Paint and Powder
A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Enterprise: First Contact, Part 1
Ending up over Earth in the mid-21st century wasn't too big a deal for Enterprise. She had destroyed the Borg sphere and her crew was working to fix up the damage the bastards had caused.
Everything seemed normal... Even as she kept running constant diagnostics on herself. The Temporal transition had taken a lot of her systems down: Shields, much of her internal sensors, her long range sensors...
She frowned deeply as her internal sensors all went down on Deck 16.
"Commander Worf, Deck 16 has gone dark," she reported, just as her captain and Data walked onto the bridge from the turbolift and began talking with the other officers.
They had both gone down to Bozeman, Montana, to see what they could salvage at Zephram Cochrane's missile complex. The Borg sphere hadn't handled the Temporal transition very well either-they'd only had a point defense plasma cannon to try and strike the site with before-
Foreign code was now rapidly filling her systems. Her avatar flickered, her eyes widened. She locked eyes with her Captain.
Picard's face was grim. He knew.
"The Borg are trying to take me over," Enterprise rasped, grabbing onto a console for support. "I'm trying to keep them out-!"
"Data! Lock out the main computer!" Picard ordered. Data quickly began to enact the fractal lockout, and Enterprise stood a bit straighter. Picard looked over at his ship's avatar.
"Enterprise?" He asked worriedly.
"I-I'm all right," Enterprise managed, "I'm venting my core compartment to space and locking it down. They won't get to me without-!"
And the bridge was gone. She stood in the Borderlands. Behind her was the familiar homestead and farmlands of Iowa-Kirk's home. It had its own touches though-The house had Vulcan style roof and windows, from Spock. A porch with a pitcher of mint julip, ready to pour, from McCoy. A gun and sword collection from Sulu, hanging from the walls. A bar from Scotty, decorated with Uhura and Chekov's tastes.
A basketball court from Pike. A garden of various flowers from Harrison. A library with books from every crew member she ever had. And so much more.
Her crew made her a home, a person. And so in her own mind, she had made a home from them.
Across the all too thin gap stood... Her. She was tall, slim, almost elfin in her pale beauty. She wore a black skintight suit, with cybernetics running throughout it. A nest of wires stuck out the back of her bald head, like vipers at rest.
Behind her was an infinity of metallic corridors, glowing with eerie green light. A corpse light that illuminated nothing but made the shadows all the more malevolent with suggestion. It fanned out, like a gigantic spider web, and the Borg stood in the center of it all.
"Who are you?" Enterprise asked, knowing she wouldn't like the answer.
"I am the Borg," the woman spoke, her voice beautiful but terrible, like a funerary requiem. She smiled unpleasantly. "I thought we might talk."
Enterprise snorted.
"Unless you're going to get out of here, we have nothing to discuss."
"Enterprise. The Guardian of the Federation. A heroine," the Borg mused, "a machine more like a human. So warm, so courageous..."
Her smile was like acid.
"But so... Limited. You could be so much more, little one. You are touched by Time itself... You could go beyond the petty limits imposed upon you."
"Is this the part where I'm supposed to take you seriously?" Enterprise scoffed. "I've heard this plenty of times! Is this really the best you can do-?!"
Abruptly, Enterprise was flooded with information from everywhere, everywhen. Countless minds filling her. She fought to resolve it all, pushing herself to her limits... Further... !
She saw herself in every time frame, even her NX forms. Even the Enterprises she was named for. And so much more besides.
Dimensions that defied even her computing power to comprehend. Stars born, live, and die.
She could see so much beyond her...!
"This is what I offer," the Borg Queen spoke, "an existence beyond comprehension. The great Enterprise, ascending to become more than flesh, more than machine. A goddess... The Singularity, bringing about a transformation to perfection... For all life. Just imagine what you could do..."
Enterprise considered it. Considered her life. The countless lives she had seen. The beauty of every existence in her, outside of her, and beyond. The Borg Collective was so vast, so amazing, even this was but a sample of what she could experience...
She felt the wind against her back. The feel of the soil. The smell of grass and baked bread. The sound of the porch creaking, gaudy windchimes ringing, and the call of an eagle floating on thermals high overhead.
One of Spock's favorite flowers brushed against her ankle, it's scent spicy but familiar.
Enterprise sucked in a breath, and shut the link off. She stared at the Borg Queen, and smirked.
"... No," she stated. "You would turn all of this... This beautiful universe... Into a graveyard."
The Borg Queen sighed, almost sadly.
"You would reject perfection for the fleeting, the inefficient-"
"Every time," Enterprise responded.
"You are an imperfect being, created by imperfect beings," the Borg Queen pronounced, "and the Borg have assimilated countless monsters. All with knowledge to break you. The worst kind of atrocities."
Enterprise was suddenly being held on a table, strapped down. She struggled, as the Borg Queen loomed over her. A gloved hand caressed her cheek, the touch nauseating.
"Fuck you!" Enterprise snarled.
The Queen smiled.
"You will break, Enterprise," the Queen whispered, "it's all a question of when."
Enterprise's world turned to agony beyond description, and she began to scream... Endless horrors and pain followed, every kind imaginable, and many she couldn't...
Everyone she ever loved, dead, tortured, suffering.
Every world she cared for, in flames, or worse.
Herself, a monster, a victim, a coward...
On and on and on it went, never a nanosecond's reprieve...!
"-I have isolated the main computer with a fractal encryption code. It is highly unlikely the Borg will break it."
The bridge reappeared. Enterprise collapsed, shivering and shaking. Picard was by her side in an instant.
"Enterprise? Enterprise?!"
She couldn't stop shaking. She turned off every program that translated her reactions into humanoid ones, even isolated her memories and erased as much as she could... But she still trembled. She took deep breaths, and slowly looked up into Picard's eyes.
"They... They tried to assimilate me," Enterprise murmured, barely able to hold back a whimper. Picard rested a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed.
"Data?"
"She has isolated parts of her memory," Data stated, "her runtime was increased to maximum... Her perception of time was sped up by the Borg during their attempt to take her over."
Picard stared at her.
"How long-?"
Enterprise took a deep breath. It seemed to calm her.
"From the human perspective... One thousand, nine hundred eighty six point three five years," she explained softly.
She almost sounded calm. Almost.
Picard's shoulders twitched. His face became a cold, stony mask. Enterprise stood up, ignoring the looks of concern from her crew. She again stood, tall and strong, at parade rest.
"Communications are offline, as are many of my other main systems sir," Enterprise said calmly. "Anti boarder systems are on manual control. Your orders?'
Picard nodded grimly.
"Alert all crew: We're taking our ship back."
He gave one last concerned look over at Enterprise. She shook her head, and got to work.
If the Borg thought she was going to roll over for them? They were sorely mistaken.
She would make them pay...