Disclaimer: (Aces high) Paramount is the Ace of Star Trek and Spades. Alan Decker is the King of Star Traks and Hearts . Maija Meneks is the Queen of BorgSpace and Diamonds. James Hunter is the Jack of the Terran Chronicles and Clubs, but only the lowly Two of Clubs when playing in this universe.
The more obscene language has been ***ed out.
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
-Murphy's Law
A Smith & Wesson Beats Four Aces
"Borg cube, oh Borg cube, WAKE UP!" exclaimed the GPS mech. "D*** Borg." The voice, if you could call it that, definitely sounded very p***ed off. It would have sounded that way, if anyone had been paying attention. The mech, a member of mech species #3, called Xenig by all nonBorg, was shaped roughly like a clam. It was painted to look like a loud Hawaiin t-shirt from Terra and it had no external ports that could be detected, if anyone bothered to scan the mech chassis that is. It also sported letters on the hull that were a hot pink bordered jet black color. "All right, (stupid Borg), I wonder how you'll feel in a different universe." The mech opened a wormhole and tractored the cubeship into it. "It has been one bad century."
If the mech had been paying attention, it would have noticed the Borg transporter signature in its cargo hold. Instead of paying attention to itself or its cargo, though, it was throwing a cube into alternate universes.
*****
23 of 42, or 0.5476190476 as he prefered to be called, found himself in a dark room completely cut-off from the Collective. It was an unsettling experience to say the least, but George dared him to do this and he had never backed down from a dare. "George, are you serious about this?" asked 23 of 42. "Well, okay, why can't I hear the rest of the cube?...You don't know! Then help me figure it out!"
*****
{What do you mean he disappeared?} asked Captain.
{He's gone, the little puppy transported away.} replied Doctor.
Sensors chimed in, {He is nowhere on the ship, but Sensors think you should look outside of face #5} Sensors had the annoying habit to refer to herself in the third person.
{Fine, is the sensor grid the way I like it?}
{Oops. Sorry, now it is.}
{Oh cr**! A mech of mech species #3. Sensors, how long has it been there and what does it want?} ordered Captain. This situation reminded him of the Progenitor incident a few weeks ago. He saw a mech that looked very much like a Terran clam, should a Terran clam be 200 meters long, 184 meters wide, 90 meters high and wearing a loud Hawaiian t-shirt with jet black runes bordered in hot pink which stated "Subcontracted Courier of the Galactic Postal Service - Deliveries Anywhere, Anytime, Anyplace".
{Around three minutes, it's been hailing us saying that it has a package to deliver.}
{Why didn't you tell me earlier?} Captain had a feeling that nothing good could come of this situation, especially since it had to do with a GPS mech. GPS mechs gave the term postal a whole new meaning. The only other time Cube #347 met a GPS mech, they wound up going to many awful places that weren't too conducive to health.
{Sensors was trying but you were too caught up in what was happening in Maintenance Bay #6}
{What are you doing to the sensor grid?} Captain asked, seeing bright purple and red streaks where once was the blackness of space.
{Sensors didn't do anything. Sensors thinks that the mech is responsible.}
/Again/, thought Captain disgustedly. {Who was trying to have a package delivered?} he yelled out into the intranet. Silence. {I'll find you anyway, you might as well fess up now.} Silence. Making a note to himself to find the culprit later, he realized that he could no longer hear the Greater Collective. It was an unpleasant feeling to say the least. {Hierarchy heads report.}
Delta: {Minor damage to subsection #48, submatrix #7.}
Weapons: {Weapons and shields still functional.}
Doctor: {Two new drones were added to my maintenance docket.}
Assimilation: {The usual. (Sigh) I might as well watch the paint dry.}
Second: {I found another hamster.}
Sensors: {Sensors has pinpointed our location. We seem to be in the same spot but the [white zangy butterflies] are much more abrupt.}
Captain: {Weapons, dispatch teams to hunt down and terminate those hamsters.} {Don't hurt them.} interrupted Doctor.
Ignoring Doctor, Captain continued, {Use /drone-mounted/ weaponry only. If you need to make a hole in the cube consult Delta first. If Delta says no, you will not make a hole anyway. Understood?} He could still hear Doctor whimpering about his hamsters.
