All things Star Trek belong to the emergency medical facility known as Paramount. Teaching hospital Decker consults upon Star Traks. And in the back alleys of obscure and ill-advised medicine, one may find Meneks' BorgSpace clinic.

Medical Malpractice

Doctor rasped the protective horny sheath of a foot-hand as he contemplated his options. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Should the alpha-serotonin augmentation implant be attached to medial ganglion cluster three? Or sub-dorsal ganglion cluster five? The species #7582 bio-models were so inconveniently inconclusive! Perhaps if he grafted a remotely operated device to each nerve cluster, then observed the results of activating one or the other (or neither, or both) under differing test circumstances, the ultimate answer to the question would be discerned. Yes, that is what he would do.

Congratulating himself on his solution, Doctor removed the foot-hand from his mouthparts while simultaneously picking up a laser scalpel in another manipulatory limb. Directions were given to an assistant to ready the implants. Meanwhile, trussed securely onto a workbench to prevent accidental mishaps during surgery, such as falling to the floor, 56 of 370 waited with stoic patience for the operation, the most recent in a series designed to chemically moderate his claustrophobia, to begin.

All in all, from the drone maintenance point of view, it was a typical port-of-call; and, as such, there was plenty of time for extracurricular, non-critical surgical procedures.

There were still several months estimated until the current duty cycle concluded, but even the dullest drone could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, that eventuality was now delayed at least twelve cycles, although in this case it was not the fault of Cube #238's imperfect sub-collective. Upon arrival to the most recent stop-over, the Greater Consciousness had inserted a schedule modification that included in-system transport of bulk items. Although a very low priority item on the Collective to-do list, it was one that needed to be completed. Utilizing Cube #238 meant more competent resources would not be diverted.

In Doctor's mental background, drone maintenance hierarchy monitored the shifting of cargo and preparation of Bulk Cargo Holds for their payloads. The hierarchy was typically excluded from stevedore duties. Instead, medical drones were on stand-by to perform repairs upon the injuries which inevitably occurred during the porting process. Broken or severed limbs, crushed bones, soft-tissue mishaps, the list of potential damage more serious than that able to be fixed by nanites was long. However, there were still windows in which to squeeze in pet projects like 56 of 370.

Doctor was reaching forward with the scalpel in preparation to make the first of many incisions needed to expose the patient's neural architecture when he felt the tingle of a transporter.

Origination was not Cube #238 systems.

"Hey! I was in the middle of important work!" complained Doctor even before eyes fully focused upon new surroundings and he consciously registered his location to not be the Lugger-class cube.

As a whole, Dromelans were considered (by most non-Dromelans) to be egotistical and narcissistic, self-focused upon their own species to such an extreme that other races were looked upon, at best, as astonishingly well-trained animals that by fluke of consequence could speak and build spaceships. At worst, a non-Dromelan was viewed as an exotic protien for an expensive restaurant entree. Conversely, since Dromelans were known to eat each other given the appropriate circumstances, one could not precisely complain that such gastronomical treatment was speciest.

Doctor, prior to his assimilation, had demonstrated a text-book Dromelan case of inflated self-worth. If anything, it had been grander than the norm. Such was likely a byproduct of Doctor's banishment from homeworld (and colonies) to 'practice' medicine upon the galaxy's barbarians (i.e., anyone not Dromelan), a situation whereupon he rarely encountered another of his own race. When one spends over a decade surrounded by what one considers the intellectual and moral equivalent of slugs, one tends to become quite inflated in the head-body region.

Such had been Doctor's ego that even assimilation could not puncture it. Doctor knew his worth to the galaxy, to the universe; and if he could not pursue his ambition to expand the bounds medicine as a free being, then the Borg Collective would receive his largesse.

Uncomfortable with such eager dedication to a narrow, medically-inclined focus, the Whole had quickly shuffled the newly processed Dromelan to assimilation imperfection oblivion.

Thus, it was Doctor's ego speaking as he demanded of the Collective why he had been interrupted in the middle of critical investigations into chemo-neural-behavioral interactions which was sure to have wide-ranging implications in all aspects of the species #7582 biological dossier.

"A communique was dispatched ten minutes ago, whereupon the unit was informed of its imminent reassignment. Ten minutes was determined to be sufficient time for the unit to prepare itself, should it be in the midst of critical duties of which immediate transportation would be detrimental."

The response originated from one of several tactical drones standing in Doctor's field of view. The Greater Consciousness tended to avoid direct mental interaction with its imperfect elements, be it the Whole or, as was this case, the fragment of a minor subMind overseeing the platform at which the cube was currently docked. That accounted for the verbalized answer, the tactical acting as an intermediary. It did not explain the sarcasm.

All drones were deeply linked to the Whole, even those of an imperfect nature. As an inevitable consequence, even the most rigorous partitoning and compartmentalization could not prevent 'leakage' between the sane and not-quite-sane elements of the All when they interacted. In this case, although the message was delivered in the standard monotone devoid of inflection, there was an unvoiced undertone which suggested the impossibility of an imperfect drone to engage in any duty which might be definable as critical.

Doctor ignored the insinuation, dismissing it as not applicable to him. Instead, manipulatory limbs curled close to his body in a pre-strike pose, the species equivalent of a tilted head, he turned inward to re-examine a memo received, yes, ten minutes ago.

At first glance, the communique was of little notoriety. The primary conveyed content was that following deliberation upon efficiencies and other considerations, he (3 of 13) was now permanent head of the Cube #238 drone maintenance hierarchy (barring termination, gross incompetence, or Collective whim). Doctor had not bothered to do more than briefly skim the notification: it had long-ago become self-evident that there was only one unit (himself) who could be assigned the position. The confirmation was mere formality. However, as he re-examined the memo, Doctor noticed the P.P.P.P.S at the end, an afterthought postscript of a postscript that tersely informed him of a forthcoming change in venue.

"This is all well and good," said Doctor as he uncurled his limbs, one foot-hand still holding a scalpel, "but the memo does not explain why I was reassigned from important research."

Doctor had been transported to an engineering workshop deep within the bulk of Platform #542. In many respects, the difference between shops frequented by drone maintenance and engineering was slight, the main one being the presence of recovery alcoves and workbenches featuring tie-down straps. As neither of the latter were observed, one could assume, even without confirmation from a platform schematic, that engineering drones were normally the primary denizens of the space.

Half a dozen tactical units, not engineering, stood before Doctor. Two of them flanked a huge male of species #8582 - Psugan - who while clearly not currently of Collective nor Color nonetheless sported indications of past assimilation. The speaker for the subMind (and Greater Consciousness) stood slightly apart from the rest of the group. A virtual nametag labeled his designation to be 7623 of 8880.

Eyes lingering upon the Psugan as the workshop was panned - there was an odd sense of familiarity - Doctor returned full attention to 7623 of 8880 as the tactical spoke.

"The subject-" there was no need to further define to whom the moniker referred "-is labeled rogue and requires re-assimilation into the Whole. Resistance has been encountered and must be bypassed. You will perform the procedure. Failure is unacceptable."

"Assimilation?!" exclaimed Doctor. "I am a physician! I am of drone maintenance! My base function represents finesse, not brute force! I-" The outburst abruptly ceased. The Greater Consciousness (or a minor subMind) may be willing to tolerate many things of the imperfectly assimilated, but argumentative backtalk was not one of them. A large file was unceremoniously dropped into Doctor's mindspace.

As stated by the tactical, the Psugan was a rogue. He had been recaptured approximately a month prior, after a separation from the Whole of nearly a decade. The Collective desired reintegration into the Whole. The reason...was not important, at least in regards to a mere tool such as Doctor. Why tell the hammer the reason for hitting nails? A need for information housed within the subject was obviously not the motivation, for there were several techniques, all inevitably fatal, by which quality data could be extracted from the brain of an ex-drone. Within the vast machinations of the Collective there was a explanation for the re-assimilation, but it was not essential for Doctor to be on the need-to-know list, only to be a good little cog and comply.

