Standard disclaimer: Paramount is the owner of Star Trek stuff. Alan Decker is the creator and author of Star Traks stuff. I write BorgSpace stuff, which is located in the universe of Star Traks, which in turn is loosely based on Star Trek. Stuff.
Some mildly disturbing language (stuff) is included, but has been *ed out.
*****
-Time is merely an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space
(Anonymous)
Let Sleeping Borg Lie, Part II
In "Let Sleeping Borg Lie, Part I" -
After drifting for five hundred years in the Beta Quadrant, seemingly dead, Cube #347 is reawaken...by the newest reincarnation of the Federation. You'd think after so many centuries a civilization would learn to "look, but don't touch."
Half a millennium has made several changes in the galaxy, of which you, as reader, know about, although Cube #347 is clueless. Let us review them as a long, possibly run-on, sentence. The Borg are now the Hive because shortly before a one hundred year war referred to as Dark they reprogrammed themselves to not go willy-nilly about the multiverses assimilating everyone in the quest for perfection; AND, after the Dark, which left much of the galaxy in shambles, the Terran-led Federation was reborn as the Second Federation, this time with a treaty (signed just pre-Dark) between itself and the Hive. (*Gasp* The author ran out of breath.)
Anyway, Second Federation has bought salvage rights to a supposed dead pre-Dark Hive cube. Lots of people wandered around in the cube, decided the thing was indeed unpopulated (besides a large bloodvine and a dull computer), and thence towed it to a transfer point in preparation to go to a shipyard for further dissection. In the middle of these events, Cube #347 woke up and came to the conclusion it was under attack by looters. The author is tired of relating previous happenings. If you really need to review, go back to Part I.
*****
{Status report,} barked Captain into Cube #347's intranets. Reams of information came flooding into the command and control hierarchy, lower echelons, still groggy after five hundred years of forced slumber, sorting, ordering, collating and compiling the datastreams. Three of the four ships, alike in configuration although unknown in form, that had been tractoring the cube were destroyed; the fourth vessel was moving away as rapidly it could on ionic thrusters. The Xenig, the only identifiable species, was doing nothing, either to help or hinder the unknown pirates; it was tentatively classified as a low priority target as Cube #347 would be unable to effectively counter should the mech decide to attack. The remaining four ships were rapidly being ranked by threat level.
The thirty meter mess of patchwork hull at three thousand kilometers distance was given the lowest danger rating; unless the universe had radically changed in five centuries, small ships such as it were generally irrelevant (militarily) shuttles, scouts, or smugglers. The two largest vessels were flattened ovoids two hundred meters long with three large nacelles, casings held just above the hull surface, stretching more than half the main body length, a fourth ring nacelle set flush in dusky black plating a third back from the nose; sensor clusters, blisters, and antennae bristled over the windowless frame. The duo were retreating, one angling to intercept the spinning grapple-ship, and so a threat level of moderate was assigned. The final ship, the one turning to bring weapon ports to bear, was classified as a high threat.
A flattened oily black tear-drop form 150 meters long, it was related to the larger retreating ships the same way a panther is kin to the common housecat. Like its cousins, a greenish nacelle ring encircled the hull a third of the total length back from the blunt nose; unlike the duo, which had now gone to quarter impulse after the one had snagged its target, the ship only had two exterior blue-glowing nacelles, located at positions port and starboard, again pillionless and set to begin at a point halfway along the length and continuing sternward. Three 50 meter nacelle strips, green, were located on the hull between the 75 meter long warp nacelles, set flush to the seamless plating like the forward ring. Weapons ports - torpedo apertures, phaser? banks, dishes, openings covered by an unknown substance of total opacity - were many and menacing.
{All communication systems, incoming and outgoing, still toasted, Captain,} reported Delta from deep within the bowels of the cube. {We are unable to contact the pirates. It will be several hours we don't have before we can communicate with other non-Borg ships in a protocol besides standing on the hull and waving flags in a primitive semaphore.} Communications was a fairly low priority system to begin with, especially when one was coming under attack. Delta had already brought three auxiliary cores on-line to supplement the depleted primary core, and now added two others to the grid to take the energy-gulping strain of ship regeneration.
The attacking pirate would be destroyed, that was the first order of business, followed by the capture of at least one of the remaining four unknown vessels. The mech would be ignored. Interrogation of captured computers and crew would follow as the cube regenerated to full efficiency. Attempts to contact the Collective would continue throughout the forthcoming actions, a plea to the unanswering Greater Consciousness to give direction and knowledge to a lost sub-collective which had completed the Command. Captain loosened the reins slightly, allowing Weapons and his hierarchy necessary control over the fight to come, focusing on the sensor grid datastream once more, examining more closely the black attacker as it came into optimum weaponry (as in side-of-a-giant-red-barn-so-you-better-be-able-to-hit-it) range.
It appeared as if there was writing on the hull, just forward of the ring nacelle, letters which were oddly fluid, yet of a familiar language...Terran. A long registration number was highlighted by floodlights, underwhich was the name "SFSS Hercules." Before the sub-collective could comment to itself on the connection tentatively being forged as to the identity and origination of the attacker, the Hercules cloaked. And fired.
*****
"Damage report! Tactical status! Damn it, give me some information, people!" shouted Juan over the general chaos on the bridge. Things were not going well; sparks from a shorted console turned into oily smoke as a support crewman from an engineering damage control detachment liberally applied fire extinguisher foam.
Juan's first officer, Commander Jal, had managed to make her way to Ops, calling for a medical team to take the station's unconscious and heavily bleeding ensign to sick bay. She tapped a couple of buttons, reading the results as Gy'hur bellowed a rather depressing synopsis in which the Hercules was rapidly running out of physical munitions and would be shortly reduced solely to energy weapons. Jal shook her head, then called to the captain, "We've taken damage on all decks, although engineering and bridge, buried as they are at the center of the ship, are relatively well off. The cloak was toasted when the cube saturated our space with mines; primitive technique, but effective. Sensors on the aft starboard sections are blind, although Hercules' regenerative systems are currently attempting to exude a replacement grid on that quarter. Hull organics are beginning to fail, but are still adequately catching electromagnetic backsplash when the shields flicker. Captain, let me remind you, Hercules is only Voyeur-class! It is a relatively lightly armed and shielded reconnaissance warship, not a Nova-class gas giant killer from the Dark war!" Jal's voice was on the edge of quavering, although she would never break down in front of crew, as Hercules lined himself up for another strafing run.
