M. Meneks, 84 years old: "When I was your age, not only did I walk uphill both ways, in the snow!, to get to school each summer, but Paramount owned all of Star Trek and A. Decker wrote Star Traks. The only thing I contributed was BorgSpace. You still listening, you whippersnapper? Well, that all took place shortly before...."
A Speeding Cube Gathers No Stardust
One hundred three thousand, two hundred eighty-one lives lost in mere seconds. Forty-two thousand six hundred biological units were consciously terminated moments later due to extensive injuries and distance of nearest functional maintenance facilities. Shock reverberated through neural pathways of a hive mind stretching tens of thousands of light years. The Collective grieved the loss (not in terms an individual might understand for drones were expendable) as years of research and adaptation were annihilated and useful bodies destroyed. The next emotion to surface was determination; the Borg would succeed, small setbacks were irrelevant.
A ship in the area had survived: Cargo-class Cube #522. The manifest included spare parts and power matrixes necessary to the construction and testing of the new technology. Unfortunately, while the epicenter of the explosion had been several light years distant, substantial damage was reported by surviving crew. Projection to transwarp capability? Answer: crucial prototype power matrix crystals would decay tens of days before efficiency was restored.
Inventory of nearest cubes and current tasks - three vessels within twenty light years. Cargo-class Cube #791 could not be diverted due to delicate nature of the alloys it was transporting to Refinery Station Gamma 3b in grid 19032. Battle-class Cube #884 similarly was unavailable because of a propulsion system malfunction unrelated to the blast. Exploratory-class Cube #347....
Exploratory-class Cube #347 was the vessel onto which the Collective stored those drones which experienced what it termed "assimilation imperfection". Every once in a long while something went wrong in the assimilation process. The problem was not severe enough to warrant termination of an otherwise perfectly usable body, but the results were not comfortable either. Minds incapable of full integration into the hive, minds able to /think/ for themselves if not constantly managed, those imperfectly assimilated had the potential to cause inharmonious fluctuations within the Greater Consciousness.
Yet those same corrupted minds, those same bodies, were Borg in all other ways. There was no active pull to disrupt the Whole, no goal other than the quest of perfection, all directives of the normal drone. Much of the time all was fine; it was when odd difficulties arose that the imperfectly assimilated inadvertently spawned problems. The solution? Exploratory-class Cube #347.
The cube in question was the designated dumping ground of all those deemed to be less than perfect, yet not justifying termination. It was the location for those few thousand which fell in the gray area between useless dross and serviceable drone, shuffled out of the limelight and away from important tasks. The assignments posted to the root command lines of Cube #347 were overly dangerous, or tedious, or low-priority; providing useful service, the cube and its members were deemed more expendable than the usual sub-collective.
Now...now an important, a /vital/, task had appeared, and the best solution required Cube #347. The few alternatives were unappealing, requiring years of dedicated manufacturing to return to the current point of tech research; the Borg knew many things, but there were certain laws of physics even they could not break. This, unfortunately, was one of those times.
A mulling of the options, a calculation of the odds - billions of drones assimilated for their cerebral excellence attempted to predict an unknowable outcome. In a universe of nearly infinite possibilities, Cube #347 tended to find the few insignificant and unplanned for loopholes, charging ahead in a convoluted consensus which inevitably led to greater difficulties. However, review of the data files and memory logs of the most recent assignment showed a rare Oneness when under pressure...most of the time, at least.
To function properly, Cube #347 had evolved a unique system of "hierarchies" and "heads", divisions within the sub-collective based upon basic ship functions. Archives did not mention exactly how such a system had developed, but while inefficient when compared to the general Oneness of the hive mind, it nonetheless was better than the chaotic and often militaristic ways employed by the majority of the galaxy's races. The combination of heads in the most recent task, the tracking of species #8511 to their home star, had been extremely successful; the program of that species' assimilation was proceeding smoothly.
Assignment complete, the Exploratory-class vessel had been powered down to a status of complete drone stasis and directed under autonomous navigation towards Resupply Depot and Shipyard Iota Beta in grid 3210. The cube was to undergo upgrading of weaponry and general structural maintenance before being dispatched to the next task. It currently was within fifteen light years of Cargo-class Cube #522. The decision was made, the urgency was great. Emergency arousal commands were sent into the systems of Cube #347, followed by planting of new root directives.
4 of 8 rose from the dark depths of oblivion, reaching for a bright light. {Wake! Wake! Wake! Wake!} The siren call pounded through his synapses, compelling compliance. {Urgent emergency! Wake! Emergency! Wake!} There was no avoiding the order. 4 of 8 automatically opened his eye to the dim interior of a Borg ship, data from his optical implant meshing smoothly with its organic counterpart to provide a complete picture. He, along with four thousand comrades, stepped from alcove to catwalk, umbilicals disengaging smoothly.