Attempts had been made using standard methodology, and multiple variations thereof, by assimilation specialized units to complete the reintegration. None had worked. An exhaustive investigation into the failure had revealed the rogue to have visited Doctor shortly before the latter's assimilation into the then-Hive. Doctor had modified the Psugan, made him resistant to Collective attentions. And since Doctor had been the one to perform the initial operations, it was now his task to undo it.

The primary caveat was the time limit. Doctor would have to break the Psugan to the Collective within twelve cycles, or however long Cube #238 would be in-system. Upon success, the Dromelan would be returned to the Lugger-class and sent on his way to continue heaping occasional medical abuse upon the not-always-willing subjects of his imperfect sub-collective. Failure, on the other hand, would result in, er, a case of terminal interrogation, Doctor's neurology prodded, dissected, perhaps even excised from the body. The purpose of the questioning would be to gain all (conscious and unconscious) knowledge of the Psugan's original operation, and then apply that information to subsequent re-assimilation attempts.

Doctor registered a spark of emotion - horror - as he absorbed the consequence for non-performance. He would be demoted! Yes, death was assured, but all organisms eventually died. On the other hand, not all organisms were permanent heads of the drone maintenance hierarchy of Lugger-class Cube #238. In fact, only one organism - nee, Doctor - currently held that position. To be stripped of his new status, even if it had required a long time for the Whole to realize the inevitability of it, was unacceptable!

Doctor blinked himself back to full awareness of his surroundings. He eyed the Psugan in sharp appraisal, now understanding the origination of the earlier sense of recognition; and the rogue glared back, defiant despite the flanking tacticals and a month of ungentle medical procedures.

"I believe," said Doctor as he dropped his gaze from his new patient and began to pivot so as to better consider the workshop and its contents, "that the first thing to be done is a bit of redecorating. I shall require the following devices and tools...."

"Magnificent. Stupendous. A master work," muttered Doctor aloud to himself, eyes half-closed as he studied a compilation of neurological datathreads gleaned from the rogue's examination. The string of praises was not self-congratulatory, but rather acknowledgement of a craftsman at his best. The fact that it had been Doctor, prior to his assimilation, who had been the original constructor was an irrelevant irony. Regardless of creator, the accolades would have been the same.

Probably.

{Such a fine display of self-centeredness is a bit much, even for you. Keep it up and you'll be scheduled for an attitude adjustment with Assimilation, permanent hierarchy head or not,} said Prime dryly, inserting herself into Doctor's mental workspace.

Doctor dismissed his consensus monitor's words, {This unit merely expresses his pleasure at serving the Whole. It is allowed.}

{Yes, you are a model of selflessness. Pile it as high and as deep as you like. Just remember, if you fail in your assignment you won't be returning to your new position on the cube. One expects your replacement will be less prone to attempting unauthorized surgeries during regularly scheduled maintenance. Actually, the designation serving as temporary drone maintenance hierarchy head, 8 of 13, has shown exemplary-}

{You are lowering my efficiency,} said Doctor. He ignored the ghost of a sardonic snort which was the wordless reply. {Exchange between Cube #238 and its distally assigned unit - me - is to be minimal so as to maximize focus upon the job.}

Prime pulled back, but not without a few parting words, {True. Still, we will be watching...much more interesting than ensuring a foursome of antique Exploratory-classes destined for the ship-breaking yards don't crash through the bulkheads.}

Returning to the problem at foot-hand, even an entity such as the Collective had to acknowledge the excellent handiwork which denied the Whole its prize. Unfortunately, Doctor now confirmed what he had first suspected: deconstruction of the masterpiece would be much more difficult than the considerable effort required to build the thing in the first place.

More than twelve cycles would be required. Much more. And for that, Doctor only had highly inventive curses for himself, not compliments. With a sigh, he dismissed the datathreads and returned full attention to his 'patient'.

"So, 103 of 6510, how are we feeling today?"

"My name is Yordeen. 103 of 6510 was a Borg drone. I am not a Borg drone."

"The Greater Consciousness begs to differ," mildly countered Doctor. "Once of the Collective, always of the Collective. And your dossier lists your designation as 103 of 6510. The entity you name as Yordeen became no more quite a while ago."

A withering silence was the answer. It was the sum total of resistance which remained to the captive.

A Psugan is one of the Milky Way galaxy's most physically imposing races. Likened to a bipedal gryphon, the head is distinctly aquiline, complete with sharp, hooked beak and piercing yellow eyes. Sleek feathers adorn the upper body, usually a golden bronze, although other color variations include tawny blonde or an exceedingly rare black with white edging. While there are no wings, longer feathers upon the arms above the elbow provide the illusion of pinions. Below the elbow, scaled arms of dull orange or yellow end in three-fingers-plus-thumb hand tipped not in nails or claws, but what can only be labeled as (neatly manicured) talons. The lower body is clad with feathers, but they are of a fine, hairlike variety easily mistaken for a pelt. A lack of tail does not detract from the impression of feline energy embodied in bunched muscles of flank and thigh. The leg itself has a backwards bending knee, but no bird sports feet in the form of paws with semi-retractable claws. Of the genders, males tend to be taller, more heavily muscled, and brightly colored than their female counterparts; and the masculine sex, via a discrete belly pouch, also completes the bulk of a gestation cycle. The entire package is wrapped in a racial average height of 2.5 meters; and with the grace and ferocity of both eagle and cat epitomized in the confident movement of a Psugan, individuals are rarely bothered in even the most crime-ridden city or spaceport.

Trussed to a workbench, Yordeen was a mere shadow of his species' ideal. Any feathers regrown following his escape from the Collective were gone, molted due to stress of captivity or chemically depilated for medical procedure. The ragged pinfeather fuzz and thin coveralls which clad him were rude insulation for a species normally able to endure temperatures to negative twenty Celsius with minimal supplementary protection; and only because of the BorgStandard temperature and humidity present within the workshop was Yordeen not shivering with cold. Surgical scars, some over a decade old and others in the process of healing, were liberally sprinkled about the Psugan's body. A lack of exercise meant muscles once tight and well-defined were now growing soft, not that such was sufficient to prevent Yordeen from tearing the limb from socket of any drone, be it Doctor or one of the ever-present tacticals, in the workroom. A few implants had sprouted upon epidermis due to the rogue's vicinity to functional Collective drones activating dormant nanites. However, there was one Psugan characteristic which had not altered despite ordeals of assimilation, of escape, of de-assimilation, of living as a rogue, of recapture, of his current situation: Yordeen glared at Doctor, yellow eyes glinting with the predatory defiance of the never-broken.

The Dromelan blithely ignored the angry stare as irrelevant. Instead, he moved away and cast his attention to his workshop surroundings, visually appraising the transformation which had occurred in the few short hours since his arrival. While he could access the task list of the units currently assigned to act as assistants (and enforcers) to check if all requests had been accomplished, he preferred a more direct review. And, as a more prosaic consideration, sensorium feeds from the units were blocked: the Great Consciousness did not desire too close an association between the imperfectly assimilated and its normal drones. All appeared to be ready.

Specialty medical equipment, with an emphasis upon the neurological discipline, were neatly arrayed upon workbenches. Devices sufficiently large or bulky as to require their own carriages were parked against one wall. A full quarter of the workshop had been transmogrified to a surgical theater, tools required to reshape flesh (and other body parts) at the ready for a reaching foot-hand. While many of the tools had bona fide medical pedigrees, during its multiple millennia of existence the Borg Collective had adapted devices from other, less innocent sources, such as vehicle maintenance...or torture.

Also included in the room were a pair of alcoves. One was for Doctor's use when need for regeneration demanded it, modified to include the clamps required for his non-bipedal frame. The other alcove was for the Psugan. The rogue did not, and could not, regenerate, at least not in the traditional Borg sense. He could be trussed in place, his body compelled to enter a sleep state via use of an external cortical inhibitor and a suite of drugs. During the forced downtime, intravenous feeding occurred, a cocktail of proteins, nutrients, sugars, and other necessities to sustain the body. The key word was 'sustain', for the practice did nothing to satisfy the gut's desire for solid food. Then again, the act of eating was irrelevant, and messy, from the Borg point-of-view, particularly in regard to elimination, and any practice which minimized such was to be promoted.