"We will survive, won't we, Hercules?" Juan, uniform sleeve torn where he had caught it on his chair after a particularly nasty hit by a volley of quantum torpedoes, stared at the viewscreen. The slightly fuzzy picture showed a rotating cube; it appeared to be somewhat damaged, although the gaping holes in armor and stretches of fused plating had not appreciatively slowed its responses.
Hercules, ship Personality of the SFS Hercules_responded, "75.3% chance we will survive the next pass, although if we take another hit like the last, this chassis may loose much of its remaining maneuverability...which is the only thing keeping us alive. My primary Personality gestalt and algorithms remain intact."
"Helm, aim us as best as possible towards one of the holes; Hercules, keep the ship aligned on helm's target. If worse comes to worse, we will ram the bugger and self-destruct. We can not allow the reemergence of a new Borg threat."
"Yes, sir," came from both helmsman and bodiless baritone.
Yvonne Green, salvage captain of the one man scout Blood, Guts, and Glory watched the battle from afar. While both science vessels and remaining tug had quickly vacated the immediate region due to the fact they were nothing more than targets which would not last five minutes under the punishment Hercules was taking, Yvonne had decided to remain. Her scout was small, nearly unnoticeable, not important in the bigger scheme of things; and she had a morbid curiosity to see how the small war would end. It was apparent she would now receive nothing more than a finder's fee for discovering the(then apparently lifeless) Borg cubeship for her troubles instead of a healthy percentage of final salvage commission. However, if she could record the battle, she might be able to sell the sensor logs to the Feds, or at least to the news or entertainment industries.
"Glory, if we can spare the power, cloak us. Otherwise, move us away from the action to about...um....twenty thousand kilometers," spoke Yvonne to the resident Personality.
Glory responded, a very nervous waver in her synthetic, motherish voice, "Yvonne...how about I cloak us AND move us out several hundred thousand kilometers. The electromagnetic backwash of that fight is nasty, and this chassis doesn't have fancy Fed bio-armor on it if shields conk out. I'm kinda partial to this chassis, you understand."
"And I'm partial to my own skin," snapped Yvonne, "but we don't really have a choice. We have to make /some/ money out of this endeavor and pay the bank on the credit charge you ran up. The finder's fee will take care of that, true, however, we still need the credit for me to eat decent food at a port and for you to get maintenance. Understand?"
"Understood. Cloak engaged. I'll try to keep us near the Xenig...he seems to have taken an overwatch position to observe at seven thousand kilometers. And his general emissions should hide our neutrino signature."
"That's fine," muttered Yvonne as she squinted at her too-small viewscreen, trying to watch the battle. The Fed ship was not doing well.
The fight had begun with the Hercules cloaking and firing a volley of pseudo-singularity torps, a standard Fed tactic. The Borg ship, unexpectedly, had required several strafing runs to respond, to adapt. One of the initial torps had burrowed through shielding to leave a seventy meter deep crater on one face, eliciting a grand display of explosions. Despite the fireworks, the cube appeared to shrug off the damage, exhibiting the awesome capability for Hive (or Borg) vessels to absorb punishment. The first rounds of the slugging match were the only ones Hercules won without injury to itself. The cube had shortly thereafter dredged up a trick to not only armor its shielding against singularity torps, but remove the Fed cloak from relevancy.
A massive ejection of subspace mines along the general trajectory of the incoming Hercules, timed to explode when the Fed ship was committed to its run and unable to deviate, had actually managed to ripple local space-time fabric. At the focal point of the tactic, Hercules had suffered greatly; Yvonne, distanced from the action and on the opposite side of the cube from the blast, felt the turbulence pitch Glory around, affecting shields. Even the Xenig had been influenced, momentarily disappearing from the ken of sensors in a microfold-jump to escape the worst of the resultant electromagnetic storm's sleeting pulses. The Borg/Hive had never thought small, but Yvonne felt that the size of the action was overkill nonetheless.
The Hercules' cloak had been knocked out of commission. In addition, Glory reported shields on the Voyeur-class vessel abruptly diminished almost to the point of collapse. It was only through sheer luck (although Yvonne felt she saw an odd hesitancy on the part of the cube) and Personality-controlled piloting the Hercules had managed to avoid capture by questing tractor beams or outright destruction from powerful disrupter fire by the much larger cube.
Tit-for-tat initial display of arms completed, Borg cube and Fed craft began an odd dogfight. The Borg ship remained stationary, unwilling or unable to retreat, large size dictating "evasive actions" against its smaller adversary to be as effective as an elephant dancing around to squash a grasshopper. It appeared to be content to accept blows as it dished out violence of its own. On the other hand, Hercules' greatest asset was its maneuverability and speed, dashing along the perimeter of the cube's shields, randomly zigging and zagging as it crossed a face or edge, attempting to rain punishment in the form of directed energy or kinetic weapons. Occasionally something would work, passing shields to reach enemy hull, but nothing like the first spectacular breech by the singularity torp; and if one focused attention closely on phaser scars, one could see where automatic cube processes were already fixing structural damage, knitting holes in sensor arrays.
Several torpedoes from the cube had struck the Hercules on its previous pass, visibly shaking the ship, causing one transwarp strip nacelle to darken, and another to fade momentarily. Large areas of Fed bio-armor was turning an unhealthy necrotic gray, indicating severe stress or possibly death. In close, however, Hercules retained its maneuverability, and as it turned to ready for another strafing run, the cube warily rotated its most severe damage out of direct accessibility in preparation to receive.
"Glory, make ready to leave the area. We'll hyperwarp out fifteen minutes in a random direction, stop to get our bearings, then meet up with rest of the remaining Fed ships...assuming the cube hasn't targeted them for debris. If worse comes to worse, we'll contact the Xenig to see what it might take in trade to fold us out of these boonies to Fed space to contact authorities." Yvonne had no illusions about the outcome, and her subdued voice showed it. Hercules was shortly to be reduced to a scattering of metal chunks not worth salvage, all hands, those that managed to make it to escape pods, absorbed into a new Borg Collective. Perhaps the Hive would be able to stop its "cousin," perhaps the Second Federation, or another post-Dark civilization...but Blood, Guts, and Glory would have as much chance as a snowball in Hell should she enter the fray.
"Compliance. Please note I'm now moving us out to twenty thousand kilometers in preparation for hyper-transwarp."