Data began to flow from the central processors: location, cube integrity, weaponry and shield status. A sense of wrongness permeated the dataspaces; this was not how the sub-collective was supposed to wake. {Emergency! Emergency!} No immediate threat was detected in the space surrounding the cube. Information continued to pour into receptive minds. The unease of one drone in particular built, then was confirmed as hierarchy heads were listed.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" echoed the voice of 4 of 8 throughout the walkways and corridors of subsection 17. A similar piercing cry reverberated in the dataspaces all the minds of Cube #347 shared. 4 of 8, the consensus facilitator and all around baby-sitter of the sub-collective for the previous assignment, had expected to see the responsibility of leadership pass to the next member of the Hierarchy of Eight - 5 of 8. It was not to be. The Captaincy had landed square on the shoulders of 4 of 8 once more.
{The Greater Consciousness has never dictated our leadership structure before,} complained the paired mentality known as 12 of 19, forced head of the engineering hierarchy. {I protest in the strongest of terms!}
{And how do you propose to do that, Delta?} returned 3 of 8, Captain's continuing second in command - i.e. a glorified captaincy redundancy system. {You don't have access to transporters, regeneration systems, and so on in every single cube of the Collective. It is in those small ways that you can make our lives so interesting when you care to.}
{Don't mess with me Second....} warned Delta. Technically the sub-designation of 12 of 19 should have been Engineering, but the one-mind-in-twin-bodies despised that term. At her previous assignation of responsibility, Delta had declared both her "name," and the fact she would not stand to be in charge again for a full rotation of the Eight, or else. Her refusal to alter her sub-designation to Epsilon, which was the logical progression she normally followed, was in itself an indication of her impotent wrath.
{All of you, be quiet.} Captain was in a similar sour mood. The directives of the assignment were unusually terse: rendezvous with damaged Cargo-class Cube #522, take on delicate cargo, then await further instructions. The coordinates of the pick-up were approximately .5 of a time cycle distant at top transwarp speeds. As compliant as ever, Captain had already sent the ship into a conduit; however, the obvious lack of information was bothersome.
What caused the damage to Cargo-class Cube #522? Sensor logs indicated a vast explosion in the general direction...what was the origin and was it linked to the hasty rendezvous? Some disaster had recently occurred, the general harmony of the Greater Consciousness was disturbed. And what was to happen after the cargo transfer? Queries by the sub-collective to the Greater Consciousness were returned with odd reluctance, mostly on the order of "The answers are irrelevant. Your task has been set. You will comply." What was a drone to do? Comply.
Captain mentally signaled out Sensors, {Report on the analysis of the explosion.} If there was one head out of all the hierarchies Captain wished had not been locked into the current static position, it would have been the one 1 of 3 continued to hold. While the insectoid was very good at directing, analyzing, and interpreting sensor data and its relevance, the grid configurations employed to gain the information were nonstandard to say the least. Then there was the little problem with transforming raw data Sensors saw as perfectly logical into a form everyone else in the cube could use.
{Sensors says that the mass and elements represented is consistent with six Cargo-class cubes, five Battle-class cubes, two Exploratory-class cubes, and one research/manufacturing complex. Several unusual spectral lines are being emitted by the cooling debris, but the most peculiar is the [salty cherry green] taste of quantities of benemite.}
{Benemite?} questioned Delta.
Although in many respects it would at first seem that the hierarchy heads were the only ones "speaking," that impression would not be true. Far from it. The leadership of the cube in many cases merely voiced the findings of the hierarchy underneath, presenting a schizophrenic forum for the sub-collective to talk to itself. And since the cube had been firewalled in the direct request for information, it had to draw on its own resources to ferret out answers. The conclusions were not cheery, salty green or otherwise.
Benemite crystals, especially in the amount inferred by the sensor hierarchy, took years to grow. Gravity, light, radiation, seed mixture...all had to be carefully controlled lest the shards of the artificial crystal be pronounced useless baubles. Partially because of the intense requirements for manufacturing a product with few outstanding properties, the Borg had ignored any potential uses, content with materials which could perform similar tasks at a fraction of the industrial cost. Then came an intense interest in species #116, who had recently discovered an application of the crystal in a new type of stardrive: quantum slip-stream. The species was completely assimilated, the technology adapted for a prototype engine.
Cube #347 knew all this information in the manner a person might know about the major agricultural exports of a neighboring region on a planet. The data was not important, and therefore not kept directly in working memory, until an action, such as a drought in the case of the example, might cause an otherwise triviality to become a vital necessity. Benemite was now meaningful, for its research and adaptation to service Borg technology had been occurring in the system at the heart of what was now an expanding sphere of debris and exotic radiation. Something had gone seriously wrong, and the Greater Consciousness was not telling Cube #347 what had happened.
To put it succinctly, Cube #347 was heading into the outskirts of a major industrial accident.
Even in its damaged state, Cargo-class Cube #522 was an impressive sight, a monument to the Borg obsession of not thinking small. Fully four kilometers on an edge, the cargo vessel dwarfed Cube #347. Instinctively known schematics showed a series of holds ranging from merely large to cavernous in proportion, the largest able to easily hold an entire Exploratory-class cube. At the heart of the monster, a duel transwarp core provided the power needed to sling the ship to conduit speeds, and to provide the strongest deflector shields known to exist. The distant detonation had not only shredded electromagnetic protection and shorted out the entire power grid except for a few small emergency generators (each on its own sufficient to power a Federation galaxy-class ship), hull armor had been stripped to bare duralloy plates in places. Ship regeneration systems were non-operative; the remaining three hundred twenty-one functional crew of the original two thousand were attempting to repair the most vital problems manually.