"Has the great Borg Collective finally sunk so low?" hoarsely croaked Yordeen, breaking the extended silence. "The holy Whole must be desperate." The mocking tone was obvious.

Doctor's interest was piqued. He set down the medical instruments he had been ordering upon a tray, then took the requisite steps to allow him to re-enter the field of view of his patient. "Elaborate."

Yordeen shifted his head slightly so as to better glower at his 'physician'. "The Collective has been unable to break me, so it has outsourced. You are obviously a Color, not a drone of my former...employer. You speak to the others present. You don't act like you belong here. And-" The Psugan paused to savor his most damning evidence "- you use singular pronouns."

Doctor felt amusement, as much as he was allowed. The rogue required education. "Contrary to appearances, and any speech pattern lapses, all units present are of the Whole. Myself included. This drone is imperfectly assimilated." Grammar structure was deliberately altered. Would the rogue understand the embedded implication, that the emphasized 'all' included not just Doctor, but also the disconnected unit currently secured to a workbench?

The Psugan either did not catch the insinuation, else retained sufficient self-censorship to keep comprehension from his expression. "Imperfectly assimilated." The tone was dull.

"My personal status is irrelevant." Doctor briefly ground his mouthparts, then backed away, returning to examination of the devices he would shortly be employing. "What is relevant is that I - this drone - am the physician who engineered the situation that precludes your re-assimilation; and, thus, I am the one tasked to reverse it."

Nearly a decade earlier, in the weeks prior to his assimilation, Doctor, then Il'guku of Family Guku of Clan R'wasari, had traded services as a physician for passage aboard a mercenary vessel in order to leave behind the inconvenient attentions of the local constabulary. It had come to the attention of the police of certain, er, not-strictly-legal-nor-illegal medical practices Il'guku had been plying. The need for a late-night retreat to the deep dark of space was not unknown to Il'guku: he had done so many times before, usually when an ungrateful (and rich) patron to his establishment acquired the notion that Il'guku had overcharged to cure an often embarrassing condition. Ungrateful bastards. One of the desperate who had visited then-Il'guku's backhall clinic prior to the midnight decamping had been Psugan. Although the Psugan had not been the one to set the police upon Il'guku - rumors fingered a crooked politician who had visited the good doctor to increase his, um, performance - he nonetheless had been very notable.

After all, it wasn't every day that a rogue drone escaped from the Borg Collective sunk to his hocks before a sadistic Dromela physician and begged to have the still-present whispers of the All silenced. Il'guku would have taken the case on its merit alone, gratis, just for its academic interest and challenge, not to mention the very high probability that pain (for the patient) was to be involved. The wads of credit - of dubious origin, but never mind that - waved in the Dromela's face had been a bonus.

Research, inquires to sources whom owed favors, and multiple neurological examinations of the patient (sans anesthesia, which might skew observations) had built a picture for Il'guku. One of the first, and most critical, tasks of nanomachines when injected into a victim was to construct an organic neural transceiver. Once in place and confirmed functional, even if no Collective link was established, the remainder of the initial assimilation process continued apace. Proper placement of the transceiver was, thus, very important.

Deep within the neurological maze which comprised the brain was a critical nexus point. Among other activities, the conscious self of the ego met the unconscious impulses of the id, and external and internal perceptions were filtered. There were tongue-twisting, multi-syllable terms full of oddly juxtapositioned consonants to describe this nexus, but most people simply called it a 'socket'. And while it was debated by religious professionals and scientists alike the degree of self-awareness enjoyed by non-sentient creatures, except for a handful of neurological oddities, a socket was nonetheless possessed by all species (intelligent of not).

Such was not to say that the socket was a well-defined brain structure. Quite the contrary in most instances. As befitting such an important role, integration of id and ego and senses was often diffuse, allowing continued functionality of the individual even in the case of severe neurological injury. However, there were areas of the brain which displayed greater socket activity than others. The crude descriptive slang of 'socket' had arisen, and persisted, because the integration zone was the perfect place to 'plug' in a variety of items. The opportunities were diverse, ranging from synthetic drugs to medical apparatus to coercive devices.

The Collective's approach to gathering drones unto itself was merely another variation upon the exploitation of the socket's existence. Using precisely engineered search algorithms to seek out high neurological use regions with very specific characteristics, Borg nanites inevitably found the proper place to build a neural transceiver. By then squatting on the socket bottleneck, first with an organic neural transceiver, and later with the surgically installed hardware version, the Collective was able to chain the will of the individual into the Whole.

Frighteningly, when considering all the civilizations, all the technologies, all the ambitions which had arisen since the creation of the universe, the Collective's use of the socket was actually rather benign.

Il'guku had began earning his commission by carefully teasing out the remaining threads of organic and hardware neural transceiver from his Psugan patient's brain. The great majority of the transceiver had already been excised, albeit by the simple expedient of being hacked out by whatever backyard quack the client had previously visited. The operation had been exceedingly painful on the part of the Psugan, not due to lack of anesthetic, but because the rootlets were tied directly into pain receptors to prevent non-Borg surgical removal. Unfortunately, simply eliminating the offending technology was insufficient: dormant nanites would inevitably remain within the body, and if ever reactivated by, say, the nearby presence of a Borg (or Color) drone, there was the distinct possibility a transceiver would be reconstructed.

A Psugan, unlike the majority of sentients, had a very distinct socket. In fact, the species' neurological structures were all rigidly defined. Such anatomy was ideal for Il'guku's scheme. By pre-emptively filling the socket with a different plug, no new neural transceiver could be emplaced, either by remnant nanites or those freshly injected. Nanites which could not confirm transceiver functionality aborted the rest of the assimilation process. The Psugan would effectively be rendered unable to be assimilated.

It was a challenge then-Il'guku had gleefully, and successfully, pursued.

Fast forward to the present. Doctor had to defeat his own masterpiece.

Doctor could not simply remove the plug. To attempt to do so would kill the patient, which was contrary to the desires of the Collective. As Il'guku, he had very carefully ensured the terminal consequence. He had also, at the client's insistence, included a method to deactivate and dissolve the plug, should such ever be necessary. To have a backdoor in a permanent installation was stupid, but the promise of additional monetary compensation, not any 'customer is always right' triteness, had overruled professional judgment.

That long ago inclusion of a backdoor represented a potential method to gain entry and break the rogue back to the Whole. Maybe. The plug was secured via an add-on device, a Dromelan mental combination lock, the access of which had been set by the client. The lock could not be directly broken nor spoofed because the key had to originate from the subject. Additionally, the 'key' was actually five individual sensorium-based sub-keys, one for each of the Psugan's major senses. For instance, a sub-key would not be the word 'red', but rather a particular hue of scarlet as experienced at sunset; and 'wind' would actually be the slightly chilly caress of breeze across damp skin following a swim. As with any security device, there were work-arounds, although in this case none in the less than twelve cycles which represented Doctor's literal deadline. As Il'guku, he had prided himself on his work and, thus, only the best lock had been used. Doctor would have to resort to brute force coercion to extract each sub-key.

Doctor queried one of several timers running in his personal dataspace background. Excellent. Adequate time remained to accomplish the next task or two before Yordeen was scheduled for enforced downtime. Therefore....

"Additional local anesthesia is required. The remnant supply in this room will be insufficient to complete the upcoming series of operations. Formulation #8582-beta-three is projected to be the most effective," said Doctor aloud, pointedly turning to address the nearest of his drone 'helpers'.

Pain on the part of the rogue was, and would continue to be, irrelevant. However, the next step to prepare Yordeen for the sub-key extraction trials would be excruciatingly painful; and while some pain was useful to ensure correct neural probe placement, it would be highly inconvenient for Doctor to be continually reviving his unwilling patient due to fainting from the pain. Thus, the need for a local anesthesia. It would not completely cut the agony, but it would distance it to a dull roar.

Later, pain management substances would keep Yordeen awake and relatively alert during his trials. Such was critical because consciousness was required to allow the rogue to participate in his own breaking.

"Compliance," responded the platform drone. "We have placed the order in the replication queue. It will be completed once higher priority items have been processed. Estimated time to delivery is 9.6 minutes."

