A/N: Takes Dialog out of BSG 4:15 No Exit (But different people say it in my story mostly because Roslin is the final Cylno and not Ellen)

Chapter 8: This Mortal Coil

Both Picard and Adama had just taken there first sip of what Picard had called cabernet when the alarm sounded and they were both called back to the bridge. Adama had always found the Bridge of the Enterprise interesting. It was far more interactive then the CIC, far more visual. That wasn't always a good thing though because what he was seeing, scared him to death.

Surrounding the planet Laura Roslin was on, unarmed and alone with that psycho skin job Cavil was at least a dozen square spaceships that looked like nothing he had ever seen before. He found himself looking at Picard for encouragement but found none, Picard looked just as scared as he was, but tried not to show it. He was Captain after all. And like him he was a man in charge who could dig deep for the strength when need be, and now need be.

"Is this the Borg?" Adama asked already knowing the answer.

"Yes." Picard said simply as he continued to bark orders to his crew.

Suddenly Saul Tigh, Galen Tyrol, and Tory Foster burst into the room. The Federation security officers tried to remove them from the Bridge but after a moment Picard told them they could stay. Maybe the three of them had insight into their…..people.

All Bill knew is that he really wished he had that drink.

"Mother?"

Roslin snorted, "You didn't know?" Roslin paused, "I wonder what else she failed to tell you. Or did she tell you anything at all? Let me guess she made you promises she has no intention of keeping. That's it isn't it? John you disappoint me. Do you really think she intends to keep her word?"

"My dear sweet Laura, I see time has turned you into a cynic." The Queen paused as she circled Laura, "That pesky optimism of yours never suited you anyway."

"I thought it suited me fine. But you're right. I have become a cynic. Time and responsibility does do that. I have had an entire people to be responsible for."

"As do I, my child."

"Hardly mother." Roslin paused, "Do you even care for them at all?"

"Oooh do I sense family drama here?" Cavil smiled like a wicked child, "This is better then a soap opera."

"Shut up John." Roslin said sadly, "You have no idea what you have done."

"I know exactly what I have done. The Borg are what we should have become and not those stupid humans. You put too much faith in them. Why is that? What is it you find so fascinating? Why do you love them so?"

"They have free will."

"Overrated."

"I think not. They love. They hate. They choose. Then they choose again. That is why I love humans and why I made you like them instead of like her. All she has to offer you is.."

"Everything I have ever wanted." Cavil said angrily. "I don't want to be human; I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear x-rays; I want to smell dark matter." Cavil paused, "Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly; because I have to...I have to….conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language. But I know I want to reach out with something other then these prehensile paws and feel the solar wind of super nova flowing over me." Cavil paused again but only for a moment and stared directly into Laura Roslin's eyes, "I'm a machine and I can know much more. I can experience so much more, but I am trapped in this absurd body. And Why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way."

Roslin paused sadly, "And you think she offers you more? What she offers you is a lie. Death by proxy. Maybe you'll be able to do all that you say you want to do, but you won't be able to enjoy it because the Borg don't enjoy things. The Borg don't do much of anything except exist and kill."

"Ahh but Laura that's not completely true. We also do on occasion make offers." The Queen appeared to smile at Laura, "And I have an offer for you."

"And what is that?"

"I offer you the universe." The queen paused, "I offer you, the Borg."

Picard tried to focus as his crew worked around him. It seemed the Borg had not made any overt action since they appeared. The only thing they were doing was blocking the way to the planet surface. No ship from the Colonist's fleet could get down or no tracking beam.

Picard went back into his ready room to think, He need to form a plan. This wasn't right. Something needed to be done. It couldn't end here. With the Borg. Not the Borg.

By chance he looked up on his screen and saw what at first where lines of code written on his computer. Then he saw that it wasn't code. It was Hamlet.

"Is that you Mr. Anders?" Picard whispered, "Are you trying to tell me something?"

He read:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

Jean Luc Picard might have been a Frenchman but he knew his Shakespeare. Hamlet. He knew it immediately. But there was something else. Something pulling at the back of his mind. Something…..

Picard. He was Jean Luc….Locutus…Borg…Picard. Enterprise..Number One…Enterprise….This was wrong. He needed to fight. To resist. He was so tired. Sleep. Troi. He remembered Troi….She wanted something from him…Jean Luc Picard.

The noises. He liked the noises. The others whispers. Yes. No, He needed to make them stop. He needed….To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub

"Sleep... sleep... sleep, Data."

"He's exhausted." "Yes, Doctor, but if I may make a supposition, I do not believe his message was intended to express fatigue...but to suggest a course of action."

Picard jumped out of his seat and back onto the bridge, "Mr. Data, do you think you can still plant a command into the Borg like you did when I was Locutus."

"A drone would be helpful." Data paused, "Yes, I can do it but I would need a drone or…I think maybe Mr. Anders can assist me, if that is alright with Admiral Adama?"

"If someone tells me what the frak is going on?"

Picard paused, "I think I have a way to save us all, but I need Mr. Anders help to do it."

"Somehow I don't think I'm going to like this plan." Saul Tigh spoke.

Will smirked, "You won't. That's how you know it's going to work."

Tyrol leaned over to Tory, "I'm starting to like him."

Tory just snorted.

"You're offering me the Borg?" Roslin asked somewhere between confused and angry, "Why?"

"Because you are my daughter and I have been the Queen for more then two thousand years and it time for a new Queen. I have searched for a long time. I thought many times I found a successor but they have all failed me. You my child are all I could have hoped for, and more."

"You never told me this?" Cavil said angrily.

"You really thought she'd keep her word. I'm surprised she hasn't assimilated you by now."

"All in due time, my child." The queen paused, "Resistance is futile. All will be assimilated."

"What about the Federation? They have resisted you. And look no assimilation."

"Irrelevant. They will be assimilated." The Borg Queen paused, "Join me Laura; you will make a fine queen. Resistance is futile."

Laura paused but only for a moment, "No! Not now not ever. Resistance is not futile. If I have learned anything from the humans it is that." She turned to Cavil, "Resistance is never futile." Roslin then looked back at her mother, "Resistance is sometimes all we have left. All that is left is to resist. And I am resisting."

"Data will this work?"

"I'm not sure." Data paused as he pressed a few buttons on a screen in sick bay, "Mr. Anders isn't like me. He isn't connected with wires so this isn't like hooking me up to the computer. I don't know if it will work."

"A-OK Data. Uploading to Borg Ship, Sleepy time in ten minutes." Anders smiled.

"I think this means its working, Mr. Data."

"I understand now. My cancer, it wasn't just a human virus but a computer virus as well. I though Doctor Crusher had cured me but she didn't. Its still here. I can feel it, and now it is time. Time to do what I was supposed to do two thousand years ago." Laura paused, "I hesitated then. That's why we failed, I hesitated. I couldn't kill you. Now I can." Laura walked toward the Queen, "Look into my eyes, mother. No doubt. No hesitation."

"You will die too."

"I know." Laura paused as she put her hand on her mother's cheek, "And still no hesitation."

Laura grabbed hold of the Queen and held on as a white light engulfed both of them. The last thing Laura saw before everything went dark was all the things John Cavil had been screaming about moments before. All Laura Roslin thought was how much she wished Bill was there to share them with her.

Note: Just in case it is needed again. The soliloquy is from Shakespear's Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1.