Star Traks - BorgSpace Season 2: Jovian Dust

The author of BorgSpace (me) has set her stories in the universe of A. Decker's Star Traks, which in turn is /very/ loosely based upon the various Star Trek series by Paramount.

Jovian Dust

6 of 19 was walking along a corridor at the hull perimeter of subsection 22, submatrix 13, dutifully performing her assigned task. In times of nonemergency, the drone traversed a route which eventually covered all the maintenance hallways beneath the hull of her assigned subsection, prosthetic limb containing sensors outstretched, searching for minute imperfections such as electrical shorts or stress cracks. It was a fairly boring and predictable job, but vital nonetheless. The yawning human caught her totally by surprise.

Disbelief nearly halted her in her tracks, but 6 of 19 swiftly turned towards a bulkhead, removing a plate and pretending that a fault had been found inside the space. The unconcerned human continued to stroll down the hallway; 6 of 19 hooked into the feed from a local sensor cluster, observing unobtrusively in that manner to avoid tipping off the human of her awareness.

The human was short and bald, his complexion of an extreme pasty white as to make the Borg appear flush in comparison. A dull red terrycloth bathrobe sloppily tied at the front by a sash was the only attire beyond a pair of black boxershorts. The human yawned again as he passed behind 6 of 19, who attempted to appear busy and oblivious.

Stopping, the bald human stared with annoyance at 6 of 19's back. A wide grin suddenly crossed his face, revealing a set of less than perfect teeth. Within the space of a few seconds, a series of five rude gestures derived from a similar number of species was directed towards the drone. Ending with a flourish, the man muttered, "Idiotic Borg," before continuing down the hallway. After another stop to yawn, give a small burp, and absently scratch his butt, the human stepped through a featureless wall.

6 of 19 ended her sham, sending an alert into the dataspaces.

{I can sense a gravitational anomaly, sketching a rectangular shape. The dimensions would be appropriate as a door to pass the human I saw.} 6 of 19 had positioned herself directly across the place she had seen the human disappear. Several sections of bulkhead were removed, and she was making a credible effort at pretending to fix a fault. Two additional drones had been dispatched to assist in the "repairs." {Other than the anomaly, there is no other indication of anything amiss.} Besides the second human, that is, who had jogged down the corridor twenty minutes earlier, ignoring the Borg at work. That one, attired in blue sweats with a green headband, had similarly disappeared through the wall.

Captain switched his attention to an exterior view; the visual input from hallway sensors and the trio of drones in corridor 8 of subsection 22, submatrix 13 was not useful. The cube had dropped from transwarp in order to launch autonomous maintenance drones...the purely mechanical variety, not the ones comprising the crew. Captain was tempted to transport a couple of subunit #522 into near space surrounding the cube. The gesture would be useless to quiet the increasingly insistent voice of the subunit to assimilate the humans and be done with it; too much pure /weirdness/ was a part of the cube's history to simply do everything by instinctual programming, no matter how easy it was to give in to the code.

The engineering hierarchy had piloted a quartet of the small robots into position to view the exterior hull of subsection 22, submatrix 13. A large blister rose precisely opposite of the interior door-shaped anomaly, a half-lozenge 125 meters long by 50 meters wide by 30 meters tall. Antennae clusters, a pair of small dishes, and the lenses of several optic sensors were scattered over the blister. Cube schematics identified the mass as "auxiliary sensory array, passive"; it had been installed approximately eleven years prior, during a maintenance refit when the sub-collective was in stasis between assignments.

Or so the maintenance logs indicated. The Borg, however, did not install sensory components in the distinct pattern of a five digit fist, the middle finger upraised. Well, most vessels did not; it had happened twice in the last ten years to Cube #347, both instances unrelated to the current view in the drones' cameras.

Curiously, Sensors noted that she did not have record of utilizing input from the array. In fact, feed from that particular quadrant was "blurry," akin to the method used to extrapolate incoming sensory data when sections of the grid had been rendered inoperable due to damage. Array diagnostic returned a condition of full functionality; and thus no need for grid extrapolation. Sensors was troubled, as the manipulation of data to give the illusion of false functionality would necessitate processing before it was consciously integrated by the sensory hierarchy. Anticipating Captain's order, Sensors was already organizing her hierarchy for a dive into fundamental code to compare it line by line with virgin code stored in Collective archives.