Cube #347 came to a stop five hundred meters from face #3 of Cube #522. The face was a mass of scars and craters, visible superstructure crumpled and antennae clusters sheared; congealed pools of metal attested to the destructive force the cargo vessel had weathered. And this was the leeward side. Almost immediately, the sub-collective of Cube #522 warily began protocols to link the two groups into one purpose of shared thought. Status, damage report highlighting the nonfunctional nature of the local transporters, and manifest with high priority items outlined for removal and storage in Cube #347's holds were uploaded into active memory.
{We note malfunctions among crew; do you need access to drone maintenance?} Captain asked, acting as mediator between 27 of 27, Cube #347's head of drone maintenance, and the opposite sub-collective. In the background, Doctor's sense of relief was evident when the offer was declined: he had more important things to attend. Captain was about to follow up on /that/ disquieting thread of thought when the cube's transporters were activated by outside command codes, beginning the movement of material.
Unusual engine components, tentatively catalogued as belonging to a prototype Borg quantum slip-stream drive were the first to be transported, beamed to Bulk Cargo Hold #1; however, the queries for confirmation as to the true identity were ignored. Into Bulk Cargo Hold #2 went five hundred forty-eight maturation chambers, each containing a creche clone with new biological modifications. Data was forthcoming on this cargo, as the stasis-bound clones of twenty-four different species was enroute to be delivered to Biological Research Planetoid #132. A fairly low-priority freight, but too sensitive to remain on Cube #522 until it could be repaired or salvaged. Lastly, three metric tons of benemite crystals was carefully beamed to Bulk Cargo Hold #3.
Two hundred fifty of the remaining drones on Cube #522 summarily locked onto their physical signatures and beamed themselves into the hold with the benemite. The move was unexpected, not that Captain would have done anything to prevent the action.
{Our sub-collective splits into two subunits. This subunit is to remain aboard Exploratory-class Cube #347 and reinitiate prototype program; second subunit is to continue repair of Cargo-class Cube #522.} 143 of 1810 was the designation of the subunit's current consensus monitor and facilitator, an extremely fluid position in a normal sub-collective, assigned to whatever drone was cerebrally competent and most convenient. Confusion reigned within the dataspaces as protests were raised, most of them dealing with the fact the Greater Consciousness had never purposely mixed integrated drones into the ranks of the imperfectly assimilated. Others, however, had more pragmatic concerns.
45 of 300, subdesignation Weapons, head of the weapons hierarchy was the first to voice hostile opposition, {No! No! No! This has been my alcove for twenty-seven years, and it will remain my alcove until I am rendered down for spare parts!}
{My alcove is my own, and I'll share it over my terminated body!} cried 99 of 240, riding the wave of protests.
Echoed 12 of 310, {I donna wanna double up! My exotic rock and mineral collection will get disorganized, not to mention my "Spatial Anomaly of the Month" posters!}
The protests became louder as more members of the sub-collective refused to "bunk" with the new drones. Cube #522 subunit broke in a second time with: {This subunit requires a bloc of neighboring alcoves. To retain our usefulness to the Collective, we must limit corruption upon the mentalities of this subunit. Physical alterations of data node and distribution system will be constructed as per the following instructions. This will further limit corruption through the initiation of a dataspace and link to central archives of this cube able to be physically firewalled at need.} A series of schematics followed the pronouncement, eliciting more protests.
{Two hundred fifty alcoves taken is bad enough; we barely have that many spares. But they don't come in blocs! I'm not moving!} shouted 320 of 510. Agreement registered from all corners of the cube. Captain momentarily reflected on the amazing facility for the sub-collective to be as One in the irrelevant matters, yet completely derisive in situations of possible termination.
{Assimilation,} snapped Captain, blocking the bulk of the clamoring voices in his search for a particular drone, {situation report.}
13 of 20 sighed. He did not care what happened to himself, did not care if he was to be moved or not, just did not care, period. A long oblivion in stasis was his just reward for serving as head of the assimilation hierarchy, a lingering darkness where his memories could color his internal vision, lighting up a drab and overall boring reality. Now it was back to growing nanites, back to doing little except stare at the bulkhead...and that was on the good days when the black clouds of depression had lifted a bit higher in the gray sky. The current day, however, was not good. {The ninety-six sentients assimilated last assignment were off-loaded at time index 8232.11324, shortly after we entered complete stasis. Available alcoves at this time is two hundred fifty-eight; and they are quite scattered all over the place. If the alcoves are filled, bloc or no bloc, we will have few standard regeneration alcoves left in the remote chance we acquire and process additional drones.}
Captain accepted the three-dimensional schematic of the cube from Assimilation, sending the diagram spinning slowly in the common dataspace. Free alcoves were highlighted in blue; the largest bloc was a row of ten in subsection 14, submatrix 5. Delta swiftly pointed out the reason for the continuous row was the fact that part of the central transwarp core heat dispersal system passed through the interstitial spaces behind the alcoves, causing the temperature to rise to an uncomfortable forty-six degrees Celsius. No attempt had been made to fix the low priority heat leak because all drones assigned to the area inevitably transferred themselves elsewhere within a few regeneration cycles.