There were no words of gratitude, nor verbal acknowledgement. Such empty platitudes were irrelevant within the Borg Collective. Doctor instead returned full focus to his trussed Psugan. Yordeen, on his part, had managed to acquire a look of apprehension to his otherwise still defiant expression.

Doctor reached with two manipulatory limbs towards the tray of surgical instruments and curled delicate fingers around his selections. The Psugan tolerance for pain was quite robust; and Yordeen, by simply surviving since his recapture by the Collective, not to mention his sessions with Doctor thus far, had demonstrated his own excellent degree of fortitude. The need for anesthesia within the next 9.6 minutes would be minimal.

Doctor perused the latest dataset. Green and blue shades were receiving best feedback from the psi-lock, but none sufficient to indicate a match. However, the activity did allow a focus for the next round of testing; and once the appropriate color was discerned, progress could be made towards shape.

There was no escaping the reality that breaking the lock was to be a slow progress. And the visual element would be the easiest of the senses to force-invoke. Unless Doctor could find a better solution, or Cube #238 encountered delays in its in-system delivery schedule, the deadline to break the rogue would not be met.

And, in consequence, the universe was certain to become a poorer place upon the termination of a certain Dromelan Borg. At least that was Doctor's estimation.

The method to break a psi-lock was application of brute force. Similar to a computer attempting ever possible permutation to discover what sequence of alphanumerics denoted a viable password, Doctor was bombarding his reluctant patient with a cascade of sensory information. It was like the concept of telling someone "Do not think of an elephant"; and while there were highly trained individuals or spiritual gurus who might be able to resist, the great majority of those so addressed would, at least briefly, bring to mind a large grey creature with trunk, flappy ears, and tusks. Yordeen was neither highly trained nor particularly guru-like, and when forced to view a dizzying array of colors, his brain automatically responded. In turn, by tracking neural activity in relation to the minute responses (or lack thereof) of the psi-lock, it was possible to home in on the combination of a given sub-key. It was like playing a game of hotter-colder, only immensely more complex.

If only the process, like that of forcing a long password, did not take so long! The visual sub-key was the simplest of the sensorium locks - it only required a color/shape association - yet it was still hideously complex. Touch would be much more difficult, and smell...Doctor actively avoided contemplation of how the odor sub-key was to be probed. At least visual only involved a monitor upon which ocular stimuli could be projected.

"We shall next focus on the teals. Fifty angstrom values in the blue-green range will be selected, each displayed to the rogue for a minimum of fifteen seconds to acquire the best neural activity map. A fifteen second black blank space will be inserted between each shade to allow the visual pathways to clear," said Doctor aloud even as he input the program. The subMind had finally allowed him access to a small platform dataspace pocket in order to increase the search efficiency. On-going prohibition of a more intimate connection, however, necessitated the continued need to articulate his actions.

Yordeen grunted a nearly inaudible response to Doctor's verbalization. Such represented the extent of his present mobility.

The Psugan was trussed to a framework of metal spars in a standing position. Movement, except for jaw, was curtailed. Particular attention had been paid to the head, locking it to face the monitor upon which visual cues were being projected. Even the eyelids were clamped open, so as to prevent the minor resistance of refusing to view the parade of visual sensorium. The Psugan's nictitating membranes - a secondary, clear eyelid - kept his eyeballs moistened, otherwise preventing a horrible case of dry-eye.

Inquired Doctor, "You have a comment?" His platform drone comrades offered little in the way of conversation; and until his appointed task was (or was not) completed, dialogue with Cube #238 was limited to necessary exchanges. Consequently, the rogue offered Doctor his sole chance to talk to someone on topics which did not directly correspond to the task at hand. It was the only way left to Yordeen to attempt his pitiful and futile resistance, and it provided Doctor with one of the minor amusements allowed to an imperfect drone.

"You are a bastard," hissed Yordeen faintly, wires and other bindings impeding speech.

Doctor sighed, a deflation of the entire body-sac. "Why do you continue with your futile resistance? And why is the Collective so interested in you?" The Whole, of course, did not see the need to inform Doctor as to the reason for the rogue's value, and, so, had not. He had, therefore, been attempting on and off to elicit an answer from the Psugan upon the topic.

"You are an immoral, psychopathic bastard," was the response. If Yordeen knew the reason the Whole was fixated upon reintegrating him into the Greater Consciousness, he was similarly unforthcoming.

Another sigh was heaved as Doctor leaned forward to ensure the head binders remained secure. "I object on all three counts," he said conversationally as one foot-hand tested strap tautness. "First, the term 'bastard' is defined differently depending upon the specific society. As the spawning which produced my brood was confirmed to be legally sanctioned between genetically compatible individuals, by the traditions of Dromelan civilization I am not a bastard."

One binding displayed a tiny bit of slack - perhaps originating when the rogue tried to fight his trussing several hours before? - and was tightened to the appropriate tension. "Second, to be immoral is to ascribe to beliefs contrary to accepted morals, whatever they may be. I am well versed in the varying morals present in the galaxy, both those practiced by my species and those of other races, creeds, religions, and so on." True, in his former profession, one had had to be aware of local taboos and views of what defined an unforgivable atrocity, so as to better skirt on the legal edge when designing a menu of elective surgical procedures. "Frankly, none of them applied to me...not then, and certainly not now. Morality is irrelevant. At best, I was, and am, amoral.

"And finally, a psychopath generally does not understand the rules of the surrounding society, usually due to organic damage caused by injury or congenial genetic defect. As my genetic profile and health is excellent, I prefer to consider my personal metal pathology to be best termed 'sociopath': I am quite aware of the difference between right and wrong, and have made a conscious decision that it does not apply. Like morality, I am above mere sociopolitical rules." It was unfortunate that the great majority of places - well, all, actually - he had opened his clinics did not share that viewpoint and claimed him to be bound by their laws and credo, regardless of his personal belief system. It had been highly inconvenient to pack and leave in the middle of the night just because a few operations were ethically questionable.

In this respect, the Borg Collective was much more forgiving. As long as he performed his drone maintenance function adequately, few to no inquiries were made as the appropriateness of the specific methodology utilized. The fact that the Cube #238 drone maintenance head had been permanently assigned to Doctor's designation obviously meant that he had done an exemplary job.

It never occurred to Doctor that with a drone maintenance hierarchy compliment of 250 drones aboard Lugger-class Cube #238, the Greater Consciousness did not have a deep pool of candidates upon which to draw. It was, perhaps, more accurate to say that Doctor represented the best of an imperfect situation.

Adjustment complete, Doctor back away half a step. "Therefore, it would be more appropriate to say I am an amoral, sociopath non-bastard." Pause. "However, given how you were using 'bastard' in the connotation of emotive insult, not questioning the legitimacy of my spawning, I will not object over the usage."

Yordeen simply glared with the intensity of a phaser set to kill.

A sheathed foot-hand was tapped against the monitor. "Back to work, yes? Teals. Initiating new color search program."

It was 6.7 cycles into the process to extract the sensorium sub-keys. Headway was being made - visual and aural keys were known, and set-up was in progress for tactile. The speed of investigation had increased once cumbersome equipment like the monitor had been discarded for more efficient direct stimulation of the appropriate regions of the brain.

Following acquisition of the visual sub-key, and during Yordeen's subsequent required downtime, the Collective had embarked upon a program to update the map of species #8582 neural sensory architecture. A total of 7651 male Psugan drones had been sacrificed to the effort. Terminally. While a neurological map had been available, it had not included the detail necessary to stimulate very specific sensory hallucinations. There had been no need by the Collective for such, until now. Upon Yordeen's awakening, Doctor had introduced his unwilling patient to the fruits of the Whole's labor, inserting new cranial probes and introducing often painful stimuli in order to adjust the map to the rogue's specific neurology.

The destruction of so many otherwise useful units spoke more than mere words alone about the focused desire of the All to successfully reintegrate the rogue.

In the end, the effort extended to build the map greatly improved efficiency. Doctor had not looked forward to the nightmare mess required to replicate multitudes of items for the tactile tests; and the aural sub-key probe had been made much quieter, reduced to an occasional machine beep from the formerly anticipated cacophony.