{Compliance.}
{Sensors, you will find out what happened to us.}
{Compliance.}
{Delta, commence cube repairs.}
{Compliance.}
Second: {We should check on subunit #522.}
{I forgot all about them.} Captain linked into the cameras in Bulk Cargo Hold #3. He saw the drones of subunit #522 running around (yes, running) and ramming themselves into walls. {Second, calm them down. Put them all in stasis if you have to.}
*****
0.5476190476 activated his targeting laser to provide a little light. He found himself in the midst of many boxes marked "this side up" and "fragile" and so on and so forth. George told him that he thought it would be fun to see what was in the boxes. 23 of 42, agreeing, went over to the nearest box and took the lid off. "A harmonica! I've always wanted to get another harmonica."
At this point, you should be told that before this drone was assimilated into the Collective, he was the harmonica player in a band. He was also a very mentally ill person. He thought that he had a quite visible friend named George, but no one ever saw this George person. Friends could attest that he didn't even know anyone named George. Now back to the story.
After playing a few notes on the harmonica, he explained, "It is even in tune. This is wonderful. I even remember how to play it." The cargo bay doors started to open at about this time. "Uh-oh, we better hide." He hid behind some boxes marked for delivery to a planet named Stal Four.
"Get those boxes out of here already," boomed a voice that seemed to come from everywhere.
"Yeah, yeah!" yelled back the workers.
*****
Gron (the mech) checked its delivery list. Next stop: Yevan. That is complete sh**, thought the mech. Those d*** Yevans /always/ pick COD and /always/ try to haggle the price down. It dropped through a wormhole and arrived outside the planet.
Yevans come from the planet Yevan in the Gamma Quadrant. They were a species of stocky breed. Three arms and two legs each with seven digits. Covered in brown fur, they were the Gamma Quadrant business equivalent of the Alpha Quadrant Ferengi.
"Hey there, Yevan Station 6c. I have some packages for you."
"Come and dock at port 12a," said the station controller with a precise tenor voice.
"Not until you pay for the mail."
"Ha ha. Just give us the packages."
"Pay me first."
"All right. How much is it?" was the reluctant reply. Gron named a price.
"That much? How about 75% of that?"
"How about you pay full price and I let you live?"
"You wouldn't do anything to harm us," the station controller said confidently.
"Oh yeah? I already sent a Borg cube to a different reality. All they did was not answer my hails."
"But that is the Borg, they deserve it."
"Not as much as you right now," Gron threatened in a stern voice. If you could call it a voice.
"Right, how about 90%?"
"I'm growing impatient..."
"95%."
"I warned you...let's find you a nice little pocket dimension, or maybe," it said with a metaphorical light bulb above itself, "you would like to be sitting next to a supernova in progress." With a flash both Gron and the station disappeared and reappeared next to a red giant star.
"You were serious!"
"Duh! Now, will you pay me, or should I leave you here? Either way you will pay, just in different ways."
"We'll pay for the packages, we'll pay!"
"Full price?"
"YES!"
"I'm waiting for payment, the star will go supernova in about four minutes. That is your time limit."
"Transmitting payment now."
With a flash, both reappeared right where they had been before. "Going to the docking port." Gravity fields fluctuated as the mech ship altered them to move to the port earlier mentioned. The Xenig version of impulse was not as flashy as that of other species, but it was much faster. It opened its cargo bay doors, "Get those boxes out of here already."
"Yeah, yeah!" was the reply of the workers.
*****
Captain was standing at his normal nodal intersection with Second waiting for the report from Sensors. He looked to his side and saw four tactical drones firing weapons at eight different hamsters. One shot narrowly missed Captain. {Weapons, tell your hierarchy to learn how to aim.}
{They know how to aim,} came Weapons' indignant reply.
{Then tell them to do so.}
{Sensors reports that Sensors cannot find out what happened.}
{Wonderful, why don't we just drop in on the nearest planet and ask where we are?} Second piped in sarcastically.
{That is a great idea Second. That is exactly what we'll do,} rejoined Captain.
{Are we going to get to blow things up?} interjected Weapons eagerly.
{Not yet. We need to find out where we are before we start destroying things.}
{Why?}
{Because I want to rejoin the Collective as soon as possible.}
Manipulating the command codes a bit, the cube leaped into a transwarp conduitand went in the direction that Sensors had specified to be the nearest planet.