A tendril of thought was sent back towards the waiting awareness of 143 of 1810, {What you require is difficult, to say the least. Why is it necessary for the surviving sub-collective of Cube #522 to sunder itself and remain on board this vessel?}
{The answer you seek is irrelevant. You will comply.}
Captain hastily backed up to try another approach. The last thing he wanted was for the subunit to bring in the Greater Consciousness and force compliance, thereby taking away all options. {Your request will leave this cube with few free alcoves. In the case of this cube necessitating assimilation of even low numbers of sentients, we will be severely hampered by lack of room to store the new drones we are obligated to keep in stasis.}
Silence as the subunit mulled its options. Seconds later, a shorter time period than that which would have been needed by Cube #347, transporters began to register the beaming of two hundred fifty spare alcoves into Bulk Cargo Hold #3, along with quantities of materials necessary to appropriately link them to the local systems. Concurrently, the manifest for Cube #522 listed the depletion of the same items from various stores.
{We will construct what we need in this cargo hold. You will prepare linkages to all relevant systems.} Captain sent assent even as he ordered members of the engineering hierarchy to assist.
Part of Bulk Cargo Hold #3 was transformed into an assembly of alcoves, data pillars, and power distribution nodes. Wires, hoses, and other connectors snaked among the equipment, eventually disappearing into bulkhead plates through newly drilled holes. Lighting and environmental controls had been altered to bring the normally unoccupied hold to the standard conditions found throughout the rest of the vessel. At the far end of the cargo area, long shards of benemite crystals glowed a dim yellow, three metric tons carefully stacked and secured. The remainder of the bay contained typical replacement parts, spools of wire, bricks of alloy, vats of crude organics, and other miscellaneous supplies.
Cube #347 had left the imposing shadow of its much larger conspecific three time cycles prior, speeding away at high impulse before jumping to transwarp. No specific destination was given to Captain, so he randomly generated a coordinate and sent the cube on its way at the minimum transwarp velocity possible.
A routine of sorts was now established. It primarily involved the subunit of Cube #522 moving within and outside the ship, installing bits and pieces of hardware from the supposed quantum slip-stream prototype drive. The engineering hierarchy was ordered to assist, welding a sensor cluster here, reconfiguring a deflector there, all without knowledge of the purpose of the final outcome. All the benemite had been moved to the central transwarp core, and fifty-eight drones were in the process of assembling what resembled a huge rack with sufficient pigeonholes to singly hold every benemite shard. The rack, partially complete, arced around the primary drive; when complete, the core would be in the center of an open-ended cylinder. Delta was not pleased.
{This is inefficient! Normal maintenance duties have been superseded by an endeavor of which the end point is unknown! If we knew exactly what we were building, if we knew what tests needed to be performed at each junction, all would proceed at a faster pace. As it is, the deflectors did not pass the calibration, and I have two hundred drones on the hull redoing an entire time cycle of effort.} Delta imaged a view of the central engineering core from two alternate, simultaneous views. The normally neat area was a mess of discarded metal and high-tensile ceramics, with drones busy at various activities.
Captain listened, as did the subunit facilitator 143 of 1810. The reply which was forthcoming was also part of the new routine. {Your complete knowledge is irrelevant. We retain all necessary data; you will follow directions as given.} There was a distinct note of disgruntlement in the signature, as well as puzzlement. 143 of 1810, echoing his subunit, did not question authority, and did not understand why Delta (or any other member of Cube #347) did. {You will comply.}
A build-up which signaled a scathing reply of swearing was quickly intercepted by Captain. {You will comply, Delta. Now.} The head of the engineering hierarchy went completely silent - never a good thing - before sending a positive acknowledgment. Captain posted a quick note to himself not to use the site-to-site transporter function for the next few days...assuming he did not find himself floating a kilometer from the cube, the possibility of all of his components arriving in the same place just dropped by several orders of magnitude.
{Delta does have a point. We would work more efficiently if we had complete knowledge of the final product.} Captain attempted to diplomatically gain what Delta had tried to force. The lack of success was expected.
{Irrelevant. You are designated facilitator and consensus monitor of the sub-collective of Exploratory-class Cube #347; this drone would be acting in your place on this task, if odds of corruption did not limit the future usefulness of this subunit. You will comply and oversee such directives as given by us.}
A very familiar routine, indeed. Captain mouthed the words of 143 of 1810 to himself as he stared at the Borg-standard viewscreen showing an off-color series of vectors outlining the movements of other Borg ships within a sphere of an eighty light year radius. The fisheyed view did not enhance the already warped hue combinations relayed from general Collective transponders via Sensors and her hierarchy.
It was like talking to a rather idiotic computer, the mechanical repetitive replies and denials for a complete upload of information and goal. The screen display shifted slightly as a cube at the edge of the spherical volume changed to a different color; dipping into the datastream revealed the confrontation of Battle-class Cube #7911 with a shuttle of fleeing species #8511. Captain could potentially tap into events tens of thousands of light years distant, but could not resolve a local dilemma which had the primary vocabulary of "Your knowledge is irrelevant" and "You will comply."