Unfortunately, even with the efficiencies gained, Doctor estimated he would not meet the Collective-imposed deadline. Why, for once, was Cube #238 actually ahead of schedule?

{Because nothing is shooting at us, there are neither spatial nor temporal anomalies blocking our course, and the platform subMind has been specifically clearing our route of traffic. The latter is either to ensure we don't hit anything - no, I am not driving, Reserve is - or so our invisible cooties of imperfection are not flung out to infect local assets. This subMind seems to be a bit high on the paranoid end of the scale concerning us and might benefit from a mental check-up,} spoke Prime into Doctor's mind. {And, by the way, you should be aware that a long-range shuttle pretending to be an asteroid - the paper mache job is rather shoddy, according to Sensors - has limpeted itself to the platform module you are currently within. We've been tracking the thing the last six hours as it moved through the system. At first the platform subMind refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of our sensor data, then it classified the shuttle as non-threat and proceeded to ignore it.}

Doctor was at the end-stage of preparations for probing the tactile sub-key. Yordeen, mostly sedated to minimize distracting whimpers of pain, was strapped prone upon a workbench, sharp-tipped sensors inserted into nerves of arms, legs, and torso in a parody of acupuncture. Dozens of fine wires also sprouted from the rogue's head, transforming him into a high-tech medusa caricature.

{You are interrupting me,} complained Doctor. At the best of times, he tended to ignore datathreads not immediately pertinent to either himself or his hierarchy. With Cube #238 distant, he had subsequently regulated the entire cube node to the background so as to more intently focus upon his assigned task. {This is important to me, how?} One foot-hand held a hypospray with the sedative counter-agent. Doctor had been just about to bring Yordeen to the higher level of awareness required to initiate the tactile test.

{The platform subMind obviously did not inform you of the anomalous shuttle. The fact that there is an invader at all this deep in BorgSpace, and that said invader is parked less than 200 meters from your location, is quite the coincidence.}

{I am busy. As far as I am concerned, the shuttle will have to remain a coincidence until-}

<<Intruder alert! Unauthorized transporter detected, platform module 12c, subsection 29!>> The words blasted into Doctor's mind, as it did all drones within the system, accompanied by a platform schematic. The target of the transporter was...

The sizzling sound of a disruptor ionizing the air, followed by the meaty thump of a heavily armored body hitting the deck prompted Doctor to squat low and scuttle under Yordeen's workbench. One, two, three, four. Within seconds of the invaders' emergence, all four tacticals present in the converted workroom had been disposed. Although the local subMind had not allowed Doctor access to its platform drones' thoughtstreams, he nonetheless knew via the innate awareness of one Borg for another that the units were no longer functional.

Doctor abandoned his temporary safety just long enough to peek one eye around the corner of a pile of obscuring equipment. Four Psugans, one female and three males, all in their prime, all heavily armored and armed, were identified. As the female and one male checked the status of their downed opponents, the third invader began to lob metal discs taken from a satchel at the workroom walls, where they stuck with a metallic *clump*. Meanwhile, the last male was swiftly flash-welding the doors to the exterior corridor shut with welding tape. As the female's aquiline head turned in his direction, Doctor ducked away, returning to his workbench bunker.

"Twingelle! I think I saw something!" shouted the female.

"Your imagination!" was the reply from the direction of the doors. "If there was another drone in this room, it would have attacked us! The transporter inhibitors are set and the door is secured! At best we have five minutes to get our package and make our escape! At best, fledglings! At worst, there will be Borg on us in less than a minute, so don't dawdle!"

A mutter of "Yes, sir"s were the response.

{No,} disputed Doctor, suddenly hostage to the demand by the platform subMind, by the Collective, that he embark upon the very action dismissed by the species #8582 team leader. Only due to his imperfection, to his ability to (sometimes) think for himself, was he capable of the resistance. And that resistance was to fade quickly, subsumed by compulsion, unless he could convince the All the logic that throwing the last drone in the room at the invaders was not just futile, but an unwise waste.

Without extensive modification, Dromelan drones were a very poor choice for front-line (or any line) use where weapons more advanced than spears were expected. Tasks that required dexterity or intellectual excellence were much better suited to species #7582. First of all, the Dromelan form was very difficult to armor and, thus, it was rarely attempted. Doctor was no exception to this rule. Additionally, basic racial biology was largely lacking in the hard bits - endoskeleton or exoskeleton - of which nanites embedded the superconducting matrix that was the basis of Borg personal shielding. In summary, species #7582 drones were exceptionally vulnerable to energy weapons such as those held in talon by the feathered invaders.

Argued Doctor, {If this drone reveals itself, it will be terminated. Then there will be no assets remaining in this room to observe the invaders. What are their intentions? What if they set an explosive? Do something to the rogue? We will know nothing. Our options will be limited.} Both third person tense and plurals were invoked, the first due to situational stress and the latter to emphasize the usefulness of a single drone maintenance unit to the Whole.

The appeal was considered, and Doctor allowed to remain in place. For now.

Two Psugans jogged hastily and heavily into view, or at least the portion of their anatomy viewable by Doctor in his current location. They separated, one to each side of the workbench. It was the female and one of the males, differentiable only due to the slightly smaller size of the former compared to the latter. The lower body of both was almost completely armored. The exception was ankle and foot, bare but for the sketch of a sandal, formidable talons left uncovered so as to allow them to be brought into play during close-quarters fighting.

"Yordeen!" shrieked the female. "What have they done to you?" Her companion uttered a series of curses. Due to his degree of sedation, Yordeen was highly unlikely to understand a pair of rescuers, not Borg, was hovering over him.

Surrounded by enemies, Doctor had instinctually curled his manipulatory arms close to his body. The posture could be interpreted as one of defensive watchfulness. However, it was also the position which his evolutionary ancestors had utilized while hunting in their preferred estuarine habitat, arms spring-loaded and ready to strike at any passing prey item...a menu which could include an unwary neighbor from the adjacent gene-clan.

The female's legs (and talons, sharpness augmented by strap-on razors) were directly in front of Doctor's primary eye and ocular implant. While the secondary eyes on the opposite side of his body-sac could only resolve images as grayscale blobs with an emphasis upon motion, he nonetheless supposed the scene was similar.

"Feather rot! Look at this crap!" said the male, the voice marking him as Twingelle. "Do we take the time to try to remove it? Or do we just cut the wires and hope for the best?"

"Do we have the time?" asked the female softly.

"Since we do not have Borgs in here yet, the transporter inhibitors must be working. There'll be a plasma torch to the door before too long. We need to be out of here and away in less than five minutes. Four, now. The Collective did not notice us coming in, so the shuttle's disguise should get us out. He's your pouch-brother, Greti. You call it."

A few seconds of silence. "He's not been re-assimilated, yet, it looks. If he was no longer, um, himself, I don't think Yordeen'd be like this. Let's pull the...needles out of his arms. And legs. And...and everywhere. I'm afraid to the touch his head. Only the dark deities below know what might be torn if we do. Cut the wires and hope the surgeon waiting back at base can help." Pause. "Yordeen, if you can hear us, we are here to get you out of this hell-hole."

Pouch-brother? Doctor's ears pricked, or would have if he had sported external ears. Such a relationship was rare...and potentially useful. An arm was uncurled, foot-hand sent carefully questing for the tray of surgical instruments set near the workbench. Upon it was a trio of hyposprays, prepared half-doses of sedative to manage the rogue's pain, and minimize screaming, during tactile testing. Doctor had another use for it now.

In the mental background, the local subMind had expanded Doctor's permission levels to allow him to follow what was happening elsewhere upon the platform. The action had been accomplished primarily in the hope that a certain imperfect unit would restrain from yielding to a poorly censored impulse at the wrong time. At the door to the workroom, a team of engineering drones was setting plasma cutter to metal to begin burning operations. However, that action was primarily a diversion.