Cube #347 came out of the conduit at the edge of the system and proceeded in at impulse. An outside force slowed the cube down as it passed near a moon. This caused much confusion among the drone compliment. Captain intercepted a hail (audio-only) coming from the fourth planet from the sun.
A voice, bass, speaking in a language almost exactly like that of species #5618 (Terran), "Hello unknown cube-shaped ship. This is a restricted area. Please give the proper authorization to be here or be destroyed. You have ten minutes. Oh, and unless you wish to slag your engines, don't try to escape."
This caused a major uproar led by Weapons.
{They are actually threatening us. We should kill them all.}
While most drones were swayed by Weapons, others took matters into their own hands and tried to run away. Captain finally managed to block the command codes for both the engines and the weapons from the rest of his crew when it was found that the voice from the planet was correct. There was no escape. {Sensors, find out why we can't move.}
After a few more comments for destruction from Weapons and more grabs for the command codes, Sensors came up with an answer.
{Sensors detects a large and /very/ powerful tractor beam set-up on the nearby moon. She also finds a large forcefield with a strange [rosebud blue] tinge surrounding the system that wasn't there when we got here.}
{Well that probably makes escape impossible, but I still want to move around. Weapons,} Captain ordered, {destroy the tractor emitter on that moon.} The acknowledgement of that order came not in words but in an incredible lust for obliteration. Powering up more weapons than were needed to destroy a Galaxy-class Federation ship, he saturated the emitter and the entire area within 1 kilometer of it. Lust for obliteration not quenched, he swiftly took control of the engines and sped at high impulse towards the nearest ship. A few seconds later, Captain regained control of the cube and reprimanded Weapons along with assigning Delta to give him a suitable punishment. He then retreated the cube to a spot next to the forcefield.
*****
"They are powering up their weapons, sir." informed an ensign at a console monitoring the condition of the cubeship.
"The shields are raised, correct?" asked the shift officer.
"Yes, sir."
A /very/ short time later, the emitter was a satisfying cloud of debris and the worries of the shift officer no longer were of any matter to anyone, including himself.
*****
The command center on the main base of the planet Stal Four was in complete chaos.
"Look at that..."
"They can't do..."
"Amazing!"
"How did..."
Finally cooler heads prevailed and inserted order back into the world. "ATTENTION!" yelled Colonel Kars. By reflex, everyone in the room became silent and snapped to attention. "Lieutenant Loch, report."
"The cubeship incinerated tractor station #2, ma'am. It then headed towards Heavy Frigate Yalsin, and suddenly stopped, reversed direction and is next to the system perimeter field."
"Tell Heavy Frigate Yalsin, Peregrine-class Destroyer Akira and Starflare-class Cruiser Siren to capture or destroy the intruder, whichever they feel like. Now, everybody get back to work."
*****
"We get free reign? I like the sound of that." said the Captain of the Yalsin upon getting the message. "Rendezvous with the Akira and the Siren. We are going to kill these bastards."
*****
{Captain, Sensors sees three ships of various types coming toward us.}
Captain could feel Weapons try to take control again. {Weapons, you are already balancing on the edge of my patience, don't push it. I'm giving you your command codes back on two conditions, you will not use them without my express permission and when you do use them, you will not use more weapons than needed. You will comply.}
{Compliance.}
{Good, now do something about those three ships.}
The cube's shields came up and weapons came on-line. Just enough to destroy the ships if they have the current estimated resistance quotients. The three ships opened fire at their maximum range, just outside of Cube #347's maximum range. Torpedoes and missiles, disruptors and lasers, all sailed in towards the cube. More flavors, smells and [shark roses] than Sensors even cared to imagine had assaulted her and sent her into an almost catatonic state screaming {The [lime green balls of pencils]!}. Doctor had transported her to his maintenance bay for immediate help. Captain assigned Second to temporarily take the place of Sensors. With much grumbling about that not being his job he did so. A combined eleven tractor beams lanced out from the three ships. An ultimatum was issued by the largest of three ships: "Surrender or die."
Captain activated a camera at subsection 24, submatrix 12 and spoke in the Collective multivoice. "Surrender and death are irrelevant. We are Borg. Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." He terminated the connection, waited until the shields adapted to the frequency of the tractor beam and moved the cube forward a bit to bring weapons in range.
*****
The Akira, the largest of the three ships arrayed against Cube #347, and a Peregrine-class vessel was shaped more like a constipated duck in flight than the extinct bird for which its class of ships were named.