{Another human,} said 6 of 19. This human, short with black hair that contrasted sharply with similar pale skin of the other two, stopped outside the unseen opening. The end of a thick cable was held in one hand; the rest trailed behind, disappearing into the wall. It was now possible to hypothesize a holoprojector system, a very good one, blurring the perception of the door.

"Damn it," said the human. "Vinni!" The shout was directed down the masked tunnel. "Vinni! There's three out here now, all of them hovering near the dataport. I try to plug the this thing in somewhere and they'll notice!"

The reply was muffled, but audible. "Then go down to the next one, Carl. I want the rest of that novel. The download got screwed up just when Jumba the Wise Lizard got to the Pits of Anarchy."

Carl frowned as he peered down the corridor, ignoring the three drones, "The cable's too short. If I try to stretch it, one of the buggers will run into it or trip over it. That'll trigger their awareness for sure."

"Carl, you are so useless at times. Just wait a sec. I want to see what the situation looks like for myself."

Footsteps proceeded the appearance of yet a fourth human. The assumed Vinni was tall, somewhat on the pudgy side, with dark red hair that was cropped to a centimeter fuzz over his skull. A baggy blue jump suit with dark brown stains on the arms and upper torso clothed him. One hand, nearly white with a tracing of veins and arteries visible, held a small PADD-like object. Vinni waved the flat display.

"I'm captain on this tin can, yet I can't get one of my crew to get the rest of the second Jumba saga."

Carl snorted, "Then you should have Reg install a remote agent, that way we wouldn't have to go through this bulls**t every time we finish up the prior data download from this cube's files."

"Don't sass me, Carl. You know very well Reg's duties in the vat and drying rooms are more important."

"Yah...until you get stir crazy and want more 'Jumba' this or 'Jumba' that."

"And what about your Vulcan crosswords and logic puzzles?"

"Don't you start about my crosswords...I don't care if the Organization docks me pay, but if you dis my puzzles, I'll..."

"You and what army, Carl? I want my Jumba novels, and I want them now." Vinni tucked the PADD in a thigh pocket then turned to regard the three drones, who suddenly sped up in their working. "Carl, is it just me, or where those Borg listening to us?"

"Boss, I just work here. If you want this cable plugged in, you tell me where to do it, or you can do it yourself. Preferably where the sun don't shine. I'm just a vat monkey; you want analysis on Borg behavior patterns and program modifiers, you talk to Jewel...if you can pry her out of that virtual world of hers."

Vinni snorted, "That'll be the day. Maybe I will get Reg to put in a remote agent. Without using active sensors, there's no way to know why our cube dropped out of transwarp. Probably nothing, like usual, but I would like /some/ indication if this stupid sub-collective has managed to bury itself to its neck again; there are other reasons for this data collection excursion, besides Jumba, you know."

A tone of disbelief, "Yah, sure...whatever you say Vinni."

Meanwhile -

{We should assimilate them and add their technological distinctiveness to our own,} spoke subunit #522. It catalogued a list of unusual technologies already noted or hypothesized.

Chanted the weapon hierarchy, led by Weapons, {Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy.}

Second and fifteen other drones were currently out on the hull, cautiously approaching the bulge. {It may be possible to detach the ship, if we can find the seam where it connects.} Second reached one end of the half-lozenge, reaching out with a true hand, relaying the sight of it passing through the perceived surface. {Holoprojectors are in effect out here too. If we can knock them off-line, it might be possible to get a better handle on the problem.}

{Assimilate!}

{Destroy!}

Captain winced, blocking the insistent voices of both the subunit and weapon hierarchy. {Delta, would it be possible?}

Delta hemmed and hawed, then gave a positive acknowledgment. {We can try electrifying the hull in the area, fry whatever technology they are using. Output from one of the auxiliary cores should be sufficient.}

Vinni and Carl had been joined by another human, dark whereas the others where nearly milk translucent. This one, female, had been named as Jewel. She scratched her head, which was covered by a mass of small black braids that were a shade lighter than her skin. A piece of tech, similar to external hearing aids associated with species beginning in their experimentation with mechanical augmentation, wrapped behind her left ear; a small silver wire dived into the ear canal itself.

"Well?" Vinni waved a hand at the twelve drones which were busily splicing wires within the bulkheads on both sides of the corridor. Occasionally additional piles of material would be beamed in. Several thick wires spanned the hallway in places.

Jewel said, "So what? They look busy."

"No kidding, but will it affect our operations?"

