie said, then looked up at me. "There are four hundred and thirty-two ships coming into firing range. I smiled.
"We just might win this one yet," I said hopefully, praying that I wasn't somehow jinxing the whole thing by saying it.
It was a tremendous thing to watch. In less than thirty seconds, every single Reman ship was blasted into oblivion by far more firepower than would have been necessary under any condition. The fleets stood between the Bek'Tal and Earth, so the blossoming shockwaves of their individual explosions were absorbed by the combined shielding of every starship. In that moment, I knew that we were somehow unbeatable. That unlike the Borg, there was far more to us than simple technology. There was a resilience to us that permeated our frail structures.
As if in response to this small victory, however, things began turning sour again almost immediately.
The first unfortunate thing that happened was that the glow around the pillar grew stronger, so strong I had to turn away from it while the screen adjusted for the intensity.
"What's happening to it?" I asked, squinting as I looked forward again.
"The Omega field is gaining intensity," Geordi said, panick in his voice. "I think we're looking at about eight minutes, Captain."
The second unfortunate thing that happened was that the cubes – all of them – began firing at us.
No mental calculation was required to let me know that four hundred and thirty-two medium-sized ships and one giant ship were still no match for several thousand larger ships. Besides, it was too late in the game to start mentally calculating things, anyway.
"Hard to port!" I yelled, feeling the slight pitch of the bridge as we swung about. "Keep us in orbit of that thing, and keep firing at it! At the first sign of those shields collapsing, prepare to launch everything we have at it, and ram the bastard if we need to!"
No one said anything, not even an "aye, Captain". That was because they didn't need to. We had entered the maelstrom, and like the winds of hell the fury of the Borg now lashed at us. We were hit, over and over, and each time I thought it would be the final one.
But our shields were holding, miraculously. I had just enough time to contemplate that if the Borg cubes were firing at us now, it might mean that Q had lost his struggle to the Queen. No, I wouldn't allow myself to believe that. Not yet. Perhaps she merely had gained a foothold. I was in the middle of hoping that Picard and the others were all right, when I was uprooted from my chair and thrown across the room. I slammed into the far wall, feeling the wind rush out of me as I slumped to the floor. Unconsciousness threatened to take me, but I fought it, choosing instead to focus my attention on the simple tasks of getting back up, and breathing.
"What the hell was that?" I asked in a wheeze, as soon as I was able to say anything at all.
"Collision with another ship," came Geordi's reply. That made sense; the quarters were too close in here, and our ships were too many. Our one tactical advantage had just worked against us. I didn't want to ask the question, but I had no choice.
"Damage?" I said. Geordi looked up at me with concern.
"It's bad, Captain. We've lost a quarter of the primary hull, with hull breaches on decks six through twenty. Forcefields are in place, but our forward shielding is gone."
"Can you get it back up?" I asked. Geordi shook his head sadly.
I looked at the viewscreen for a long moment. One by one, the ships that comprised our joined fleets were being incinerated by the Borg weapons. It was only a matter of time before we would join them. The dreadful silence of space was lit with a fireworks show that ought to have been heard across entire systems, but wasn't. Somehow it seemed wrong that all of those fine people should die without the benefit of being able to send one last curse of hatred all the way to the ears of their murderers.
In that heartbeat, I knew what I had to do. It wasn't a burst of inspiration; there was no proverbial turning on of the light bulb. Rather, something that had always nestled itself in the heroic part of my imagination, simply awaiting the day it would activate, did.
"Hail the Ascension," I said.
"Channel open," Julie said.
"Commander Weston, what is your status?"
"Not bad so far, Captain. We've got thirty percent damage to our shields, but they're holding. Casualties are…"
"That will do, Commander," I said. "You will find that there are four of us on the bridge of the Byzantium."
"Aye, sir. We're picking you up."
"Good. Beam the other three out." I reached down and terminated the transmission.
"What?!" the three of them said in tandem, staring at me.
I looked at Julie for what I knew would be the last time. The tears came again, and this time I let them.
"I'm sorry, Julie," I said.
She tried to protest, but was swept away in the transporter beam with the other two.
I immediately turned back to the viewscreen. "Computer," I said, "tie all remaining functions into the helm, and open a channel to the fleet." There was an audible chirp, indicating that I had been piped in.
"This is Captain Michael Allen, piloting the Byzantium. I'm taking this ship into the superstructure. Maneuver your fleets to intercept the shockwave; try to give Earth as much protection as possible." I didn't wait for any replies, but as I cut the transmission, I could see the ships veering off and heading toward Earth. At that moment, the ship was rocked again, this time by several blasts. The red alert klaxon, which had not stopped since I had been on this ship, seemed to grow louder.
"Warning," the computer said, "hull breaches on decks twenty-eight through thirty. Warp core breach in progress."
"Just hold out long enough for one last run, baby," I said, patting the controls. I set the ship for full impulse, aiming at the white-hot superstructure. It would only take seconds for me to get there; I hoped the warp core would last that long. For that matter, how long did we have left before the device went off? I wasn't sure, but I hoped it was more than a few seconds.
They say that your life flashes before your eyes right before you die. Mine didn't, but I think that was for the best. If it had, I think I might have reconsidered what I was doing, and tried to leave with the excuse of "having too much to live for". Instead, I was merely filled with a peaceful sense of accomplishing my duty. My thoughts didn't even travel so far as to think that it would all soon be over. They just took a backseat and let my fingers do the thinking for them.
The few seconds passed, and I was suddenly face to face with the dazzlingly bright harbinger of my doom. If there is such a thing as becoming one with an object, I surely did so at that moment with the ship I was on. I could almost feel the initial struggle of the tritanium hull against the crackling shields, then the scream of metal against metal as the shields gave out, ship and pillar interlocking in a deadly embrace. I could see the hulking slab approaching me, and as it did, the light around it disappeared to a mere pinprick that was barely visible.
But then I realized that I had been too late, after all. Because that pinprick suddenly exploded outward, spraying the cosmos with a ripple of energy so pure that it seemed made of perfection.
And then everything went white.