*****
Target acquisition: pre-Dark built Borg/Hive cube, Exploratory-class, full identification number #[string of base 16 alphanumerics]-347. Propulsion systems as follows; cross-index original specs with target's sensor [neutrino/gravimetric/subspace flux] readings. Defensive and offensive systems as follows; cross-index original specs with target's energy grid expenditure to subsystems.
Relevant Collective base root compulsion/command, primary: We shall ignore pre-Dark subspace fractual integration channels until such time [*remainder of order scrambled/locked with security algorithm*]. Response? Do not acknowledge target's request for integration into Greater Consciousness.
Relevant Collective base root compulsion/command, secondary: All conscious pre-Dark Borg/Hive vessels shall be detained; drones will be individually integrated into Hive; ships will be examined; [*remainder of order scrambled/locked with if-then security algorithm cascades to be triggered upon (also scrambled) cues*].
Conclusion/consensus? Capture Exploratory-class Cube #347, pre-Dark. Relevant technologies - transmutation pulse (Outcome? block sub-space fractual frequencies); subspace ripple charges (Outcome? temporarily collapse local spatial fabric to transwarp conduit and warp field formation); directed dampening field (Outcome? disable target energy grid).
Observation units in grid 78310, deploy.
*****
Step back and take in the entire scene, examining local space with the perspective of a god, or at least an omnipotent being. Three ships - two Fed science vessels with a tug in tow - flee at very low impulse, now a light hour distant from the action. The captains of the larger science ships are unwilling to outright leave their rearguard savior, although the prudent thing to do would be to flee as fast as possible; the tug captain has no such qualms, and would already be gone himself if his FTL and impulse engines hadn't been rendered inoperable during the initial stages of the cube's activation.
Closer, an oddly shaped Xenig, Ulk by name, is drifting towards the action, curiosity about the antics of organics (and quasi-organics) pulsating through his neural net. Several stray phaser shots impact on his shields, but are ignored as inconsequential. Retreating in the opposite direction, the fat needle of Blood, Guts, and Glory edges away, tiptoeing from the battle with the stealth of a guilty cat leaving the scene of a goldfish crime. At the center of the miniature war, a badly damaged Voyeur-class Second Federation starship limps into strafing position, one conventional warp nacelle torn raggedly from its moorings; Exploratory-class Cube #347, confident, readies to receive what will surely be the last charge of the smaller ship. The sub-collective is somewhat embarrassed it took so long and required so much collateral damage (mostly to structural elements) to neutralize the threat: it is perhaps good, in this limited case, the Collective has not been contacted.
None of the participants in the drama, save one lone being on Hercules, notice the rapidly approaching hyper-transwarp conduits.
*****
:: Alert! Intruders exiting hyper-transwarp subspace layers! Silhouette indicates Hive, Assault-class! :: broke Hercules into the emergency link of bridge crew and shipwide senior staff.
"What the hell?" yelled Juan, head whipping instinctively towards the fuzzy viewscreen. The bridge was in shambles; the Borg cube had evidently determined the command center was buried in the mass of the ship and had lanced a cutting beam deep to the heart of Hercules. The bridge crew silently watched as space appeared to tear twenty thousand kilometers distant, disgorging a pair of Hive spheres. Each vessel, a product evolved from the military demands of the Dark war, was an awesome 7.6 kilometers in diameter.
"We arrive," stated the calm metallic voice of 12 of 53, Hive liaison currently assigned to Hercules_ In the heat of battle, Juan had forgotten about the Hiver, still on the bridge standing out of the way. The cyborg's gaze was fastened not on the viewscreen, but at a point five meters beyond the bulkhead. The Hercules was not quite committed to the next attack, and Juan called a momentary lapse as the Borg cube wavered, torn between threat and confusion. Or at least Juan wanted to attribute those emotions to the sub-collective running the Borg ship.
The captain of the Hercules stalked across his scorched and ruined bridge towards 12 of 53. Juan inserted himself between the viewscreen and 12 of 53's sightless gaze, demanding, "You knew those Hiver vessels were near?"
"Affirmative."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Sparks popped from a near monitor, accenting the tense mood.
"Pre-Dark Exploratory-class Cube #347 needed to be distracted while we came to a consensus upon actions to take. It could not be allowed to escape, and Hercules offered a decent solution to the problem to keep Cube #347 diverted. It will now be captured. The Second Federation will be reimbursed for their troubles," 12 of 53's voice was smooth. Juan's lips pursed in frustration and consternation as the rug was figuratively torn from beneath his feet, leaving him powerless, not in control of the situation.
Commander Jal broke the silence: "Sir! The spheres are beginning their attack. The cube appears to have decided they are an adversary and is taking up a defensive stance."
"Hercules, give us the best view you can through sensors. Helm, move us out of range."
Hercules' voice was less than its normal conversational tones as he replied, "Yes, sir. Engines are severely damaged; engineering is attempting to compensate. Sensor suite is 50% of nominal and regenerative systems are off-line."
"Just do the best you can. Helm, get us out of here. We'll let the Hive deal with this now." Juan felt emotions warring inside as adrenaline began to subside - disappointment, impotent rage, and...relief.
*****
{Sensors sees a pair of spatial anomalies forming, artificial in origin, signatures similar to transwarp conduit exits, but shifted [covert hotel apple jelly] and three quarter [purple] decimal places,} announced Sensors with typical ambiguity into the intranet. Captain focused his attention away from the unknown vessel type which sported Terran writing to the emergent intruders. The SFSS Hercules was now a low priority threat, on the order of a mosquito, although it had done considerable damage at the beginning of the skirmish. Auxiliary Core #7, damaged and unresponsive upon reawakening of the sub-collective, was now a pool of slag; it was sited deeper in Face #4 than the one dense-packed neutronium torpedo physically penetrated, but the momentarily collapse of the area primary power grid disastrously backfed into the core. The drone maintenance hierarchy was currently in full assembly-line production.
{Identify,} ordered Second's mental signature, elsewhere in the cube, before Captain could similarly command. The sensor hierarchy was already processing the request, speedily comparing physical and energetic profiles with the thousands of ship types the Collective was aware of; the files were standard ones all Borg vessels contained, so the continued troubling absence of the Greater Consciousness was not an immediate problem. Captain returned to damage reports and keeping Weapons under control. The latter's excessive use of mines to uncloak the SFS Hercules had done nearly as much structural damage to Cube #347 as had the neutronium torpedoes and unusually powerful phaser bursts. It appeared the crew of the SFS Hercules was hesitating; the respite was welcome, even as a subhierarchy of command and control reported 93.1% chance the next attack by the ship would be its last.