The Psugans' shuttle was under assault. Except for Cube #238's earlier observation of a 'rock' moving in a most un-rocklike manner, it was highly likely that the vessel would have remained within the Collective's blindspot throughout invasion and escape. Thus far, the co-pilot had been assimilated; and although the pilot had managed to barricade himself into a bathroom, his fate was inevitable. By capturing the shuttle, the invader's primary defense - the transporter inhibitor disks clinging to the bulkheads of the platform workroom - was nullified.

Transporter inhibitors, the opposite of enhancers, prevented transporter use within their field of influence except for a certain narrow frequency. While it was possible to brute-force scan for the open band, such could require an undue amount of time. It was much easier to utilize transporter equipment already programmed to the appropriate frequency, thus bypassing the scramblers.

The Psugan invaders were doomed to failure.

As the workbench overhead rocked with the efforts of Twingelle and Greti to free their fellow Psugan, Doctor clutched the hyposprays he had successfully collected. With one in each free foot-hand, arms had once more curled to a pre-strike position.

A shout from near the door: "Plasma cutters!"

"You do the bindings. I'll cut the wires to the head. If there is damage to my pouch-sib, the blame will be on me," said Greti.

Twingelle grunted an acknowledgement. "We will get Yordeen out of here, Greti. For the risks he took for us - all of us - this is the least we can do. And it still won't repay our debt to him."

In the shuttle, the pilot remained unsecured, but the transporter controls had been assessed, security broken. With a drone linked to the equipment, it was fully within the ken of the All, an extension of the Whole. Ship transporters locked upon the weapons drones within the shuttle, directing them to the platform.

{Live and unassimilated!} implored Doctor. The plan to remove the invaders from significance required modification. With the revelation that the rogue was pouch-sib to the female, and held additional close relationship to the other Psugans, the invaders potentially had high value as prisoners, as leverage against Yordeen. {Live and unassimilated!}

Doctor was ignored. Upon materialization from the transporter, the male nearest the door was immediately scythed down with a disruptor. Simultaneously, the other species #8582, unfortunately placed, was seized into a headlock and assimilated. There was hesitation to dispatch the final two invaders, not due to potential collateral injury to Doctor, but because the rogue could be damaged.

Three arms lashed out; and three hyposprays delivered their contents into Greti's unarmored ankle. The fourth and final arm swung around to curl around leg and pull. Dromelans are strong - Jhad-ball teams comprised of species #7582 tend to rank high, even without illegal employment of psi-abilities - and with the unexpectedness of the attack, it was not surprising that Greti tumbled to the ground.

"What the-?" began Twingelle as he instinctively stepped away and glanced downward. The sentence, presumably to end in a blasphemy, was never completed. A pair of disruptors struck the Psugan, flipping him into the air before landing heavily, and lifelessly, upon a pile of equipment.

Doctor scrambled out from beneath the workbench to stand over Greti. She was already drifting into forced sleep, the victim of multiple sedatives given in too-close succession. A quick appraisal of Yordeen showed the hash that had been made of hours of exacting work to prepare the rogue for tactile testing, but if the female could be kept unassimilated and whole, there was the possibility she could be used to bypass cycles of sub-key hunting.

And, coincidentally, allow the Whole to continue to benefit from Doctor's existence, particularly as appointed to permanent drone maintenance hierarchy head of Cube #238.

Doctor refuse to yield to the approaching tacticals, weapons limbs raised in threat. "We have devised a plan," he said, imploring the subMind, the Whole, to take it from his mind. "But for it to work, we need this species #8582 female." Disruptors remained in place, ready to fire through Doctor should the female so much as twitch in the wrong direction.

Then limb-mounted weapons dropped; tacticals turned away. Additional drones transported into the workroom - engineers to remove the inhibitor disks, open the doors, and generally tidy the mess; and a pair of assimilation drones to take charge of the newest addition to the Collective.

<<With modification, the plan is acceptable. Proceed,>> ordered the Whole.

"Time to wake," called Doctor to his non-patient. The counter-sedative had been administered several minutes earlier and the datathread devoted to the rogue's vital signs indicated wakefulness. Mouthparts rasped with impatience: Yordeen was faking unconsciousness. He still remained defiant, resistant. That would soon change. "Open your eyes before I do so for you."

Lids lifted to reveal yellow eyes. Those eyes narrowed in a glare before flickering down to appraise current condition. Surprise was the next emotion that rippled across the face, followed by the hoarse utterance "You have given up?"

Doctor ground his beak. "Borg do not give up."

Yordeen sat in a comfortable chair specifically designed for species #8582 anatomy. While legs and arms were manacled to the chair, there was plenty of play to the chains. He was even dressed in a clean set of overalls; and the faint smell of soap combined with lack of the general grubbiness which defined his existence suggested a sponge bath. Missing was the degree of binding which prohibited even the tiniest voluntary movement and the overtly invasive devices glommed onto or inserted within the body. A fresh bandage was wrapped around his left thigh, under the clothing, and an unobtrusive net of electrodes was placed against his skull.

Yordeen was highly confused. After so long in the Collective's captivity, this situation was aberrant. "Then what game do you pla-" The sentence died mid-syllable as Doctor wordlessly stepped away and reached out with a foot-hand to pull at the sheet covering the mound three meters distant and facing the rogue. A long moment of silence, followed by a low, almost unheard whisper, "You were a dream. Just a dream...."

In a chair alike Yordeen, but secured to prevent all movement, was Greti. She wore the same coveralls, but the frazzleness of feathers and fur indicated no hygienic care had been provided. A combination muzzle and shock collar precluded any utterance of sound. While Greti's eyes were wide with fear and uncertainty over her fate, the same defiant glint which so defined her pouch-brother was also present.

Pouch-brother. Pouch-sister. The pouch-sib relationship among species #8582 was rare and special...and could be put to use to gain the Will of the Collective in regards to the rogue. In the end, resistance was always futile.

Doctor moved to stand in the space between the two Psugans. Hidden beak clacked once, twice. "Good, good. I see you know each other. No need for introductions. Genetic tests confirm both to have the same parents. Examination of bone samples-" Yordeen glanced down at his thigh, then returned attention to Doctor "-indicate both to be of the same age; and assessment of chemical composition of annuli laid during infancy through adolescence confirms similarity of the pouch and house environment. You are true pouch-siblings."

Like Doctor's own species, Psugans bred many more young than could be raised. Whereas Dromelans left their spawnings to fight amongst themselves in the spawning pool until the victorious one or two metamorphed to air-breathing existence and the open arms of clan, species #8582 petitioned for adults desiring children to raise their pouchlings. Among Psugans, if was obscene and taboo to raise the offspring of one's own breeding. However, as supply always outstripped demand, to find homes for more than one or two embryos per life-bonding meant the pouchlings were highly desirable in some manner (i.e., social connections, lineage, perceived genetics, an extensive pouch-dowry). Alternately, the foster-parents-to-be might be sufficiently rich to afford raising multiple children, although in that case it was often poorer relatives who benefited. Whatever the arrangement, it was unusual for two pouchlings of the same mating to be fostered, and even rarer that more than one went to the same household and were gestated in the same pouch. The closest applicable term for the relationship was 'twins', although the pair were not genetically identical.

Still, pouch-siblings were close...very close.

Doctor turned to squarely face Yordeen. "The time required for Us to forcefully break the psi-lock is too great. You will input the proper sensorium to open the psi-lock, and follow by deactivating the plug. Then you will submit to re-assimilation into the Collective."

The rogue chuckled dryly. "Why? I have successfully resisted your tortures thus far, that of the drone speaking to me and the others which came before. I will die before I comply to your demands."

Stepping out of the way to allow Yordeen an unobstructed view of his pouch-sister, Doctor replied, "Perhaps. But now it is not just you." Pause. "There is an easy way and hard way. If you chose the easy way, you will neutralize the psi-lock now and this female will be assimilated into the Whole." A snort greeted the proposition. "Otherwise, the female will undergo assimilation processing...without nanites.

"I - this unit - am of drone maintenance, not assimilation. Therefore, I have never participated in post-assimilation surgeries. As an imperfect drone, I am prone to mental wanderings, but as long as I perform my designated function as required for the benefit of the Whole, such is allowed. Within bounds. On occasion during idle downtime, I have constructed models to examine how far various species may be processed sans nanites. However, until now, it has been an academic and mental exercise.