Finally, out of desperation, out of a collective frustration infusing the neural and technological webs which bound the members of Cube #347 together, Captain reached for the Greater Consciousness to appeal the need for data. Delta abruptly broke into what was usually a connection with Captain acting as sole buffer and mediator, protesting about the unusual modifications being done to the cube. The whining was a mistake. The Greater Consciousness immediately took complete control of the situation, implanting root level compulsions into the base command lines of Cube #347's central processor. Now the sub-collective had to assist, had to comply unconditionally with all demands of the Cube #522 subunit, and /still/ did not know what the final outcome would be.
{Thanks Delta,} bemoaned Second.
Growled Captain, {We will comply Second. Delta, that was a complete mistake. I would assign a punishment, except whatever the hell we are doing to our cube is probably going to be punishment enough.} Captain paused, took full stock of the most recent addendum to the task at hand, and began to dictate swift orders. At least the cube would now wire itself to become a large bomb with efficiency.
It was during the initial power-up sequence the original prototype drive had sustained its accident. Following the old adage of "if a little is good, more is better," the Borg had decided to use five metric tons of benemite as the quantum catalyst to fling an Exploratory-class cube into slip-stream. Five hundred kilograms would have been more appropriate. And like a steam locomotive with too much coal in the burner, the boiler burst. No starship used a boiler, of course, but the results were similar: too much energy had been forced through the benemite matrix, and it could not withstand the stresses. An instability cascade was initiated in the crystals, which ended in an explosion of immense proportion. It was those facts/memories which were learned as Cube #347 passed the point of aborting the test.
Exploratory-class Cube #347 abruptly disappeared.
Panic subsided moments later when it became clear the ship was to remain intact, at least for the next several minutes. After initial subspace turbulence, the ride became quite smooth. The murmuring minds and background voices of the Greater Consciousness was oddly muted, but still understandable. The prototype was a success. The exterior slip-stream effects were visually similar to traditional transwarp; much of the technology used in the quantum drive pointed towards that mode of transportation being the next logical step forward, building upon prior advancements. A cold blue tunnel with the subliminal sparkle of polished diamonds stretched fore and aft.
{Oh! What astounding, metallic, sweetly cold smells this form of transportation provides! Sensors feels the prickles, the needles of [purple drenched] quantum [fizzle] detonations against the grid,} waxed Sensors.
143 of 1810: {We do not understand. We do not understand this sensor data.}
{You'll get used to it. We don't understand either,} said Captain as he shifted his attention elsewhere in the dataspaces. {Delta, the Greater Consciousness be hanged, we've completed the task. Stop us so we can return to BorgSpace and back to a normal routine. I don't want to be captain any longer than necessary.} A tickling sensation in the command codes - 143 of 1810 had not withdrawn, nor the minds he represented.
{This test must be allowed to proceed.}
{I don't think so,} stated Captain. {I may not want to be facilitator, but this is still /my/ ship, and /I'm/ in control. Initiate those commands you are stringing and I'll be forced to take action.}
{Irrelevant. No _one_ is in control. We do as the Collective complies. We must continue the test.}
{Irrelevant yourself.} This was accompanied by a rude pict. {We have not been informed of the goals behind this task beyond the obvious desire to initiate a prototype jump into quantum slip-stream. Fine, assignment complete. /I/ have not been made aware of any other directives demanding immediate compliance, therefore personal survival of this sub-collective is allowed to take precedence.}
{You will comply.} Two hundred fifty minds focused on the mentality of the drone designated 4 of 8, current facilitator and consensus monitor of one Exploratory-class Cube #347.
The latter buckled slightly, then stiffened his resolve as the hierarchy of command and control was rallied. {We will not.}
{You will comply.}
{We will not.} Engineering and drone maintenance added their voices.
{You will comply.}
{We will not.} Now all four thousand drones of the sub-collective stood mulishly against two hundred fifty. Although the latter were solidly One in purpose, the former were more numerous...and united in this particular effort.
The internal tug-of-war continued, command codes for the ship alternately initiated, blocked, circumvented, rewritten, partitioned, and firewalled in a computational cycle with a complete loop of milliseconds. Meanwhile, Cube #347 hurdled through the quantum tunnel, each second taking it light years farther from the starting point, each second degrading the benemite crystals at the core of the drive. Phase variations in the deflector output began to appear, automatically corrected by the autonomic "hind-mind" function of engineering. Unfortunately, phase editing was fractions of picoseconds slower than normal as the internal bickering lengthened.
{You will comply.}
{We will not.}
Molecular bonds slipped, microscopic cracks threatened the basic integrity of the benemite matrix. Power through the shards fluctuated erratically, three metric tons of crystalline mass throbbing green and yellow, ignored by drones concentrating on the internal debate. A deflector, unable to compensate for a surge in power levels, shorted with a spectacular gout of molten metal. Increased strain shifted to the larger system; another deflector exploded, followed by a third. The superstructure of the cube began to shudder as inertial dampeners struggled to cope with worsening quantum turbulence.