Sensors' reported in a confused tone: {Both vessels are near identical 7.6 diameter spheres, superficially resembling the small scouts the Collective had put into production shortly before the Command. Unusual fluctuation in subspace [hydrangea yellow] frequencies are unknown, but associated with the artificial anomalies; an undertaste to the [fruity bouquet] is...is Borg standard transwarp, engines at idle. Sensors believes with high probability these are ships of the Collective!}
{The Greater Consciousness survives! The Borg are in the present, some five hundred years after the Command! We are not extinct!} Relief spread from drone to drone, encompassing the sub-collective in less than a second. Cube #347 was not alone.
{But why has the Greater Consciousness not responded to our requests for integration? All viniculum equipment appears to be functioning correctly; short of tearing open the central core (again) to physically examine machinery, all diagnostics claim fractual communications gear is operative,} questioned Delta. Body A was assisting in rerouting conduits in subsection 4, trying to bring the local main power grid back on-line, while body B ran checks on the equipment in question. Subspace radio now operable; the last hits by the SFSS Hercules knocked something into /working/ order.
The spheres were spreading apart, taking two vectors, both of which targeted Cube #347. They were also accelerating to standard attack velocities. Captain opened a channel, broadcasting it frantically towards the much larger, supposedly Borg, spheres, {We identify this vessel as Exploratory-class Cube #347 [registration and authentication string]. We are Borg. We request integration into the Collective. Our viniculum may be damaged, and thus we may not be transmitting/receiving on fractual frequencies. Respond.}
No response. {Sphere energy grids diverting power to extrapolated weapon systems!} Sensors called. In her alcove, the insectoid winced (difficult to do when one's exterior was metal alloy, ceramics, and hard exoskeleton) as shunted energies went off the scale in the frequencies she was viewing.
<< OH, F***! >> swore the sub-collective of Cube #347, or at least that was the closest translation as hundreds of different species reached into their native language to extract the common sentiment. Potential allies were reclassified as enemies, very large and powerful enemies, probably able to swat Cube #347 much easier and faster (and with greater efficiency) than the latter had been attempting to do to the SFSS Hercules.
{I don't care what you think, Weapons...it is not shameful to retreat. I seriously doubt any of your battle simulations covered this scenario,} snapped Captain to Weapons when the head of the weapon hierarchy balked as Captain directed propulsion to edge the cube away from the incoming threat.
Began Weapons, {Actually...}
{I don't care! We are leaving this area...now!}
Sensors: {Enemy weapons charging! Enemy weapons discharging! Oh...wow...Sensors has never seen such harsh [electric printers] before...}
Cube #347 abruptly jigged to starboard as Weapons temporarily took control along several edges, revving up engines. Inertial dampers held, barely. Inside the cube, drones were roughly thrown everywhere with violent abandon; no choreographed camera jiggling here. By consequence, the transmutation pulse - a directed stream of energy distantly related by convoluted weapon evolution to a process called the BIC protocol developed five centuries earlier by the original Federation - missed most of Cube #347, only brushing against a single face. Unfortunately, all the Second Federation affiliated ships were in a rough line along the vector of attack by the spheres; all suddenly saw subspace fractual frequencies, the backbone of FTL communication between Second Federation far-flung military and corporate (and others who could afford it) detachments, disintegrate into hissing static. Hive, as the Borg before them, occasionally utilized measures of overkill, and an energy weapon potent to 0.1 light years definitely qualified.
Captain was not going to stick around to see the outcome, which was vividly imaged to include Cube #347, and resident crew, being turned into small pieces of scrap with very little left in an identifiable state. Idling transwarp engines abruptly flared to activity as Delta shunted energy from six nearly depleted auxiliary cores into the primary core...between the seven power sources, full energy could be drawn until such time proper repairs could be made and fuel acquired. The best escape route was towards the SFSS Hercules, followed by a loop which would take the cube close to the small scout, avoiding the enigmatic Xenig.
The flight plan was plotted even as Cube #347 began to accelerate away from the spheres. The attacker's power grid was now showing new configurations as an unknown and probably hellish weapon was charged. It was very unlikely the two spheres would miss again. {Weapons...as we pass the SFSS Hercules and the small scout, grab them with tractors, if possible. No cutting beams! No phasers! No parting shots! We may be able to get some information from them which we would not be able to acquire otherwise. This future the Command awoke us in can not be what the Collective planned! Answers must be found!}
{I will comply,} sulkily spat Weapons, still stung from the swiftness Captain had used to wall him from the propulsion systems. As the cube swung first by SFSS Hercules, then the minuscule toothpick of a scout, Weapons carefully aimed and caught both. The first's shields had collapsed during its previous attack; the second target made an attempt to modulate shield frequencies, but it was in vain as the weapon hierarchy, showing unusual efficiency, latched on. The small size of the ship, and its consequently weaker shields, may have had a part in the capture as well.
Captain engaged transwarp, sending Cube #347 hurtling down a conduit in a computer randomized bearing. Seconds later, the conduit rippled, but held, as an unknown weapon with great power shivered subspace layers. The cube had successfully escaped, captives in tow.
*****
Ulian Ramsey, master of the tug All Work, No Play, by dint of simply yelling louder than anyone else remaining on either Science Vessel Datum or Gestalt, found himself in charge of the trio of ships. The Xenig, cipher as always, serenely floated among the debris of Ulian's tug's sister ships; it had not been inconvenienced in the slightest, even when it had been hit several times by cube weaponry. Finally establishing himself as pro-temp leader, he ordered complete rerigging for archaic subspace radio, necessary as the hull of the tug now selectively, and annoyingly, filtered all incoming/outgoing fractual subspace frequencies. Modifications swiftly done, a hail was directed towards the motionless Hive spheres.
"Hive ships, identify yourselves. This is captain Ulian Ramsey, Fed tug All Work, No Play, speaking for myself as well as the two remaining Second Federation vessels. The Xenig is on its own. Respond."