Shrug. "Since we've not been challenged yet, it is very unlikely the sub-collective realizes we're here; or it might be responding to some perception leak in our holo-cloak the worm didn't compensate for. As to if the outcome affecting us...I need a jack into their dataspaces to skim off their current working root priorities."

Carl: "If it was hard before to plug the cable in, it is impossible now. Those drones are all over the place!"

Vinni pursed his lips, stepping adroitly aside as one of the dozen Borg lumbered past carrying a spool of red jacketed superconducting wire, heavy grade. He watched silently as the drone cut off a fifteen meter length of the material, soldering one end to a primary power distribution node previously buried deep in the opposite wall's interstitial depths. A second drone caught the free end, passing it through one of series of small holes on the vacuum side of the corridor, drilled ten minutes previously.

"Quiet you two...give me a second to think."

{Captain, power rerouting complete.}

Second and the fifteen who had been working on the exterior surface transported themselves a safe distance from ground zero as Captain mentally redirected the power from one auxiliary core. The ringside seat of fireworks was spectacular.

All three humans snapped around at the same instant, Carl dropping the cable. With a vigorous rain of sparks, the formerly featureless bulkhead revealed a rectangular hole, leading to a passageway. "What the...?" began Vinni.

"Boss?" said Carl as he looked right and left in the corridor. The dozen drones were now facing the trio, formerly expressionless faces showing awareness. "Um...Captain? I think the question of their knowing our presence is a bit of a moot point."

Jewel nodded, braids bouncing up and down against her neck, "I would say it is."

Vinni just swore.

The revealed hull of the alien ship had the same dimensions as that projected by the emitters, nose and stern impossible to place. The main difference was in nearly featureless condition of the hull: one of the few distractions on the otherwise smooth metal shell was a single lengthwise furrow, tentatively assigned function as a phaser bank. Paint of a not-quite-matching hue marred one end, covering a broad rectangular swath. Brilliant red paint splattered over a great portion of the hull, following the broad one-finger salute outline of the now vanished bogus sensor array.

Observed Assimilation with authority, {They should have used Standard Gray #53, not Bulkhead Hue #12.}

{Whatever,} returned Second. He and his team had returned to the hull of the alien ship. {Looks like there might have been a vessel designation once under the gray paint.} The vessel's armor was fairly thin; Second returned to his task of supervising and assisting in levering up one of the plates.

Captain shuffled his primary awareness from the exterior hull to corridor 8, subsection 22, submatrix 13. The three humans continued to stand their ground, and were actually arguing with each other.

Vinni: "This is all your fault, Jewel. Your worm obviously didn't work."

"My worm? I just used the one the Organization supplied. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did, considering instabilities of this cube."

Carl shouted, "I was against us leeching to this cube in the first place. A nice Cargo-class cube was what I wanted when I signed on."

"We didn't have any say, you gradi-ch't." Carl's pale face turned red at the untranslatable insult from Vinni. "We came out of temporal warp where we did, when we did, and leeched to the first cube in sensor range. All SOP; I may be captain of our tin can, but diverting from SOP for whatever reason means squat to those that pay us."

"We've been on this stinking barge for eleven years, barring vacation now and then," yelled Jewel, "and now I finally can say 'I told you so'! I knew the worm would fail the moment we jacked into the archives and I read the designation of this cube."

The squabbling had reached epic proportions. Finally Vinni bellowed, "Enough! Jewel, go fix up another worm! Carl, get the rest of the fred'tching crew together, tell them what happened, then relate the fact I'll beat them to a bloody pulp with a crowbar if production falls behind due to this little incident. The courier is due next week, and if the quota isn't made, you know what that means."

"Yah," said a subdued Carl. Jewel had already turned to trot down the tunnel. "Might as well nuke my nannies and have the Collective here assimilate me. At least I'd have a good chance of living in some incarnation beyond my next birthday."

"Exactly. Now go. I'll deal with our friends here." Carl went. Vinni addressed the silent drones in the corridor, "Okay, let's get this little play over with."

A hull plate on the vessel was now removed, exposing the interior: machinery not greatly affected by vacuum or temperature variations. The inner hulls, the air-tight shells, were buried deeper, but that was not the objective. With outer armor removed, it was now possible to infect, to assimilate, the bloated leech of a ship which was attached to the cube, or at least that was the plan. Unfortunately, the effort was not working. Second kicked the recalcitrant hull, directing more exterior plates to be removed.

