Sorry for the lack of Borg-babies in drawers... Actually, I'm not. Not one bit.
Chapter 7: Immature
First of all: beaming. That was weird. Weirder than the Asgard beaming technology. Like being picked apart with tweezers and then put back together in a different place entirely. Jack wouldn't have liked to do that again, but he would have liked to stay here even less.
Second: Jack had never been so happy to see his gun again. Okay, maybe that was a lie. But he couldn't think time he'd been more happy than now, so that still stood. Unfortunately he had to be standing in this place with it. The hallways were dark and felt dank, even though it was impossible that anything was actually dripping down the walls. It still felt that way. He was glad that Daniel had elected to stay on the Enterprise, or he might have had to force him to stay.
Jack crept along the edge of the hallway, next to Riker. He still wrestled with the fact that he was simply no longer in charge, not even of his own team. That was Commander Riker's job, now, and Jack just had to put up with it, or shut up. The latter was never an option for Jack, so he decided that he would tolerate it.
The inside of the ship, Jack noticed after looking at it seriously, was as ugly as the outside. Ugly black and green, wires, pipes, floor plates that were clearly only meant for walking on—nothing worth looking at. Riker paused a moment and then motioned to Worf and Data.
Apparently, war-time hand-motions had changed a little bit in the past few hundred years. Jack motioned to his own team, and they all nodded as Jack went ahead of Riker into the next room. Teal'c flanked him as Sam covered them.
"Colonel O'Neill!" Riker objected.
"Jack's fine," Jack answered, and stood his full height to get a good look around. "Would you look at that."
Sam entered the room and let her guard down a little as she examined their surroundings. It was… weird, Jack decided. A bunch of Borg lined the walls in little individual rounds in the walls, flashing green lights in circles behind their heads. They stared, unseeing, at the space before them and made no indication that they would move anytime soon.
Riker came into the room behind them, still tense. "I wonder why they don't react to us," he said. Jack shrugged and loosed up on his gun, even though he never took one hand off of it. "And why the Enterprise didn't read any life signs with so many of them."
"There are a lot of them, aren't they?" Jack pondered, looking down the hallway and then craning his neck upward. He could see up through the floor above them, showing that, at least directly above them, more Borg stood in more slots.
"They're in some kind of stasis," Sam guessed, waving her hand in front of one's face.
"Major Carter," Riker asked, his tone a slight pleading about it.
Jack laughed. "Lighten up, Commander. These things aren't going anywhere." He poked the Borg in the belly with the muzzle of his gun.
"Colonel O'Neill!" Riker said, his tone low and threatening. "You will follow orders as long as you are on my away team."
Jack wandered over to stand behind Riker. "Yes, sir," he agreed.
"Good," Commander Riker said with a nod, and took another step down the hallway in no particular direction. Before the rest of them could move to follow him, a Borg separated himself from his slot and walked down the hallway, ignoring them completely. Riker looked at his team. "Either they don't see us, or they don't see us as a threat." Another Borg walked past them and put himself into an empty space some distance down the hall away from them.
"Probably the latter," Jack offered. Worf seemed offended at that.
Data walked over to the now-empty slot and inspected it, being careful not to touch it. "Commander, I theorize that the Borg are somehow interconnected through these slots and are somehow acting collectively."
"I think you're right. That must be where the connection is made," Sam offered, pointing at a hole in the aperture. "Each slot must be designed for a specific Borg, too, or that one might have come to stand in here instead." Riker raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged. "It would be more efficient."
"I agree with the major," Data said.
"Well, glad we all agree," Jack said with a nod.
Riker glared at Jack for a moment and then said, "Let's go look for a way to access their main computer."
"If they have one," Sam pointed out. "We already established that nothing is centralized. And why should it be? Each of them has access to and… essentially, these are the ship," Sam said, gesturing toward a Borg. "This ship literally thinks what it wants and then does it."
Riker paused a moment and then looked at Data. "Suggestions?"
"Exploring is always good," Jack said quietly with a nod, pointing toward a hallway that branched off from the one they were in.
Riker looked down the hallway Jack had indicated and then held his hand out toward it. "After you, then. Jack."
Jack gave him a mock-bow as he headed off toward the hallway. Sam was right behind him. Jack didn't really know what he was seeing even after Sam choked on a gasp, gurgling, "Oh my god, Jack…!" Jack spun around in the room, trying to figure it out and, when he did, he felt sick.
The honey-combed room was lined with tanks of green liquid, infants and children floating impassively inside with wires and other mechanical implants affixed to their skin.
"Borg… children?" Riker guessed.
"No," Data said. "These beings do not match the species of either of the Borg that we saw on the Enterprise. I do believe… the Borg appear to take members of other sentient species and add them to their number." Data walked to one of the windows and peered inside, touching the glass that separated the children from the outside world. "This particular one does not match any species on record. Neither does this one. This one is the same as that one, but this…"
"Thank you, Data," Riker said quietly.
Data turned around and informed them stoically, "I believe these chambers are artificially accelerating their growth." Then he looked up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Riker. "I also believe the ship is regenerating."
"That explains why they haven't taken notice of us," Riker said. "They're too busy fixing their ship."
"Judging by the number of worker bees working on it," Jack said, "they'll be done soon."
Riker nodded and tapped the comm-link on his shirt. "Enterprise, six to beam up."
Jack tried to brace himself in time, but that didn't happen. He stumbled on his own feet, somewhat surprised they were still there, when he appeared on the transporter pad. Riker, Worf, Data, and Teal'c left immediately, apparently not concerned with the fact that their molecules had just been stripped apart and put back together. A little like wormhole-travel, actually, Jack thought, and looked at Sam to share the information.
But she didn't look like she was interested in hearing anything of the sort at the moment. She blinked at the tears gathering to her eyes, one of which had already spilled over sometime previous to transport.
"Sam…" he said quietly, walking toward her. When he noticed the transporter chief start to come over to make sure she was alright, Jack waved him away. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Sam?"
"Those kids, Jack," she whimpered.
"I know…" Jack sighed. He had tried not to think too hard about it. But, he guessed, that wasn't fair to anyone. Those alien children probably deserved a little thought. Even the smallest one.
"Couldn't we have…?" She then stopped, probably because she knew that there was nothing they could have done for them. She looked away and wept quietly.
Jack sighed and pulled her closer to him. "It's okay," he whispered into her hair when she wrapped her arms around him. But he knew it really wasn't okay, so he just let her cry.