{You will comply.}
{We will not.}
{ENOUGH!} broke Delta into the stalemated argument, {We have a major problem on our hands!} Herefore ignored reports on mounting structural damage poured into the minds of all drones, followed by the five most likely outcomes should the ship continue in its suicidal rush along the quantum tunnel. The only difference between the outcomes was in the details concerning a massive deflector failure and subsequent disintegration of a vessel 1.3 kilometers on a side.
Erecting a hasty, yet strong, partition between the subunit from Cube #522 and his own sub-collective, the equivalent of rudely slamming a door in someone's face, Captain initiated an emergency consensus. Outcome? Drop into normal space immediately, if not sooner. With one part of his mind leading the effort to remain one computational encryption step in front of the Cube #522 subunit, Captain multitasked at high speed, another part directing the engineering hierarchy to flick the quantum drive's off switch. Unfortunately....
{All power relays fused; if we attempt to beam the core away, the wrenching stop will smear our molecules over several tens of light years, if not more.} As the primary engine was in the center of the cube, there were no mechanical safeguards present. In general, the Borg weren't real big on safety issues - escape pods, basic equipment on the ships of most species, were deemed a waste of space, the material better employed elsewhere - so the lack could not be viewed as unexpected.
{Sensors sees the disintegration of [yellow wobble spikes] to [turpentine crustaceans] of [metallurgic calendars]! Quick, hasty [bubbles] before sticky [jello] condenses!} rung the panicked warning from Sensors.
{Huh?} The sub-collective paused for a suicidal moment. All the words/thoughts were known, had actual meanings, but strung together in such a manner made less sense than normal. The wild gyrations of what appeared to be a fifth-dimensional pictorial representation of the data rendered in a confusion of olfactory impulses did nothing to clarify the incoming sensor grid information.
Captain reeled, {Sensors! Modify your output. We don't understand.}
The data abruptly transformed into a series of wave modulations, representing the quantum state of the tunnel. The primary frequency was that which the cube had piggy-backed onto as it wobbled in and out of the perceived universe, paradox in motion as it tunneled to infinity and back, touching the entirety of the universe at once. The cube, born of real matter and not exotic particles with a life in the range of mere decimals of a nanosecond, could only travel along the mathematically described state for a finite distance. Increasing pressure mounted the longer the cube stayed in the tunnel, the odder properties of quantum physics asserting themselves to remove the foreign object. The rising instabilities translated to interference patterns, modulating the base quantum sine wave which the sensory hierarchy was measuring into a nightmarish complication of random spikes.
Words slowly said, {Sensors predicts the wave will collapse on us shortly unless we get out of here. The engineering hierarchy can not react quick enough to correct for the fluctuations.}
Another deflector exploded, eliciting a collective wince from those inside. {Didn't I already say that? }stated Delta. {Add to that the additional strain put on the rest of the system every time a deflector is lost, and eventually it wouldn't matter if we had all the drones of the Collective at our disposal...no hardware, no corrections, no cube.}
The engine was a prototype; there was no information on how to (non-violently) leave the tunnel. A short amount of time did exist before the point of no return was passed and the cube was thrown out of the quantum state. Several working partitions of three hundred drones each were contrived, set to brainstorm possible solutions. One by one, each potential answer was modeled; one by one, the sub-collective watched themselves smeared and spindled on the merciless anvil of physics.
{No,} said Second as he simultaneously forwarded another idea, {jettisoning 67 of 310, even if she did manage to duct tape twenty-five drones in her submatrix during their last regeneration cycle, is not a viable option.}
{But....} argued the voice of the miffed drones, one of the victims of the vicious attack.
{No.}
A multivoice: {Flatten the line.}
{And I don't care if you are all in unison agreement, but flattening 67 of 310 won't help our predicament either.}
{Um...Second...we twenty-five didn't say that.}
Pause. {You didn't? Then who did? Flatten what line? Don't make me find you, whoever you were!} The last was directed as a general announcement towards the whole sub-collective.
{Brilliant!} yelled Delta. {Flatten the line! Cancel the slip-stream with the application of harmonic interference. The theory is sound and is proven to work in traditional warp drives.} The current simulation was abruptly halted, the depressing outcome already apparent. The new, simple, solution was introduced into the model.
{What? Flatten what line?!} Confusion in Second's words.
The model came to its conclusion, with the object central to the manipulations, Cube #347, miraculously whole. Mostly. Close enough. Captain told the engineering hierarchy to get the cube the hell out of the tunnel. Now. Second was still broadcasting his cluelessness as the cube stretched like a rubber band, snapping back into the normal universe.
Cube #347 was an utter mess, tumbling through space at several thousand kilometers per second. Not a derelict, far from it, but outward appearances were not very pretty either. Most of the grid of small deflectors along one face were shallow craters of solidified ceramometallic alloys, and hull armor in many places was cracked. Bare areas showed where antennae and sensor clusters had been sheared off with the exactness of a barber's razor. The occasional purple glare of a thruster bit into the dark in an effort to correct the spin, but it had little effect as several banks of engines were currently rendered useless.
Inside the ship, damage control was already underway. Nearly the entire thousand plus of engineering hierarchy were giving Delta an intense concentration headache, but ruptured conduits, frozen relays, atmospheric leaks, and broken power distribution nodes were steadily being repaired. Crew of drone maintenance worked swiftly to fix damaged members. Through all the bustle, one thought prominently echoed, "Where are we?"