Vinni's eyes blanked for a moment as if he was listening to a distant voice, then he grinned, showing white teeth. "Well, hello there Cube #347, betcha wondering what I'm doing here?" He paused, gazing around at the twelve drones. "I see, given that little display which fried our holo-cloak, that you realize there's a small ship stuck to your hull. I'm sure you've also realized by now you can't beam into my ship, or assimilate it. Yup, I was just informed about your little try...go ahead all you like, but you can't do it.

"Oh yes, before you go about trying to stick me with your assimilation tubules, I'd better warn you, I, and all my crew, are quite immune.

"So...what do you want to talk to me about?"

After a long series of discussions, Captain, Delta A, and three weaponry drones found themselves escorted by Vinni onto what he called the Flying Bird. The sub-collective had tried to threaten in proscribed theatrics, but the bluff was called when the human calmly related that (1) he was from several centuries in the future and (2) he knew all about Cube #347's "status".

At the pronouncement, the typical pathological split in desires appeared. The weaponry hierarchy wanted to terminate the humans, then blow up the Flying Bird. Subunit #522 continued to desire assimilation, but as that appeared to be unlikely at the moment, was trying to contact the Greater Consciousness; the attempt was thus far not working very well. Delta wanted a better look at the holo-cloak...and the engineering hierarchy had also discovered evidence of Flying Bird compromising several key cube systems, namely power, data, and regeneration. Smaller divisions clamored their desires, several of which had absolutely nothing to do with the problem at hand.

{No,} said Captain for the third time, {370 of 510 and 7 of 230, you pair may /not/ take this time to demonstrate to the humans the magic tricks you have perfected.}

After quieting those who could be quieted, and ignoring those who could be ignored (after double-checking relevant functions were securely locked), Captain and his four compatriots found themselves confronted with the sight of long vats. Each of the five tubs was approximately ten meters long by two wide, four of which were filled to the brim with a watery brownish goop. A fifth container was in the process of being drained, the effluent channeled through a hose to a lower deck. Delta curiously peered at the brown stuff, then sunk her artificial hand to her elbow in the quasi-liquid despite the protests of Vinni.

"Complex proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, essential minerals....this is from the regeneration system," accused Delta. "It is a much more hydrated form than that supplied to alcoves, and it is missing primary, secondary, and tertiary nanite additives, but the chemical signatures are otherwise the same." Regeneration was one of the most sensitive systems on a Borg cube, and it was defended as jealously as most ships would protect air scrubbers and other components of life support.

Vinni gave a pained smile. "Well. I don't think we'll have to toss that batch, at least I hope not. Next time, please tell me before you stick you arm in something? Anyway, you, my Borg friend, are quite right." Delta protested at being named 'friend', but was ignored. "This is the first step of processing. After collecting precursor regenerative liquid, we add water to increase the volume, as well as a few 'secret spices' which denature your nanoprobes. Such an inconvenience for our customers if they get assimilated by a bad shipment."

"Customers?" asked 254 of 300, one of the three weapon drones. She had once been an aggressive station-to-station salesbeing for a company known cryptically as AVON.

Vinni nodded, "Customers. This is a drug manufacturing ship, after all. We make Jovian Dust here. Follow me; next we go downstairs."

The tour lasted several hours and covered a great volume of the ship. In essence, the interior was devoted to drug manufacture, defense and storage of said drugs, and crew space, in that order. The last was a very small part of the total, a barracks with four bunkbeds for the eight crew, a single room for Vinni, a replicator, and a small electronic entertainment database of books and 2-D films. Due to the sparse nature of the last amenity, wandering the Borg ship or datajacking information from Cube #347's local cultural files was the major pastime of the crew when not on duty. The drug manufacturing process, however, was the most interesting part of the tour, mainly because it directly impacted the sub-collective.

Beginning with a tub full of raw material skimmed from the regeneration systems, the quasi-liquid was hydrated and nanites removed. Prior to drainage to the lower decks, nanoprobes - suspiciously akin to Borg design proclaimed Assimilation as he examined data taken by Delta A - programmed to accent the more "pleasurable" of the exotic synthetic molecules were introduced. Next the stew was put into large flat pans from which water was evaporated until a paste-like constancy was acquired. By then the nanoprobes were finished with their task, and had begun to denature themselves. A quick exposure to vacuum completed the drying process, leaving a brittle crust. The crust was crushed into a powder and packaged for shipment.