The viewscreen of the compact tug bridge flashed to a vista of internal catwalks. Ulian sighed...it was going to be one of /those/ type of conversations. Whole damn Hive focused on you, trying to make you feel like an insignificant insect, which, in comparison to the trillions of Hive minds, you were. "We are Hive. These units are Assault-class Sphere #156 and Assault-class Sphere #530," echoed the Hive multivoice.
"No kidding," responded Ulian. In the background of the bridge various personnel were yelling to each other updated reports concerning the progress of internal repairs. "Can we can the bulls**t, please? I would be more comfortable talking to the facilitator of one of the spheres."
"Irrelevant." Silence.
Ulian grimaced at the catwalks, the Hive really had a bee up their a**. A lone crewman, nearly unpronounceable B'rah'tch by name, was an eddy of calm amongst chaos, manning sensors. He (at the moment, at least. B'rah'tch's species were cyclic hermaphrodites and thus became the opposing gender every couple of months.) raised his hand and sat patiently. Ulian said, "This isn't school, B'rah'tch. If you have something to say, say it. And make it quick."
B'rah'tch, nearly black of skin and purple of hair, but otherwise humanoid normal with a wrinkled nose bridge and forehead: "The Hive ships, they move now. They sweep subspace with active sensors. The sensors are tuned to subspace transwarp layer."
:: Playboy :: spoke Ulian to the tug's Personality, :: split screen. Exterior view of the spheres and Hive communication. ::
:: Okadie-dokadie. :: The viewscreen altered to show the two Hive vessels casting about, as if searching for something. Playboy had added numbers, floating over the appropriate sphere, to denote designation.
"Well, Hive, since you are being so unhelpful, at least tell me where your vessels came from."
"We have been testing advanced subspace cloaking technology. It seemed appropriate to field evaluate our new technology by remaining ten hyper-transwarp minutes distant...well within standard Second Federation sensor envelope. We were not detected. We came in when Second Federation Liaison 12 of 53 called us, reporting consciousness of pre-Dark Borg Exploratory-class Cube #347."
Ulian's eyes flicked to the coursing of the huge Hive spheres. "And what are you doing now? That cube isn't around here anymore."
"We realize this." The multivoice was downright defensive. "We are not blind."
"So, why don't you go after it? It did steal Hercules...and your Liaison in the process."
"We cannot. This red dwarf has an uniquely volatile subspace pulsation. The transwarp conduit has collapsed; its trail is obscured by both activity of this star and our subspace charges. We continue to search."
Ulian sighed, listening for a moment to the chatter of his crew. Repairs, those possible without dock support, would be complete in an hour or so. "In other words, you lost them, didn't you?"
The Hive did not respond.
*****
"May a thousand pain-stick wielding targs slowly beat you to death over an open fire while your blood courses from your body in streaks of agony!" creatively cursed Yvonne in Klingon. Ever since the cube had viciously tractored her into a transwarp joy ride an hour earlier, Yvonne had dredged her memory for every oath at her command, finally resorting to some of the things she distinctly remembered her grandfather saying the day he had found his garden dug up by gophers (the homegrown Klingon variety...not the tame Terran type) just days before harvest. The same overpowering tractor beam had not only fried the shields of Blood, Guts, and Glory, but toasted drives and communication gear. The latter, at this stage of the game, was most worrisome.
The transmutation pulse by the unexpected Hive spheres had naturally disrupted fractual channels, but Yvonne and Glory only had the gear because the salvage company was required by Fed law, as a corporation competing for Starfleet contracts, to so equip all its associated vessels. Most communication between non-Fed ships (and even many Fed-registered ships which were neither Starfleet nor corporate) continued to use reliable and cheap subspace radio. With the radio a crisped mess, Yvonne was completely cut off from both Hercules and Borg.
"Why did I have to opt for such a small ship?" cried Yvonne as she smacked her forehead against the low bulkhead ceiling between bedroom and engineering nook for the umpteenth time.
Glory timidly spoke, "Um, because it was cheapest you could get? Look, you got this chassis was before I signed on as your Personality."
"Shut up Glory. It was a rhetorical question."
Glory shut up. Luckily the tractor beam had spared most of the standard neural network permeating hull and structure of the chassis, as well as the unit which was the biocrystaline heart of herself, her Personality. A peeved Klingon-human hybrid wielding a spanner might not be as forgiving.
Several consoles of the compact bridge were open, wires and components spread in a tidy mess on the deck, leaving just enough room to place feet and knees. Yvonne, like all salvage scout pilots, was not only captain of her Glory, but chief tactical officer, medic, and cook; today she wore the hat of engineer. Much more versatile than the average Fed Starfleet crewman, she thought of herself. Most parts of the subspace radio - tossed into a careless pile in front of the commode door - outwardly looked okay, but application of various testing tools revealed the truth of nonfunctionality. Some spares were in the engineering nook; however, Glory was not a Fed warship with quadruple redundancy, so some parts were not immediately available. While a few replacements were capable of replication, using the dead pieces of machinery as feedstock, Yvonne quickly ran out of tricks and several systems had to be torn apart and cannibalized. She hoped the Borg cube made up its mind soon what to do with her because otherwise, with sonic shower cubicle dismantled, the small ship was soon to become very, very unpleasant.
Eight agonizing hours had passed since capture by the fleeing Borg cube. Resistance had been, well, futile when the invisible grasp of tractors had latched onto Hercules' unshielded hull. The resultant power drain by the tractors had precluded all thoughts of escape or kamikaze suicide; barely enough energy remained to maintain life support for crew and sustain Hercules' higher Personality functions. Although subspace radio had been quickly brought on-line to supplement the lost normal form of communication, Cube #347 had been less than talkative...silent, to be exact. Engineering teams were repairing what was possible given limited resources.
"Herc, compile status reports," wearily called Juan. The captain of Hercules was running on three hours of restless sleep, four cups of coffee, and a hypospray injected stim cocktail, taken under the disproving glare of chief medic Srivin, Flarn, one of the staunchest allies of the Second Federation.
Hercules: "If this situation of low energy continues much longer, say twenty-six hours, I will be forced to retreat to my Personality core, which, although self-contained power-wise, will limit my functionality. But let's not talk about myself.
"Nearly all bio-armor has been sloughed. That of the skin which wasn't fatally damaged in the fight was rendered useless by the jammer pulse. The hull is currently naked down to neutronium plating. New bio-armor seed stock has been introduced, but without dry-dock support, it will be three weeks before this chassis hull is up to Starfleet specs.
