Gods and Monsters

Source Episodes: DS9 5x15 By Inferno's Light, VOY 3x17 Unity

"The Dominion recognizes us for what we are—the true leaders of the Alpha Quadrant. And now that we are joined together, equal partners in all endeavors, the only people with anything to fear will be our enemies. My oldest son's birthday is in five days. To him and to Cardassians everywhere, I make the following pledge. By the time his birthday dawns, there will not be a single Klingon alive inside Cardassian territory or a single Maquis colony left within our borders. Cardassia will be made whole."

Our entire cell stared at the viewscreen in wide-eyed horror as Gul Dukat announced that the Cardassian Union had become a part of the Dominion—the largest power in the Gamma Quadrant. Beside me, Chakotay grabbed my hand, drawing my attention to him. "The locusts have come."

The next thing I knew, I was on Valo I, alone, walking slowly through the burned-out shelters in what once was the largest Bajoran refugee camp. I could smell the smoke of bombs mingled with the stench of rotting flesh. All around me, Bajoran men, women, and children lay where they had fallen, ruthlessly cut down by the Dominion. I chanted for them over and over again in the tongue of our mothers, for my voice was the only one left to lift their souls up to the Celestial Temple.

My feet were bare, yet the shrapnel and the rocks didn't cut them. The hem of my ranjen'i robe brushed the tops of my feet, heavy with the mud and the blood that was still slick on the ground.

As I reached the top of the hill, I looked over the scene in the valley below—ten thousand Dominion-bred Jem'Hadar soldiers with skin of blue-white scales were systematically moving through the camp, vaporizing remains. Just then, I realized that the bodies were no longer just Bajoran. There were Maquis, Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Cardassian troops among the dead. Their bodies stretched farther than I could see.

Just as I was about to turn back, one of the soldiers stopped what he was doing, looked to the sky, and shouted a warning. Within seconds, a whole fleet of Borg cubes came into view through the clouds. Countless drones beamed to the surface and swept through the camp, assimilating the Jem'Hadar.

Then I was standing in the middle of a city on Cardassia Prime, watching the same Borg fleet take the planet. I was apart from the fray somehow, yet I could hear the screams of the people being killed or assimilated.

I could also hear the Borg hive mind—billions of voices speaking as one. "Cardassia has fallen. The Federation will attempt to resist. They will fortify Bajor and Deep Space Nine. They will fail. They will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

No. This couldn't be happening. I had to stop it. I had to save Bajor. I had to save the Temple... and Deep Space Nine.

I had to get back to Voyager.

I pulled my knife from the the belt of my command-red Bajoran Militia uniform. My boots pounded on the pavement as I ran towards a burned-out hangar. Somehow, I made it inside, but just as I reached the shuttle's airlock, a drone stepped out. I stopped short, a strangled cry escaping my lips.

The drone was Marnah.

When she spoke, it wasn't with the voice of the hive, and neither did she speak like herself. She was something else entirely.

"The hive descends. Bajor now stands alone against a swarm of locusts, and her eyes remain on them. But, in the north, the hive has awakened a beast, and the beast will scatter the hive. The hive descends upon the locusts, and the locusts will be consumed. The hive descends upon Bajor, but Bajor cannot see them.

"All near the gateway to the Temple will be consumed by the hive. All will be cut off from the Temple, and linear existence will fall into non-linear wars without guidance. The hive will join the war; its hunger is never satisfied. All existence is at risk. The Voyager must seek the hive. The beast must be sent back. The hive must be destroyed as one. All existence is consumed. All existence is saved."

With a gasp, I sat bolt upright on a biobed in sickbay. Harry, Captain Janeway, and Dr. Schmullis all stood around the bed, looking at me with concern.

"Her neural pathways are stabilizing," Schmullis said, scanning me with a medical tricorder. "But, her synaptic potentials are still odd. How are you feeling, Commander?"

I put my hand to my head, feeling as though I was on the edge of a headache that was slowly receding. The dream... or was it a vision? It felt so real, so intentional, so important, but it was already starting to fade around the edges. What did it mean?

Harry put a hand on my back. "You wouldn't wake this morning. You were having some strange neural activity. The doc was trying to figure out what was going on, and then suddenly you just came out of it."