It took many long minutes for the sensor hierarchy to locate the minimum required thirty beacon pulsars, carefully using the Doppler shift of each naked neutron star to plot three-dimensional coordinates. The results were not encouraging. On the plus side, the cube was still within the Borg's home galaxy. On the down side....
{Sensors places our position deep within the Beta quadrant, towards the hub, and out of the plane of the elliptic. Sensors can find no detailed charts of this portion of the galaxy within the database; we are in an area that is not scheduled for preliminary mapping and sentient species sweep for another century.}
{Joy,} said Second. Captain was busy supporting Delta in the monitoring and directing of repairs. Most of the weapon and assimilation hierarchy had been drafted into the effort, and two thousand plus minds was too many for Delta to handle alone. Therefore, Second was left in charge...of course, not much to supervise when one is tearing through space out of control in a vessel half blind with five percent shielding. A shuttle piloted by species #4102 (heavy planet race, not warp capable; assimilated for their considerable brawn, not brain; now extinct outside the Collective) could penetrate defenses and wreck considerable havoc. {Time to return to main BorgSpace?} Not Borg-claimed territory; all the galaxy was claimed by the Borg, they just hadn't gotten around to cataloguing it yet.
A series of calculations could be felt cascading through the sensor hierarchy. Second followed the rapidly changing numbers, and was not surprised by the answer. Approximately one solar year, IF this was a normal cube and return was at top transwarp velocity. {The cube Sensors is currently in? Sensors is not even going to hazard an accurate guess. Factoring in normal delays, stopping for supplies, malfunctions, random spatial anomalies, burgundy zort daisies, hostile aliens, and the possibility of some idiot in the Federation messing with the space-time fabric, Sensors might estimate anywhere from a year and a half to never.} Pause. {Sensors is leaning toward the never end of the scale.}
Second groaned outloud, sent Captain the dataspace equivalent of a memo to read during a break in the total concentration needed for the repair effort, then began to pace back and forth in the nodal intersection. Eventually the Greater Consciousness would have to be informed as to the exact nature of the problem, but that was something Second didn't have to do. As he paced, a change in the matrices caught his attention, a ripple on the other side of a software partition.
A multivoice, the same one Second had caught earlier: {We demand to know what is going on!} Whoops. In all the commotion, the subunit of Cube #522 had been listed at the bottom of the "important" file. During the emergency, a semi-permanent partition had been erected to contain the minds of the subunit, followed by the initiation of a random encryption lock algorithm; they had no access to any system, including sensors. While the dataspaces were "seeable," the chaos Cube #347 normally operated in was probably as confusing as hell to a sub-collective used to an orderly environment. The partition could be broken within five minutes if the two hundred fifty drones in question devoted all their resources to the problem, but for some reason the subunit had not done so (at least not beyond the "flatten the line" episode), and had not linked with the Greater Consciousness either.
Second erred, then masked his mental signature as much as possible and hastily sent: {We are sorry, all circuits are busy right now. However, if you will hold on the line, we will get back to you as soon as possible.} A random accessing of the music inventory had the monotonous tones of "A Gong Prayer to Celestial Perfection and Divine Retribution" by species #6439 shunted to follow the words. The unabridged version.
Second hurried from the nodal intersection and along the level's walkway, ignoring a rain of sparks falling from a catwalk above. A loud curse rang into the empty space of the submatrix's central shaft; on the intranet boards, maintenance docket registered 123 of 240 fusing the elbow joint of its prosthetic arm when its partner applied the live end of a wire to the limb as a "shocking" joke. A rebuke from Captain, one of many, pierced the general chaos of the dataspaces before his mental signature moved on to the next crisis. Second stopped before a particular alcove, reaching out to momentarily lay his hand on the data pillar next to it.
Captain opened his eyes, focusing on the face of Second. "What? I'm just a tad bit busy, which is why I left you in charge of less vital business." He automatically tilted his head up and to the left, as if he could see through layers of metal where 123 of 240 continued to work fixing the sparking short, attempting to be useful with a malfunctioning limb while waiting for its turn in a local maintenance bay.
"I'll take over. You have other matters to take care of, ones that are your responsibility as captain."
Blink. "You are giving me orders? You are not designated Captain. And why did you physically interrupt my concentration? Delta's load just increased again."
The head of the engineering hierarchy would never admit to directing more than she was able. However, the very real limitation was a physical one; the species Delta originated from did not have the natural neural wiring to overwatch and coordinate thousands of drones for long lengths of time. The unnatural effort would cause neurological breakdown. Delta could persevere for short amounts of time, assisted by numerous within the ranks of engineering and command and control as well as sheer willpower and stubbornness, but one of the Hierarchy of Eight was required to be ultimately in charge.
"No, just telling you what is. And this was the easiest way to get your complete attention." Second immediately downloaded the recent time index of his memory, starting at the time subunit #522 initiated contact and ending with the first clashing notes of an orchestra pit full of gongs. Species #6439 really liked their percussion.
"Crud."