"The up news is that ridding the compromised bio-armor allows us to use fractional communication protocols again. The bad news is the fractual booster array was severely damaged during the battle and subsequent tractoring, and engineering has no spares and the part cannot be replicated. It seems one inventory officer Jerry Smith, who was reassigned last month, traded away our spare for an autographed picture of "Katash, Klingon Warrior Priestess." Ship regeneration, if we had the power to spare, would be able to reconstitute the array...in two or so months."
Juan groaned. "So we can't contact anyone. That's just dandy." The systems rundown continued.
Hercules finished his summary, "...and the only way this tub will be fully functional again is with major surgery at a shipyard. As is, I think we should be lucky to even be alive to complain."
"Herc, this is not luck. Luck is when you play poker and you are dealt an...." began Juan as he stared at the ceiling, leaning back in his command chair. He was interrupted by a young ensign, one of only two other non-Hive currently present on the bridge, at Ops.
"Sir, sensors indicate we are exiting transwarp."
"On screen."
Sensors compensating for vast stretches of non-functional grid depicted the distant sight of a white dwarf binary system. The view swing away as the cube rotated, putting the Hercules in a very large shadow. The limited sensors did not note any planets, although a healthy asteroid population was present. Most importantly, location could now be determined.
"Herc, get the senior bridge crew up here pronto. Ensign, where are we?"
:: Aye, aye, :: acknowledged Hercules as the ensign reported. "We are about twenty-three lights anti-spin from our starting place. And before you ask, sir, no, we can't contact the Hiver spheres or our own convoy. The cube is emitting a subspace dampening field."
"I guess we wait, then."
In the last ninety minutes visuals had shown activity on the hull of the Borg cube. One face of the huge, at least in comparison to Hercules, vessel had been caught by the Hive jammer, and drones could be seen washing down the plating via a series of moveable forcefield domes and an unknown liquid. The former was necessary to maintain an appropriate atmosphere so the latter would not freeze, boil, or evaporate. On other sections of the cube, structural damage was being repaired. Occasionally a tractor beam would lance out to grab an asteroid, towing it to an unseen cargo area, presumably to be processed for raw materials.
Lieutenant Marshall, replacing Lt. Cmdr. Jecrock as chief engineer when the latter had been killed in conflict, glanced down as the Ops board he had been repairing beeped. He swiftly read the output.
"Captain." Juan looked over his shoulder, stopping in mid-pace along the track he had been wearing it the no-longer-new carpet. "Sir, the cube is hailing us, and only us. The scout is being ignored for now."
"'Bout time," muttered Juan. "Well...put it on screen. Let's see how different the Borg are from the Hive the Federation has come to know since the Dark."
Multiple levels of catwalks, alcove tiers, and machinery filled the viewscreen. Such a sight was not unknown when dealing with the Hive, but the presentation was generally only used during "formal" occasions, or when the Hiver vessel in question was acting as mouthpiece for the Collective; usually the current facilitator (a term which meant both more and less than "captain") answered hails, representing consensus thoughts/actions of the individual sub-collective. And even in that case, the facilitator, unless a creche-drone, was very faux-individualistic, much like 12 of 53, expressing his or her own personality and opinions given the proper circumstances. Juan numbered among his good acquaintances several Hive facilitators who, although leaning towards artificiality at times, genuinely enjoyed their place in the Collective. Of course, only those who fit certain requirements were assigned to the position in the first place, and pleasure in accomplishing the relevant tasks was probably part of profile.
Only a few brief seconds were allotted to the crew to absorb the dark, forbidding picture when a familiar multivoice spoke words not heard in five centuries. "We are Borg. Prepare to be assimilated. Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile." The phrases echoed into silence.
"Divert as much power as possible to transport dampers," snapped Juan. "If they want us, they'll have to tear us apart." To the faceless screen: "Borg vessel, Cube #347, we will not obey."
Hesitancy was the answer. Hercules abruptly regulated the walkways to a small picture-in-picture format, displaying an external view of drones scrambling away from weapon ports. At the same time, ship sensors registered cube weapon systems powering up. Juan frowned, narrowing his eyes. "Borg Exploratory-class Cube #347, I want you to listen carefully. My name is Juan Verendi, captain of the Second Federation Starship Hercules. I don't know all your history, nor how the hell you got to where you did in the condition you were found, but I do know many things about the pre-Dark Borg and your specific sub-collective. I...."
Interrupted the multivoice, "We did not give you our designation." Weapon systems were fully powered, but the potential violence was withheld for the moment. Juan's attention, that of the entire bridge crew for that matter, centered, perhaps foolishly, away from threat to 12 of 53. The Hiver, silent, motionless, unobtrusive up to this point, left his position of observation as if he had come to a decision; and he alone was instigator of any actions-to-be because as Hive liaison on a Starfleet ship, he relied on the fractual booster array, the same one which was currently broken, to act as surrogate viniculum in keeping him connected with the Hiver Greater Consciousness across the light years. 12 of 53 squarely put himself in front of the viewscreen, rudely usurping Juan's proper place of command.
"You are an observer, Liaison. Retake your position and do not interfere!" coldly demanded Juan. Lt. Cmdr. Gy'hur left his station at tactical, drawing a phaser and motioning for a security guard near the turbolift to advance should it become necessary to physically remove the Hiver from the bridge.
Icily responded 12 of 53, "You aim to get us all terminated with your clumsy negotiations to a mindset you only know of in history books. I will not comply." Words were now directed at the screen, the Fed surroundings regulated to the realms of irrelevancy. "Cube #347, my designation is 12 of 53, Second Federation Liaison, currently assigned to Hercules. Note I freely use the pronoun 'I'. I am a quasi-individual, similar to yourselves, able to think for myself, yet subject to the greater power of consensus by the Collective when such is warranted. The Borg, the Collective and Greater Consciousness you know, no longer exist, are no longer relevant. The quest for perfection continues, but a new method was established shortly before the Dark, a method at least partially based on the ways pre-Dark Exploratory-class Cube #347 evolved to deal with a state ambiguously described as assimilation imperfection.
"Cube #347, you will power down your weapons. You will transport me on board. You will neither harm organics nor AI's of captured ships. In return, I offer myself freely to your sub-collective, from which you will gain many of the answers to the questions you are surely asking yourself.
"You will comply."