"The base fortitude of species #8582 physiology suggests non-nanite assimilatory processing should proceed further than most species, particularly if shock is carefully managed. Given your observed resilience thus far, rogue, and the fact the female is of the same genetic stock, it may be possible to bring the subject - your pouch-sibling - as close to assimilation as possible without nanite injection.

"Several major challenges are foreseen. For instance, the bone laminae matrix which provides for greater drone structural durability and is the foundation of the personal shielding system is normally laid down by nanites. However, at least three work-arounds found amongst the Collective's medical and material sciences archives have the potential to be adapted to the situation. Admittedly, I am skeptical, given the extreme temperatures required, how the technique outlined in volume 57 of Home Foundry and Glass Casting is applicable without.... Never mind. Personal reservations are irrelevant. This drone a mere single unit, and imperfect. The Whole has done the heavy thinking for me, and all I need to do is perform as ordered."

Doctor paused briefly to allow the implications to register. "You will watch the processing. All of it. As practical, the surgeries will occur as alike to normal as possible." In other words, there would be no anesthesia. All drones remembered their own processing, and Yordeen was no exception. While pain management during the operations was primarily controlled by nanite-built implants, it was rarely adequate. Such was by design. The Collective took advantage of the situation by offering a refuge for the mind to escape its tortured body; and by doing so, the drone was more fully integrated into the All. Due to the impossibility of manually inserting the implants without killing the subject, they would not be present for Greti, and nor would the sanctuary of the Collective be available. "You will be able to end the processing at any time by inputting the psi-lock key and clearing your socket. At that point, the female will be assimilated, or terminated should she be beyond salvaging."

Yordeen blinked once, then peered at his pouch-sibling. Thoughts were clearly running through his head.

Perhaps, before this was all over, Doctor would finally learn the Collective's interest in the rogue. The female likely knew, as did the team which attempted to extract him. Alas, the Whole continued to withhold that knowledge from Doctor, it unnecessary for his performance in breaking Yordeen back to the All.

Greti began to make "mmmm" sounds, or tried to, at least. Each effort at noise activated the shock collar, which temporarily paralyzed her vocal cords.

Doctor shifted focus, pivoting to face the captive. "You have something to say?" The glare he received was a more than adequate answer. "Very well. Be concise." A pair of steps, a flick of foot-hands, and both gag and shock collar were removed.

"No, Yordeen! Persevere! I knew what could happen before I arranged to free you from this hell-hole!"

"Assimilation. Or death. You don't know what this drone means to do." Yordeen's voice was quiet. He was plainly reliving the details of his own assimilation. And he also clearly did not believe it possible to dissuade his pouch-sister.

"It will be pain. Just pain. What can pain do?"

Silence. Doctor pivoted towards the rogue just in time to see the Psugan's expression firm into one of stoic defiance. "I will resist. /We/ will resist. To the end, whatever it may be."

"It will be-"

The sentence was never completed. The time for irrelevant small talk and rebellious posturing was over. At a quiet word from Doctor, two tacticals had moved away from the wall. They approached the chair, one to each side, and picked it up. Ignoring the startled protest, followed by string of invectives, the chair and its occupant was silently carried to an awaiting workbench. Doctor trailed behind: the assimilation catalogue of equipment suitable for use by species #8582 was large, and there were many options to consider.

"I have a dilemma concerning which ocular implant to install. On the one foot-hand, Model 12d includes a superb macrolens, able to magnify small objects up to seventy times; but on the other foot-hand, Model 14a incorporates an excellent thermal imaging option. I inquire because your dossier indicates you possessed the latter, until it was exchanged during de-assimilation for your current artificial eye, and, thus, should have an insight concerning performance." Doctor paused, then continued slowly, "There may be a third alternative, although it is not specifically configured for species #8582. It would require a moderate degree of modification of the visual cortex to allow integration of input with the brain, but the end result could be superior to the standard ocular implant models. Or permanent blindness, if the surgery was unsuccessful. Either way, the third option would impart new data to the Collective."

Doctor held an ocular implant - Model 12d and 14a - in each of two foot-hands as he made his inquiry to Yordeen. Given the third option was nonstandard for the Psugan species, no example was immediately present, although one could be acquired if necessary. Chained in his chair, Yordeen was silent, eyes following the bob and weave of full foot-hands while occasionally darting sideways to stare at the scene behind Doctor. If Doctor was correctly matching the rogue's expression to examples in the appropriate datafiles, then his unwilling captive was displaying a high degree of horror liberally mixed with revulsion.

It was an expression which had changed little in the past two cycles.

Air was expelled heavily from body-sac. "Very well. The best choice for this circumstance is Model 14a." As the other times Doctor had requested permission, he was denied the opportunity for experimentation. Although he had leeway in multiple aspects of the nonstandard assimilation procedure, novelty was disallowed, even if it would augment future processing options in regards to species #8582. "While the other ocular implant model would be acceptable for an engineering, drone maintenance, or assimilation unit, the subject has been slated for a tactical suite. Therefore, thermal imaging is desirable over an exemplary zoom function." Doctor pivoted to face his patient-of-the-moment while simultaneously depositing the unneeded implant within a nearby bin of similarly discarded parts. "Installation and testing of the implant should only require 2.4 hours, which will leave just sufficient time to work on back tendons prior to my next scheduled regeneration and your, and your pouch-sister's, downtime. As armor will be grafted following the downtime, tendons are a critical preparatory step."

Of all surgeries, Doctor found tendon operations the most satisfying. None really appreciated the value of a well-built tendon, until it snapped under a too-great stress. Tendon replacement was a common surgery upon Cube #238, as it was on any Borg vessel whose primary duty was to move cargo, due to the body strains placed upon engineering drones. And after a unit had visited drone maintenance the third time in a month to repair or replace the same tendon, he or she or it was more amiable than usual to consent to one of Doctor's suggestions to test an experimental material or tendon type not necessarily rated to their species.

Ever the optimist, Doctor strongly desired the Collective to approve the nonstandard tendon installation request he had crafted in regards to his patient. The insertion points were non-traditional for species #8582, but the end result should increase torso strength and loading capacity by 14%...and perhaps as much as 18.5%, if the exotic materials option was accepted. Unfortunately, the petition would have to wait for another couple of hours: the ocular implant required his full attention.

Holding the ocular implant lightly with his delicate fingers, Doctor aligned it over the raw socket where Greti's right eye had been sited less than fifteen minutes earlier. Simultaneously, he examined the patient's virtual body model and reviewed species #8582-specific notes within the Model 14a installation file. Finally the implant was temporarily set aside, swapped for a precision bone laser.

"Although the Model 14a is an excellent match for tactical units of your race, it was originally adapted for a biped with a larger ocular orbit. Therefore, it will be necessary to shave approximately 0.75 centimeter of bone from the right side of the socket to ensure a proper fit." Doctor had been maintaining a running commentary since the first incision. He did not expect scintillating conversation, but it was agreeable to have an audience. His platform drone 'assistants' were not the same - one might as well be talking to a wall - and units on Cube #238, both patients and fellow drone maintenance members who might be in the vicinity, were likely as not to strongly request Doctor to shut up if he began overly monologuing his actions.

Greti's beak gaped as the bone laser neared her face. "Strong," she wheezed. "Stay. Str-ong. Pouch-bro..." The admonishment turned into a thin, nearly airless hiss as cutting began. As always, Doctor was personally astonished at the amount of pain the patient was able to withstand without lapsing into unconsciousness or requiring a sedative injection. Through their very resistance, the pouch-sibs added data to their racial dossier in regards to resilience. The consequence was to increase the attractiveness of their species to the Whole, particularly as tactical and severe-environment engineering drones, thus, moving the Psugan one step higher in priority for assimilation.

Doctor, as all Borg drones, strove to be useful to the Collective. And it was his small part which was responsible for the adjustments to the species #8582 profile. Once again, it was demonstrated the loss the Whole would suffer should he be terminated because the rogue refused to yield to the inevitable.