"Yup," said Second as he took a pace further along the walkway. He turned his back towards the alcove assigned to his designation, stepping up and into it. As clamps automatically steadied the drone in place, Second closed his eyes and darkened his implants, dropping into a whirl of requests for assistance, repair updates, complaints, whines, and situation reports. Conversation, on-site imaging, and other communication flew from signature to signature. At the center of the chaotic cluster, the twin presences of Delta directed. Second entered the fray, taking the overload.
Meanwhile, Captain fully disengaged his awareness from the dataspaces, preparing himself to face the Cube #522 subunit. He stepped down from his alcove and made his way towards his frequented nodal intersection, glancing up once as a "sorry" floated downwards, followed by the sound of a head being repeatedly slammed into a bulkhead. 123 of 240 was now demanding to be seen by drone maintenance because of a fused knee in addition to the elbow. Its crewmate, 216 of 230, added his name to the docket - reason: bent skull plates.
The nodal intersection was a place Captain had spent too much time the last assignment. A bare area on one bulkhead, the previous site of an overlarge viewscreen since dismantled and hidden, looked empty. The Borg-standard round screen nearby was blank, malfunctioning. Captain sighed...he might as well get it all over with. First the Cube #522 subunit, then the Greater Consciousness.
The Greater Consciousness demanded, and received, every data file, every sensor log, every personal perception and memory of events relating to the prototype quantum slip-stream drive. Estimated energy output, nuances of quantum fluctuation, stress experienced by cube superstructure...the download required was phenomenal. The only thing missing from the Collective's wish list was the actual prototype, dissected from Cube #347 for examination before placement in a more suitable (i.e. integrated sub-collective) environment.
Two realities hampered the final desire. First, the cube was very much out of BorgSpace and away from appropriate facilities. Second, the benemite shards which were the heart of the drive had completely decayed during the harmonic reversal of the quantum frequency output. Approximately three metric tons of a fine yellow powder was in the process of being swept into barrels and stored.
The Greater Consciousness came to a conclusion. Cube #347 would eventually return to BorgSpace, but haste was not required at the moment. All ready stores of benemite had been exhausted, and it would take several years to manufacture more. Eight large factory complexes were already being built to stockpile benemite, and three research facilities retrofitted to examine the problem of manufacturing benemite in a more timely fashion. The Borg were patient; examination of the original physical prototype could wait while a second generation drive was designed and built. Other opportunities beaconed.
<< Initiate change in current assignment parameters. Primary task: return to BorgSpace, Shipyard Zeta 3d, grid 10713. Secondary task: initial mapping of grids 86110 through 72291. Secondary task will focus on signs of sentient civilizations, possible resources, and temporal-spatial anomalies detrimental to navigation. All additional directives concerning Exploratory-class Cube #347 remain in effect; current hierarchical arrangement remains in effect. >>
<< Subunit of Cargo-class Cube #522 to retain awareness, act as sub-facilitator if necessary. Primary task: monitor and store data to present an unbiased record of assignment. Corollary: all relevant precautions will be observed for subunit to remain uncorrupted. >>
<< This opportunity will not be wasted. >>
The awareness of the Collective faded into the background, leaving Cube #347 on their own once again.
"'This opportunity will not be wasted'," repeated Captain to himself. "'This opportunity will not be wasted.' Years to look forward as baby-sitter, years with subunit #522 driving in the back-seat and charting every botched consensus." Unless the universe, an uncaring force at the best of times, suddenly dropped a short-cut home in reach of the sensor grid, another long task loomed ahead. A small spark of rebellion momentarily lit in Captain's mind, a minuscule voice saying to pass responsibility on to 5 of 8, regardless of orders...or simply defy the will of the Collective by shunting the cube into maximum transwarp and sending the entire sub-collective to sleep.
But Captain could not; he was one small cog in the greater machine, a part that was useful at times, but too dangerous to the whole to be allowed complete integration. There was logical reason to what the Collective dictated, even if it seemed as if he had received the short end of the stick more often than not as of late. What followed was frustration, a type of longing neurosis, moderated both by unfulfilled programming yearning for integration and the self-knowledge of his damaging nature. It was a sentiment shared by all of Cube #347, not just one drone. At least Captain was not alone...no, never alone.
The emotion was bottled up, set aside. Many tasks needed to be accomplished - sensor grid reconfiguration for mapping and detection of civilizations, repair of damaged hardware and drones, proper refitting of Bulk Cargo Hold #3 for the long-term residence of subunit #522, boosting shields, supply inventory, stopping the cube's spin, rehanging the viewscreen.... The list was large, many lines of tasks ranked in order of priority. Well, some things were more important than others. After ascertaining that, yes, the illicit viewscreen hidden in an interstitial space beneath the hull at edge #11, next to emitter #52, had sustained no damage, Captain beamed the hardware to his nodal intersection. The assigned head of four thousand (plus two hundred fifty) drones appointed himself the vital task of installing the screen picoseconds after moving the job to the top of the priority docket.
Flare of purple plasma from erratically firing thrusters, flickering of transporter beams on the hull, wink of wielding torches, loss of a three meter length of pipe already riddled with stress fractures - Cube #347 tumbled through space, a new task begun.
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