:: Captain, :: frantically shouted Hercules internally, :: the Hiver has hacked my systems! The transporter dampening field is going off-line! :: Marshall, still at Ops, was verbally repeating the same observation. Before Juan could give orders to contravene, 12 of 53 disappeared from the bridge, stolen away with an ancient Borg transporter beam. Almost immediately after, communications with Cube #347 was terminated from the far end, and Gy'hur, back at tactical, reported weaponry powering down.
*****
"This drone...and he is a drone...can not be assimilated. Or, rather, he is already assimilated, but with technology beyond the knowledge I can find in the databases. Every time the appropriate nanites are introduced to realign his programming and bring it into synch with our sub-collective, his own nanites proceed to dismantle our nanoprobes. Given time, a work around might be found, but not in the foreseeable future." Sigh. "Should I even try? This feels like a hopeless task."
The meeting taking place in one of the multitudes of dusty workshops dedicated to the task of assimilation Cube #347 seldom engaged in was a rare one. Assimilation, Doctor, Captain, and Second were physically present in real time, not working with each other via the dataspaces or remote viewing outgoing processes and memories. Two hierarchy heads may occasionally interact directly in the course of routine duties, but in the normal scheme of things, each drone kept to his or her separate bailiwick.
The drone in question, one designated 12 of 53, stood quietly in an alcove. As discussion over what to do commenced between the four, 12 of 53 opened his eye. "I told you that wouldn't work. You are five centuries out of date."
Captain glared at the Borg...no, Hive! drone. Even though both civilizations appeared similar, there was a definite difference between Borg and Hive mindset. There was something lacking in the Hiver, and it wasn't a link to the Greater Consciousness, which 12 of 53 functioned perfectly well without. The lack was something less tangible....
{How goes the battle?} asked Captain, directing the query towards Delta. She and her teams were slowly clearing subsection 8 of the mass of vegetation which was Thorny. Doctor still sulked over the order to proceed, but the plant was blocking several necessary areas and potentially compromised part of the power grid. Thorny was not passive in the endeavor, sluggishly fighting back in an annoying, strangling, puncturing way. With the rest of the cube to attend to, repairing five hundred years of neglect, only a relatively small mass of the overall bulk of the bloodvine was to be removed, providing access to vital systems. Even with dedicated effort, which was not available right now, it might be years before the plant was completely eradicated.
Delta answered. Both of herself bore large machetes and her arms were covered to the shoulders in sap. One body was currently helping to extract 150 of 240, who had been "captured" by a thorn encrusted vine, and was now wrapped so that only a foot could be seen. {Slowly.} Delta paused, accessing the internal sensor system. {The area is too large to expose to vacuum. There is also an oxygen leak around here, raising the levels of that gas too high to risk flames. Several teams work toward the leak now, but it is slow going as we must use edged blades only and avoid sparks. Relevant area will be cleared in approximately eighty-three hours.}
Doctor sighed, muttering something under his breath about a 'poor baby planty-wanty'. Captain shook his head, ignoring the head of the drone maintenance hierarchy, continuing with the status update. All repairs were on schedule, no sign had been seen of the massive spheres, both captured ships remained quiet (other than demands by the scout to talk to someone), and contact with the Borg/Hive via fractual frequencies remained elusive.
"I could just remove the reluctant puppy's memory logs," stated Doctor as he dragged his thoughts away from Thorny's forced pruning. "Admittedly, it might take time to extract the information we want that way as poor 12 of 53 would not be available to interpret the output. It is doubtful such basic systems have changed much in five centuries, as they've remained stable for the eight millennium before that."
12 of 53 shook his head. "Think, you idiots, or idiot as the case appears to be. I've told you I'll give you all the data you need, voluntarily."
Captain replied, "But you will not be under my control. You are not aligned with this sub-collective, and thus we cannot make you do as you claim if you balk. And you also refuse to give us the appropriate fractual frequencies to contact the Hive directly."
"The Hive would just destroy you; it is in our root directives to disable pre-Dark Borg vessels and integrate the sub-collectives drone by single drone. Less traumatic that way for the drones in question. It does not matter you are Cube #347, ship of the imperfectly assimilated. I offer you the chance to learn about this era, to make your transition less painful."
"And what do you get out of it?" Captain was suspicious. Bargaining between drones was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The implications were dark. If Captain were in the place of 12 of 53, he would not hesitate to do his utmost to contact the Greater Consciousness, to call in the sub-collectives and ships necessary to forcefully bring the rogues into the Collective, or destroy them.
Silence. Finally, after several minutes of no answer, 12 of 53 said, "The Hive lost something, five centuries ago; I do not know what it was, but I feel it." 12 of 53 smiled - actually smiled! - ruefully. "Of course, if the Collective was still Borg, I would not be questioning the subtle wrongness. Anyway, as far as what I get...I get the lives of the species in the Hercules and the scout; knowledge of their saving can be used by the Hive to bargain with the Federation in the future when favors and obligations are called due. And me, personally, well, I am being a bit selfish, but I wish to experience the Borg, not through historic data which has been self-censured to hell, but the actual remnants of the original Collective. You are as close as I'm going to come. I admit it is a poor comparison, considering your less-than-perfect status relative to the Oneness the Borg strove towards, but it is better than nothing. I will not get this chance again."
Captain initiated a quick consensus with the choices being to allow 12 of 53 to do as he requested, to dismantle him for his memory logs, or continue to attempt a proper reassimilation. The result, by only the narrowest of margins, was to let the Hive drone tell his story.
Linked to the dataspaces, mind not-quite-one-but-close-enough with the rest of the sub-collective of Cube #347, 12 of 53 began a wordless narrative, compressing over five centuries of Borg/Hive history into a massive data dump.
Pre-Dark: Borg long-distance sensor arrays on the galactic rim, that ambiguous region where stars become lost in the distance between galaxies, note energy signatures of transwarp. The drives, although less efficient than the Borg version, are numerous...and powerful; an entire civilization is on the move.
In the dark betwixt galaxies, stars do exist. There are perhaps as many, if not more, stars in the emptiness than there are concentrated in the spectacular whorls and spirals and blobs that make for some of the most stunning examples of natural art in the universe. Cast-offs for the most part, ancient white and red dwarfs formed in the first great rise of stars after the Big Bang, life expectancy measured in the hundreds of billions of years. Any planets which form around such lonely sentinels are poor places, lacking the metals which give rise to robust civilizations; and any sentient races, should they drag themselves up from the muck, are bound to be xenophobic in nature, believing themselves the one true People, the only intelligence under a night sky of utter blackness.