"Pagh'tem'far," I whispered.

"What?"

"Ih'va—ah. Ah." I stuttered and swore in Bajoran, my brain somehow struggling more than it usually did to shift between my two native languages. The vision had been in Bajoran, but the computer usually expected me to speak in Standard. The translator must have been quite confused by my speech. If everyone hadn't looked so worried, they would probably have been amused.

"Vision," I finally spat out. "It's a sacred vision of the soul sent from the Prophets. I didn't really believe it before, but now... I saw it all, and our place in it. One thing leads to another and another until it destroys us all unless we break the chain."

They all exchanged looks, likely wondering if I had lost my mind. I had to tell them—warn them—but, how? It was all fading so fast.

I grabbed Janeway's wrist and looked her resolutely in the eye, overwhelmed with an irresistible need to give her a message. I didn't even know what I was saying, only that I had to say it.

"War! Locusts from beyond the Temple have descended on the Federation, consuming many souls. Bajor weeps, and the Federation with them, and they do not feel the wind rising from the north. The hive has awakened a beast. The beast will scatter the hive to the winds, and all existence will be consumed. The Voyager must find the hive. The Voyager must stop the beast."

Then, everything went black.

Personal Log: Stardate 50614.2

It's been two weeks since my vision of the Alpha Quadrant. I still can't remember much of it, but I get flashes of things in my dreams—locusts flying past Bajor towards Cardassian space, swarming the border planets, invading the Federation. Romulan, Klingon, and Federation ships fortifying Deep Space Nine. Millions of bodies from almost every Alpha and Beta Quadrant species, and billions more assimilated by the Borg. A strangely familiar Terran woman and a Romulan man casting off their cybernetic implants and putting on human clothes. An alien creature glaring at me with malice.

My mother as a Borg drone, telling me, "all existence is consumed, all existence is saved."

We haven't detected any trace of Borg activity since we found that fifty-year-old dead drone on the Sakari homeworld. Still, the Nekrit Expanse is a big place.

Chakotay and I are now finishing a scouting mission, trying to find a faster route through the expanse, though I'm not sure our data is going to provide much help.

"We're clearing the nebula," I told Chakotay, "but I'm still having trouble with navigation. Are you having any luck?"

He shook his head. "My sensors are scrambled, too. Attempting to hail Voyager again." A pause. "No response."

"Engage optical sensors," I said.

"Yes, ma'am," he responded teasingly.

I smiled. At times, it could be quite enjoyable having a superior officer as my co-pilot.

Chakotay's console chirped. "I'm picking up a Federation hailing beacon, bearing three-oh-nine mark four."

"Voyager?"

"Hard to tell, but I doubt it would be anyone else. Set a course."

"Yes, sir," I teased, smiling as I entered the coordinbates into the conn As we got within visual range of the signal's source, we found that it was coming from a planet. I frowned. "Did they land?"

He did a quick sensor sweep and shook his head. "Sensor readings are sketchy. I'm detecting about eighty thousand humanoid life forms on the western continent, some rudimentary structures and technology, but no energy signature big enough to be a starship." His console chirped again. "We're being hailed. Opening a channel."

A woman's voice came through the comm. "Calling approaching Federation vessel. We need your help urgently."

Chakotay and I exchanged a quick glance before he responded. "This is Commander Chakotay of the starship Voyager. Please identify yourself."

"I'm not reading you," the woman said. "Federation vessel, please—" Her voice cut off in a short burst of static just before the com channel closed.

"I've lost them," Chakotay mumbled.

"How could they know to identify us as a Federation ship?" I asked.

"Whoever they are, they're asking for our help. I'm going to launch a message buoy letting Voyager know we've landed in response to a distress call. Then I want you to take us down."

There was no humor at all in my tone when I replied, "Yes, sir."

On the surface, we found little more than ramshackle buildings covered in energy weapon burns. With tricorders and phasers in hand, we quietly proceeded towards the source of the signal, which was emanating from a building on the far side of the village square.

Out of the darkness, cloaked figures emerged all around us, brandishing various energy weapons. Chakotay put away his tricorder and phaser, then lifted his hands in the air.