For two cycles the female had been undergoing non-nanite assimilatory processing. An additional 1.8 cycles was estimated to reach the conclusion point. Normal processing time, at least to install major components, was measured in hours, but such assumed multiple assimilation units performing surgeries in an assembly-line fashion. Doctor was but one drone, and because there were no nanites aboard, the patient required a modicum of downtime between operations to manage for body shock. Additionally, while Doctor was confident processing could have progressed faster, the Whole had decided to extend the surgery schedule for psychological reasons, allowing the rogue more time to mull his non-options, with the modeled expectation of submission raising to near 100% the longer the horrific procedure extended.

After two cycles, Greti had the appearance of a drone in the midst of full-body reconstruction. Or a victim of a secret government experiment to build a super-soldier. Feathers had been shaved. The left arm was gone, amputated early in the processing and replaced with a suitable prosthesis. Long incisions, half-healed by a dermal regenerator - no nanites meant a lack of speedy epidermal repair - were the remnant sign of successful bone lamination. Servos in the major muscle groups were emplaced. Foot talons had been supplanted with a durable metal alloy able to sustain a wickedly sharp edge. Torso incisions and the angular outlines of unseen implants pushing against the overlying skin suggested major realignment of the innards. The empty eye socket was only the latest in the atrocities being sequentially visited upon the female Psugan.

Greti's beak gaped. Fingers of the remaining whole hand convulsively balled into a fist, nails scoring blood from a palm already well marked with similar self-induced lacerations.

"Stop. Stop. Stop! Stop!!" blurted Yordeen, voice breaking. "I yield! Yield! Just stop!!"

Doctor finished the cut - a proper practitioner of the medical arts did not stop in the middle of his work - and lifted away the bit of bone before turning to regard to rogue. "You surrender to the Collective? Resistance is futile?"

"N-n-n-n-no," whispered Greti. "I. Will. P-p-p-per. Se. Vere."

Yordeen's yellow eyes were riveted upon his pouch-sib. His voice softened, "End it. Just...end it. You can have me, by the feather rotted demon lords high and low. I yield. Please-" the rogue heavily swallowed "-promise to terminate her. She has suffered enough. The damnable Collective wants me. I will suffer for both of us."

Doctor set down the bone laser upon a workbench surface. "Input the sub-keys." The psi-lock could not be reinitiated once it was broken. "Comply."

"I...comply." A sigh. One by one, the proper sensoriums were iterated. "That particular green of the homeworld seas, just before a storm hits. A single reverberant tone from the wind chime in my pouch-father's garden. The first warm planetary breeze I felt across my defeathered face when I knew I had successfully escaped the Borg. The smell of my pouch-sister's perfume before her first date. A Terran chocolate chip cookie." Yordeen glared at Doctor defensively. "If you had ever eaten a chocolate chip cookie, you would understand."

Doctor turned inward to regard several datastreams originating from the electrode net upon the rogue's cranium. The indicators were positive. "It is done," he said aloud, unnecessary because the platform subMind was monitoring the same information.

An assimilation drone beamed into the workroom, next to Yordeen. It silently reached out a hand, made a fist, and summarily injected nanites into the Psugan's neck. Task complete, it vanished in the clutches of another transporter, returning to its prior assignment. Even though the psi-lock had been neutralized, it would require up to thirty minutes for the plug to fully disengage, at which time the nanites would construct an organic neural transceiver upon the newly empty socket.

"Terminate my pouch-sister. I've consigned myself back to Hell. She doesn't need to come along for the ride." Resistance may have been futile, but Yordeen obviously meant to show defiance to the bitter end.

Doctor offered a four-armed shrug of indifference. It was all the same to him. He would have liked to have taken the surgeries to their conclusion, but the female's use had been in breaking the rogue, and she was no longer required. Termination was as good a disposal method as any. However, as he pivoted on heel, eyes searching for an appropriate tool to sever neck arteries or cervical spine, four Borg forms materialized from a transporter.

"No! You promised!" howled Yordeen. No promise had actually been made, but such did not prevent the Psugan from trying to break his chains, to stand from his chair. "Don't take her!"

But it was too late. To Doctor, the reasoning was self-evident: the Collective had lost thousands of very useful species #8582 drones in the effort to re-integrate the rogue, and, thus, it was efficient to begin to rebuild stocks immediately. Greti was even partially processed. In a business-like manner, one of the four assimilation units set nanotubules to neck; and then the drones, Greti, and bench were transported elsewhere, presumably to a workshop dedicated to the appropriate surgeries required to finalize the female's transition to the Borg.

Yordeen heavily collapsed to the chair, ignoring the attention, and aimed disruptor limbs, he had garnered from two nearby tactical units. "No," he murmured. "No." And then he was silent, not speaking again. Doctor locked his limbs and quietly watched for the next hour, noting with interest as the spark of defiance which had so defined the rogue's resistance slowly leaked away. Yellow eyes dulled. Whatever Yordeen's final personal thoughts, the only one he shared them with were himself.

Eventually the platform subMind's drones took the blankly staring unit once known as Yordeen away. It was the definition of anticlimactic. Although Doctor was satisfied with his success knowing he had provided an important service to the Collective, and would continue to do so in his role as Cube #238's permanent drone maintenance hierarchy head, one thing continued to rankle him. He never had learned why the ex-rogue had held such high importance to the Whole. One could only hope that the reason was important, not because, for instance, he knew the passcode to DirecTriVi's premium movie channels.

Doctor dismissed the annoyance from his mind. As he plodded to his alcove for regeneration, he instead focused upon the excellent manner in which he had completed his assignment, as well as began a comprehensive review of how ten randomly chosen species might be processed, sans nanites, should he have the opportunity once again in the future.

A high priority maintenance roster advisement flashed through Doctor's mind. Someones had been attempting something ill-conceived in Interior Cargo Hold #8, and the result was chemical and thermal burns, crushed bone, and springs embedded were springs had no reason to be. It was Doctor's opinion that Prime, as consensus monitor and facilitator, should prevent impulsive activities, such as the 'collaboration' between weapons and engineering to build a better whatever, from occurring. Except, in this instance (as many similar), Prime was among the victims, albeit with minor cracking of dermal plates which did not require the immediate attention of drone maintenance.

It was highly inconvenient: Doctor had been just about to resume installation of the alpha-serotonin augmentation implants into 56 of 370. The experiment to reduce the subject's symptoms of claustrophobia had been interrupted at the Platform #542; and now, Cube #238 well on the way to the next portage, the surgery was disrupted again.

How was a medical professional ever to get things done?

As it was, Doctor's important pursuits to augment Borg (and, by extension, the universe's) medical files was behind schedule. After being ahead of schedule much of the time during Doctor's temporary reassignment, to the point where it seemed the cube might return before the twelve cycle deadline, Cube #238 had abruptly experienced delays. In the end, Doctor had been forced to spend 7.5 extremely boring cycles in an alcove waiting for his sub-collective. The platform subMind had been disinclined to utilized the highly trained resource represented by Doctor, once the rogue had been broken back to the Whole, and, thus, he had been left with little to do but contemplate medical-related files. Admittedly, Doctor had devised some interesting experiments to attempt, when the chance and injury presented, but such was not the same as having foot-hand upon a patient.

One would almost think, given Cube #238's sluggish return to Platform #542 proper, that the sub-collective was loath to retrieve their new permanent drone maintenance hierarchy head. However, such notions were ridiculous, given the excellence and skills represented by Doctor. Therefore, the delay was obviously yet another technical issue associated with the imperfectly assimilated crew which staffed Cube #238.

Sighing, Doctor set down the surgical scalpel. 56 of 370 would have to wait. Priorities not of his devising demanded attention.

"34 of 77," called Doctor to one of the drone presently on duty in Maintenance Bay #2, "prepare several liters of general neutralizer for the burns. And 68 of 160, consult with engineering to find something suitable to extract springs. And...mechanical pencils? To extract whatever needs to be extracted. Two of the incoming patients have severed limb ligaments and tendons, and they would be perfect candidates for a recently assimilated organo-metallic recipe. Admittedly, the normal application is as tensor cables in deepwater tidal bore turbines, but I believe adaptations are possible."

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