The Dark (a name given to them by the races of the Milky Way, as none, in over a hundred years of war had ever successfully opened a meaningful dialogue) had, against all odds, grown to sapience and subsequently engineered a method of star travel on their ancestral, unknown home. Three things must be known about the galactic rim - one, it is indefinite; two, it is large; and, three, it is porous. True, the Borg did note the arrival of the Dark into the galaxy, but it was not important, not immediately relevant.
Into the dataspaces, a three-dimensional picture was introduced, labeled as a standard Dark member. Later, after first contact, when the Dark were established throughout the galaxy, it became apparent the Dark were, for lack of a better description, living, sentient, /organic/ von Neumann machines. Of course, the same could be said for any sapient race, but the Dark were a special case. The picture showed an individual as a two hundred meter long spacefaring creature, tubular in profile, multicolored patches over mottled hide identified as eyespots sensitive to a wide multitude of frequencies; at will, tentacles could be extruded or vast vacuoles formed in the body cavity. Metal and nonorganics were present: armor strategically placed to provide additional protection for braincase and vital organs, a complex transwarp drive, small robots a step above nanites functioning in concert with secreted substances to maintain the body and construct machines. Extrapolation placed the creatures, the race, in the final stages of a massive effort of self-evolution via genetic manipulation; without the metals available to build a spacefaring society, the Dark had to use the next best thing...themselves.
The hostile xenophobic nature of Dark civilization also rapidly became apparent. Decades later the mindset would be confirmed, but the Dark viewed all other lifeforms as nonsentient, and their starships, cities, colonies as fortuitously gathered and refined ores. The organic owners were also a resource to be exploited. Faced with a sudden prosperity after the famine of travel away from a gutted star system once known as home, Dark multiplied rapidly to the detriment of all.
Not assimilateable; weapons were rather crude, but tactics of the use of overwhelming numbers bit even into the defensive might of the Borg. Elsewhere in the galaxy civilizations were uniting to counter the threat, animosities put aside for the greater good of survival. The Borg looked on, calculated their odds for survival to be Not Good should things continue as they were, and came to a radical decision.
Lobotomy.
It would be necessary to make treaties, binding resolutions, with as many species as possible. However, the Borg could not be trusted...they had the numbers, technology, and research potential needed to win the undeclared war against the growing Dark population, but the threat of assimilation was too great to ignore. The Borg examined their options, made a plan, and with the galaxy watching closely, ceased to exist. In the place of the Borg rose the Hive.
The Hive: much of the same structure of the Borg, the same drones, the same queen, the same Greater Consciousness, but with the essence of absolute communal Oneness sacrificed. Assimilation imperfection, before feared as detracting from perfection, now embraced in a limited fashion, a flexibility in thought, improvisation added to the now Hive which was impossible as the Borg. The new paradigm would evolve, would become richer and more refined over the succeeding centuries as perfection was once more sighted upon, but in the first moments of the birth of the Hive, the Collective tottered over a black abyss.
The Hive survived. Species and civilizations were no longer assimilated, at least not without consent (perversely, several resisters who previously had fought the Borg suddenly welcomed the Hive with open arms) of the assimilatee. The needed treaties were formed, and now the war against the Dark began in earnest. It officially lasted one hundred two years, after which many of the alliances, as such things are prone to do, fell apart; when the Second Federation rose out of the chaos and ashes of its predecessor, the Hive offered an alliance which was also extended to a number of other hegemonies, civilizations, and kingdoms. However, to this day, patrols around the galaxy still reported pockets of Dark, which were swiftly and unilaterally eliminated no matter the current state of relations with neighbors.
All around the cube, work ground to a halt. Engineering details were called in from the hull and Thorny was left to rustle in a vegetative haze of diffuse "pain" as drones abandoned tasks to return to their alcoves. Nothing was immediately threatening to the integrity of the cube, of the survival of the sub-collective as a whole; even the potential danger represented by the spheres stumbling upon Cube #347 or one of the two captured ships managing to contact help was not important.
The sub-collective of Cube #347 had to digest the information it had just been provided, had to think and plan for survival in a universe substantially different than the one left. The Hive was no longer the Borg, no longer followed the path toward true perfection, that much was evident...and troubling.
*****
Minds reached out, not quite awake, yet neither asleep, pre-programmed responses answering to specific stimuli. Five-hundred forty seven half-formed mentalities - by coincidence the same number of maturation chambers in Bulk Cargo Hold #2 - followed a compulsion to reach for the communication systems of Cube #347, maneuvering in the cramped pathways of the computer, avoiding the bright lights of the dataspaces in favor of virtual alleyways and crawlspaces. As the "infantile" minds tiptoed towards their target, the "footprints" of passage were erased, allowing not a hint of the illicit activity to leak towards the active, unknowing and innocent, signatures of Cube #347 sub-collective.
The computer issues a chirping warning, which is quickly suppressed, as a minor communication pathway is opened along fractual oscillation b13.33jGamma3*4&c, a nonstandard frequency.
<< Communication received, facilitator prepare sub-collective for routine...Intruder in Hive Collective! Identify yourself! We demand.... >> a familiar metasignature begins, deadly invader countermeasures already cascading through Greater Consciousness. All comes to a screeching halt as a series of fleeting codes are introduced into the Collective mind, unlocking doors, briefly connecting with a multitude of scrambled root compulsions, making them transparent.
As quickly as a new realization dawns in the Greater Consciousness, it is cut off, existence of the Key erased from memory, as is the knowledge of the intruder, who has already slipped away, mission complete. Superficially, if the Collective were to analyze its inner workings in the same way an individual might visit a psychiatrist, nothing has changed: all codes are how they have been, as rewritten five centuries prior in the pre-Dark. However, cracks, the real world equivalent of stress fractures, riddle the mind of the Greater Consciousness.
The Conspiracy, over five hundred years in the making, has finally been primed, waiting for the final commands to Become.
*****
Here ends "Let Sleeping Borg Lie, Part II". Part III will continue where Part II left off (this is how things usually happen, after all), where upon the reader may learn
(1) how the truth is way out there,
(2) the ultimate secret of the power of the yellow rubber ducky,
(3) if the author can drag the story out to part IV (unlikely...), and
(4) *words automatically scrambled by censure because it may, like a badly chosen movie trailer, tell the ending*
Heck, just wait for Part III. The best is yet to come!
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