I made no such gesture. When one of the cloaks raised their weapon, I lunged at Chakotay, shoving him out of the line of fire and safely behind a small structure to our right.

As soon as we had our cover, we crouched back-to-back, exchanging fire with our attackers until only two of the cloaks remained. The one with a smaller weapon circled around my side of our structure, pounding us with fire as they ran from cover to cover. They wanted to distract us from their friend with the big gun, but we knew the strategy and kept each other's backs covered.

Then, the cloak shot my arm.

I yelped and dropped my phaser. Though Chakotay only turned his head for a moment, it was long enough. The second cloak emerged and charged their weapon.

"Tay!" I yelled.

Chakotay's finger was on the trigger before he even saw the cloak, and they both fired at once.

I could feel the heat of the energy weapon course through Chakotay's body, and his convulsions as it did. He made an awful choking sound as he tried to cry out. Then he hit the ground with a thud.

The first cloak opened fire on me again. I dodged the volley and reached for Chakotay's phaser, which had fallen to the ground. Flipping it in hand, I aimed at the cloak's chest only to see someone else's weapon hit them from behind.

They yelped and ran from three new cloaked figures, one of whom was carrying a disruptor the size of a small phase canon.

I trained my phaser on the cloak with the canon, shielding Chakotay's body with my own. I expected them to turn the weapon on me, but they put it on the ground.

All three cloaks raised their hands.

One of the cloaks stepped forward, dropping his hood to reveal a bald Terran man. "Federation citizen, we mean you no harm. Raiders have already begun to strip your shuttlecraft, and more raiders will be coming soon. We can't fight them all, but we can help you. Let us take you and your comrade to safety."

Slowly, I lowered my phaser and nodded.

"Riley! We have wounded," shouted the Terran—whose name, I learned, was David—as we entered a building in their compound. I stopped short when a familiar blonde-haired Terran woman rushed towards us.

"Hello, Commander," she said, taking note of my rank. "My name is Riley Frazier. I'm the one who contacted you. You're safe here."

My mind tugged at the threads of a memory, and it quickly unraveled before me. I was at home, on leave for my nephew's birthday and watching recordings from the battle at Wolf 359 loop over and over on the newsfeed, when I received a comm from Starfleet Medical that the ship on which I was completing my clinical hours had been destroyed.

I'd paced the halls of my parents' house, numb with shock, until I saw Dad alone in his office. He stared, pale-faced, at his computer console as it listed the names and photos of crewmen in his fleet who had been injured, killed, or assimilated by the Borg. For once my Bentel'antana mother and Catholic grandmother agreed on a spiritual matter, both insisting that we needed to pray for each and every name and face on that list to honor their sacrifice.

One of those names had been Dr. Riley Frazier.

"I recognize you," I blurted out. "You were at Wolf 359. You served on one of my father's ships. My mother and I, we lit the duranja for a month when your fleet was lost."

She exchanged glances with David, then looked again at me. "As I said, I will explain, but right now, you need help. Please, let us help you. You have nothing to fear from us."

"I'm not afraid," I said. "I saw you in a dream just last week. You were with a Romulan man removing Borg implants and putting on clothes. This sounds crazy, I know, but I think we were supposed to find you."

"Talia."

My eyes snapped open at the sound of Chakotay's voice, yanking me from sleep. I smiled. "Tay. How are you feeling?"

He winced as he sat up, putting his hand to his head. "Like hell. Where are we?"

"The people who hailed us, they came to our rescue just after you were shot. The raiders stripped the shuttle, so we'll be stuck here for a few days while the cooperative repairs their communications array."

"I can help with that." He tried to stand, but stopped short as his face twisted again in pain.

I put my uninjured hand to his chest. "Not so fast. The energy blast that hit you depolarized your basal ganglia. You're in pretty bad shape. The more active you are, the faster your neural sheaths depolarize, and you need to hang in there until Voyager comes for us because the medic here can't perform the surgery you need. They've got a lot of people working on it already. You just rest, and stay with me, okay?"

He nodded and laid back down.

"There's something you need to know about these people. They—"

The door opened, and Riley walked in. "Good, you're both awake," she said as she approached the bed. "How do you feel, Chakotay?"