"We're being hailed, Captain," reported an ensign at the comm station of the Akira.
"Bring it up on the mainscreen." The bridge crew was greeted by an endless view of catwalks.
"Surrender and death are irrelevant. We are Borg. Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."
"What the hell are you talking about? And what is with that voice?" the captain directed to the cube.
"Connection has been terminated, sir."
All of the sudden the ship rocked with a quantum torpedo barrage followed up by two phaser hits and a cutting beam brought the shield down and sliced the Destroyer into many pieces.
*****
As the Siren bombarded the massive cube with all its arsenal: lasers, disruptors, particle beams, rail guns, missiles, torpedoes and rockets; the crew could just watch in impotence as the cube (now identified as Borg) dismantled the Akira. Now, as an afterthought, the ion cannons were activated, locked onto target and fired.
*****
"How did they get out of the tractors?" asked Captain Crawse of the Yalsin. These questions was posed mere moments before the Borg cube tore the Akira apart. Crawse, watching the scattering cloud of debris, "Kill these f***ers /now/. I want them dead. Lock all available weapons onto that ship and burn it out of space."
*****
Delta was having a fit. {Captain, pull us away from this battle. Their new weapon is shorting out whole sections of this cube,} Delta screamed through the intranets.
{No, don't do it. We will adapt. We have destroyed their largest ship,} was spoken by Weapons.
{Shut up, Weapons,} Delta replied.
Ignoring Weapons, Captain maneuvered the cube below the plane of the ecliptic and out or range of the weapons of the two ships. This put them next to another moon and a tractor beam latched onto them. The cube's shields merely shrugged it off. Upon seeing that the two ships that they left behind were coming towards the cube, Captain activated thrusters and ran into a forcefield.
{Captain, I already have enough to deal with, don't run us into things,} yelled Delta, threateningly.
{Second, what was that?}
{The sensor grid says it's a forcefield like the one surrounding the system, only this one surrounds us.}
{So you're saying that we are trapped again.}
{Yeah, sucks doesn't it? Hey, wait a minute. The ships have stopped coming towards us.}
{We should have killed them when we had the chance,} chimed Weapons.
{That weapon was disabling the cube piece by piece,} interrupted Delta.
{We would have adapted to it,} said Weapons, sounding confident.
{We were not adapting fast enough.}
{When will the repairs be complete Delta,} interjected Captain into the almost-argument between Delta and Weapons before Weapons gets hurt. Those two had always been at odds with each other.
{I don't know. The circuits in the systems affected have had their polarity reversed. Other than a complete shut down and restart of those systems, I'm not sure how to fix it.} Delta wasn't even sure if a restart would fix it.
Captain could feel the weapons powering up and firing. He hooked into the sensor grid in time to see the cutting beam dissipate against the shield. Not daunted at all, Weapons used phasers and quantum torpedoes against the shield, to no prevail. {Give it up Weapons, it is not going to work,} said Captain. Reluctantly, Weapons ceased his assault on the forcefield. {Doctor, what happened to Sensors.}
{Sensory overload,} Doctor put mildly. {The amount of sensory information coming towards her was more than even she could handle. She went catatonic. Like I said, sensory overload. This little grasshopper should be okay soon.}
Cube #347 must be in an alternate reality, the Terrans of their universe were not so well equipped and did not have weapons that would completely short out Borg systems. Captain ran a hasty concensus as to what should be done next. The action that won out was the 'stay-here-and-wait-to-see-what-happens-next' scenario. So Cube #347, deciding that the only plausible action was inaction, sat and waited and watched.
*****
"What do you mean they ordered us to stop attacking them?" yelled Captain Crawse. "We have them trapped! This is our best chance to kill them!"
"The orders were sent with the words "EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY" at the top in bold, captain," the Ensign at the comm station explained.
"Power down all weapons and bring us to a full stop," ordered Crawse. "Now, I guess, we just sit here and wait."
*****
"Tactical, tell me how they broke through our tractor beams," ordered Colonel Kars.
"I don't know, ma'am. May I make a suggestion," offered the Lieutenant at the tactical station.
"Go ahead."
"We could always ask them."
"We could couldn't we. We do hold all the cards. Unless they pull out a fifth ace from their sleeve, then we are in complete control. Communications, hail these Borg people and tell them that we'll make them a deal."