His eyes were wide as they fixated on her face. "You're Terran!"

She nodded and smiled. "Yes. My name is Riley Frazier. I'm here to help you."

"How—" Chakotay tried to sit up again, but winced and grabbed his head.

Without a word, I shoved him back down. Riley looked at me, and I shook my head. "I was just about to tell him when you walked in."

"Tell me what?"

"They used to be Borg."

He frowned.

Riley gave him a nervous smile. "I was a science officer aboard the Roosevelt when it was destroyed at Wolf 359. The cube picked up my escape pod and three others for assimilation. Five years ago, our cube was severely damaged, and our link to the collective was severed. We salvaged what we could from the cube and transported here. We removed most of our implants and became individuals again."

"Why did those people attack us?" Chakotay asked.

"There are dozens of different races on this planet. Resources are pretty limited. It didn't take long for the fighting to start. At first, a group of Klingons attacked the Cardassians, then the Farn raided the Parein. Eventually things just got out of hand, and now it's anarchy. But some of us—a few hundred or so—we've tried to make the best of it. We've established a cooperative, sharing work and whatever provisions we have. You must both be hungry. I can show you where to get food."

"Tay," I said, "I need to talk with Riley, and you need to rest. I'll bring some food and water for you when I'm done, okay?" I knew it drove him crazy to be left out, but he nodded and relaxed his head against the pillow.

I stood and followed Riley to another part of the building. "Thank you so much for everything you've done."

"I'm glad we can help," she said. "I apologize for the trouble we've put you in, but we could use your help, if you would be willing to give it. But first, tell me about Voyager. How did a Federation starship end up in the Delta Quadrant?"

As we moved through the pantry to select foods, then into the kitchen to prepare them, I did my best to summarize everything that had happened in Federation space since the battle at Wolf 359. I chopped vegetables while I told her about the liberation of Bajor, the joint Bajoran-Federation presence at Deep Space Nine, the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole leading to the Gamma Quadrant, the Cardassian treaties and the Maquis. I told her about our encounter with the Caretaker, Captain Janeway's decision to destroy the array and protect the vulnerable Ocampans from invasion, and how we had combined two crews into one on Voyager.

"How much longer do you expect your journey home will take you?" she asked.

"About seventy-two years, provided we don't run into any wormholes or transwarp technologies to speed us along."

"Haven't you ever thought about finding some nice M-Class planet and putting down roots?"

I nodded. "The thought has occurred to us. We've even had a couple of tempting offers from people we've encountered along the way. But this crew is special. Not a single one of them has wanted to stay behind. I suppose we've become something of a family these past two and a half years." I smiled. "What about you? I'm sure Captain Janeway would be more than happy to bring anyone on board who wanted to come—or to help strengthen your cooperative however we can if you'd rather stay here."

She returned my smile. "For better or worse, this place has become our home. The people in the cooperative—we have a deep connection to one another that I've never felt with anyone before. We want to stay, but we do need your help. Security upgrades, medical supplies, maybe some weapons."

"I understand. I have no doubt that the captain will, as well."

"You said—" she hesitated for a moment before continuing. "You said you saw us in a dream, and that you felt you were meant to find us. What did you mean by that?"

"I honestly don't know. A lot of strange things have been happening lately. With Commander Sisko's discovery of the Bajoran wormhole, he officially made first contact with an extra-dimensional species that the Bajorans have worshiped for thousands of years. We call them Bentel, or the Prophets. Even after I found out that they were real, I was still skeptical of the claims my mother's religion made about them.

"But lately it seems more and more like they wanted us here. They've given me dreams and visions of a future where Borg are in the Alpha Quadrant. I don't know what it all means, or what it has to do with Voyager, but I do get the feeling that I saw you and Orum for a reason. Maybe it was just to let me know that I could trust you."

"Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad you did. It's good to see someone from Starfleet again."

For two days, the cooperative worked tirelessly on the communications array. I allowed Chakotay brief respites from bed, taking him for slow walks around the building, but mostly I told him to rest. Even as careful as we were, his condition quickly worsened. Soon he couldn't even stand, and I worried that he wouldn't last long enough for Voyager to find us.