*****
Captain, expecting those two ships to have terminated this sub-collective, was surprised by the hail. He turned the camera in subsection 24, sumatrix 12 and answered the hail.
"Hello? What is with these d*** catwalks? Anyway, I hope that I am speaking to the captain of this ship. I am going to offer you a deal. You give us the technology that was used to disable our tractor beams affect on your ship, and I will let you leave this system. No more harm done either way. So? How about it?"
In the Collective multivoice: "Deals are irrelevant."
Captain cut off the transmission. {Assimilation, are you in their computers?} While the Terran's irrelevant ramblings were proceeding, Captain had directed Assimilation to piggyback the planet's signal to gain access to their computers.
{Yes. Encountering an unusual amount of resistance in their databases though. Many traps and false directories have been installed, to keep out intruders it seems. Ah, so that is what Sensors meant about the forcefield at the outskirts of the system.}
{What are you talking about now Assimilation?} asked Captain, hoping that he just acquired a way to break out of the forcebubble enveloping the cube.
{Their shields work like one-way mirrors. Objects can pass through from one side to the other when going away from the ship, but cannot pass from the outside in. Well, the field around us is the exact opposite. Things can come from the outside in, but cannot go from the inside out.}
{Have you found the way they make their shields do that,} Delta said with great eagerness.
{No, I have also not found the way to fix what that weapon did to the cube's systems,} responded Assimilation, anticipating Delta's next question.
{Keep us informed,} ordered Captain.
*****
"Well that was rude. Maybe I should tell the Yalsin and Siren to go ahead and kill them," said Colonel Kars to herself. "That is a good idea, I think I will. Communications, signal for the destruction of that Borg cubeship."
"They're in our computers!" shouted a Lieutenant by a tactical console.
"Send the orders to kill them," ordered the Colonel.
"Yes, ma'am."
*****
Gron was becoming increasingly irritated. Not only had the mech had to blow up his last two deliveries but that d*** harmonica music would not stop. Where was that coming from anyway? It turned its cargo bay sensors on and found a Borg and a plasmic entity that didn't show up on anything but omega particle scans. A /Borg/? How did a Borg get on this ship and what is that other strange being? Gron turned on its internal speakers, "Hello Borg and other strange individual. You must be from that cube I sent away. As I only have one more stop to go, I will offload you and let you be killed there. Oh yeah, and /stop playing that harmonica/!"
Both 0.5476190476 and George were startled by the loud voice. "That's it. I am about to be terminated. It has been nice knowing you George."
Gron checked his delivery sheet. Station Stal Alpha-Aleph 3. Isn't that around where I sent that cube? it thought to itself. I guess they have another chance to answer my hails. Gron opened a brilliant purple and red wormhole and vanished.
*****
{They are powering up their weapons again,} reported Second.
{Assimilation, have you found a way around this restraining field of theirs.}
{Not yet. But I did find out that their shields can be swithched to acting like a bubble and form-fitting.}
{But that breaks two or three of the fundamental laws of physics,} protested Delta.
{A mech has appeared next to us.} announced Sensors.
Weapons activated the shields, Second explained that Sensors was back and he would now resume his position of redundancy. Captain answered the hail.
"Hello Borg cube. I see you answered me this time. Sorry about this whole alternate reality thing. It has been a bad century. Here is your hitchhiker back. There are no packages for you, I just wanted an excuse to relieve my stress on you. Keep the harmonica."
The two ships fired their weapons and they passed through the space where the cube had just been. It was now safely back in the Beta Quadrant and the commander of the base at the Stal system, along with everyone else, was now thoroughly confused. The mech didn't even try to explain.
*****
After their uncomfortable absence from the Collective, it was a welcome relief to be back in their original universe, even if they were still stuck in the Beta Quadrant.
{How are repairs coming, Delta?}
{The mech seems to have not only returned us to our original reality and postion, but fixed that whole reversed polarity mess, too.}
{Maybe we should get subunit #522 out of stasis,} suggested Second.
{Why do I keep forgetting about them?} asked Captain to himself. He sent the order to subunit #522 to awake from stasis. {At least they didn't get in our way like they did when we were in the Jhad-ball Tournament.} Subunit #522 imediately wanted to know what happened while they were in stasis. Captain thought to himself that it was going to a long time cycle.
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