Orum, a Romulan who served as the cooperative's medic, confirmed my fears late the second afternoon. He informed me that there was one way they might be able to save Chakotay's life.

"Would it be safe?" Riley asked.

"Would what be safe?" Chakotay said hoarsely.

Riley and Orum exchanged glances, then Riley approached Chakotay's bed. "We still have Borg neural processors implanted in our nervous systems. Removing them would have killed us. We have built a portable neural transponder that we can use to generate a small neuroelectric field to re-link our brain patterns for a short time, and we can use this to forward neuro-regenerative energy towards anyone who is ill. If we attach a neurotransciever to the base of your skull, we could link your brain patterns with ours and use our neural energy to repolarize your neural sheaths."

Chakotay recoiled. "You... you want to hook me up to some Borg collective?"

"We'd be in complete control," Orum reassured him. "You'd just be linked for a limited time to Riley, me, and a few of the others in our group willing to help you."

Chakotay shook his head, but I stepped forward. "And me."

"What?" Chakotay gaped at me. "Talia, are you serious?"

"I had a similar condition after my vision two weeks ago," I told Orum. "But my brain corrected itself. My Bajoran neurology helps me withstand greater stress in my basal ganglia than Terrans can. If you have a second neurotransciever for me, I want to help."

Orum nodded, then turned back to Chakotay. "If we don't do something soon to slow the neural degradation, you will die."

I sat on the edge of his bed and took his hand in mine. "Please, Tay. Let us try." I quirked my lips into a half-smile. "Besides, the captain will demote me all the way back down to ensign if I let you die. Do you really want to be carrying around that kind of guilt for all of eternity?"

The edges of his mouth pulled upwards at my joke. With a sigh, he nodded.

After dinner, everything was ready for the procedure. Six other members of the cooperative followed Riley and Orum into the room. Orum attached the neurotranscievers to mine and Chakotay's necks, and activated the neural transponder.

It was as if a door in my mind had been opened. I stepped out of my own private space and into an open courtyard where all of us existed together under the same blue sky. Hearing their thoughts could have easily been overwhelming, but with Riley and Orum's leadership, it felt more like hearing a favorite song and picking up the tune.

"Open your mind to our thoughts," we said, "and concentrate on getting well. Hear our voices. Open your mind to our thoughts. Our collective strength can heal you. You are safe with us. Feel the connection. We are with you. See who we are. Know us. You are not alone. Our strength is your strength. We can overcome your pain. We welcome you into our thoughts. There is nothing to fear. We will not let you die. We are all one circle—no beginning, no end."

Memories flooded into my mind like sunlight into a dark room. I could experience the lives of each person in the collective—their families, their loved ones, the trauma of their assimilation, and the joy of their liberation. I touched Texas wildflowers with Riley's little-girl fingers as the smell of barbecued brisket wafted over from the house. I saw Kora's pet targ on Qo'noS and tousled the mangy beast's fur. I felt David's desperation as he dug one of his security officers out of a pile of rubble only to find her already dead. I saw Kathryn's crooked smile as she pressed her cheek into Chakotay's touch and felt my heart swell with his love.

I saw Marnah walking down a street in Ashalla like an emissary of revolution, surrounded by laypeople and militia clamoring to meet the noble Eelo tahl'ral who became the first to draw Cardassian blood all those years ago when they seized the planet for themselves.

More and more memories flowed around us like air until a new alien mind entered the collective. It didn't belong to any of us or to our corporeal existence, yet it felt strangely familiar to me. All at once, I realized what Q had meant when he questioned Marnah before the captain and me—when he looked upon me with fear in his eyes that I never knew a Q could feel.

I carried a Prophet with me inside my own mind.

It was the Prophets who were tampering with time. They had exchanged Valjean and Voyager for Marnah's raider. They were the reason Terrans were in the Delta Quadrant a hundred years too soon.

Then, like a locked closet that had been thrown open in the back of my mind, the visions and dreams I'd had over the last two weeks burst forth into the courtyard of our collective. They were no longer disjointed, but connected in an orb of space-time, showing us how separate linear events were converging to move our universe in a dark direction, and how important we all were in the Prophet's plans to bring it back into the light.