Vinni swept his arm back and up, indicating multitudes of pale yellow bags containing approximately two kilos of narcotic each. The hold, spacious for the vessel size, was nearly full. "And the final product, as you can see hear, is commonly sold under the street name of Jovian Dust. Gotta be cut with something before your average junkie can use it without turning his brain into a sieve; however, what makes this dust so precious is the fact that it affects nearly all known sentients in the same way. No need to retailor the same chemical for different species, no lost revenue because what is ultimate pleasure for one race has the kick of baking flour for another. Jovian Dust is the perfect drug, and all the credit goes to the Borg and that regeneration junk you use to refuel drones. One size fits all, kinda of...we here just modify the intrinsic values a bit."

All five drones looked at each other; outrage at the exploitation was the least of the emotions bubbling in the sub-collective. Subunit #522 could be felt attempting to relay the information to the Greater Consciousness, but the content kept becoming garbled such that replies from the latter for clarification were tinged with the belief the subunit had become corrupted. Locally:

Weapons wanted to outright destroy the stealthed ship. Since it couldn't be assimilated, purifying phaser fire was the next best option. The sentiment was not new, but many were now in agreement, especially with the revelation of the perversion of Borg technology. Delta, to be contrary, was looking at the problem as an engineering conundrum...and voicing her thoughts that less satisfaction would be gained through debris than assimilation; Delta did not like her engineering systems jeopardized when she had the responsibility of hierarchy head. She was currently badgering Assimilation to figure a method to bypass the undetermined immunity to nanoprobes. Assimilation was understandably leery to give into Delta's demands, but those she had rallied behind her cause were wearing down the former's defenses.

Ignoring the internal struggle for consensus, purposely doing nothing to shorten the lengthening debates and arguments threatening to sunder the last shreds of unity, Captain continued probing for information. At this point, knowledge was the most vital factor to create a strong consensus. "This ship is temporal in origin, and you are from the future. Why are you not in your own time, and why are you attached to Exploratory-class Cube #347?"

Vinni pursed his lips a bit, then answered. "Well, might as well tell ya. Yup, you'll be forgetting this whole fiasco in a bit, so might as well." He shrugged, not bothering to explain the last comment before continuing. "I'll answer the second question first. The truth is, despite this sub-collective's rather infamous individualistic condition which school history texts devote an entire section towards, this cube is otherwise nothing special. There's a ship like mine on several hundred Borg vessels." Subunit #522's attempts to successfully contact the Greater Consciousness doubled with that information, to no avail. "Got to keep the drug flowing, you know.

"And as far as why in the past? Two reasons. First of all, Jovian Dust is frowned upon by the drug cops, so what better place to hide out than the past? Also, you Borg do eventually catch on...in about a hundred years or so. After that, the regeneration liquid is altered and special precautions are introduced that make it extremely hazardous for someone in my trade to process dust."

Subunit #522 activated the transporter system, sending one of their number to the hatch area outside the drug smuggler's vessel. The drone wound its way into the heart of the ship, finally joining the six in the cargo hold. 143 of 1810 glared at Captain while simultaneously the subunit berated the primary consensus monitor and facilitator of Cube #347 for ignoring the subunit's communication problems.

{I wasn't ignoring the problem, just the subunit in question. Communication problems are nothing new; and by now I'm sure the Great Consciousness has written you off as corrupted by assimilation imperfection. The responses by the Greater Consciousness have been quite skeptical.}

The subunit gave the equivalent of a snorting huff, then fixed its attention on Vinni. 143 of 1810 spoke, "You are the cause of our inability to contact the Collective. You will cease your efforts and allow us access to the Greater Consciousness. You will do this now."

Captain gahed outloud, then rolled his single eye as Vinni stared at 143 of 1810 in disbelief. Internally, a welter of voices broke off their debates (relevant and irrelevant) to bombard subunit #522 with sentiment on the order of "You idiots!" Vinni looked to Captain, "This one for real?"

Sigh. "Unfortunately." On the nets: {Subunit #522, you will recall that drone back to Bulk Cargo Hold #3. If you don't do so, and if you resist any code commands I give, I will have the three of the weapon hierarchy physically drag your drone out of here.} The trio from weapons closed rank around 143 of 1810, mentally daring him to resist, to make their day.

Vinni laughed, "Amazing! I would like the complete story, but that will just have to wait." He addressed all present, "However, I'm afraid I just can't do that. Part of the original reordering of this cube's basic command codes, the entire Borg Collective in fact, includes a 'gagging' function should any factory vessel be discovered. Sorry, but my organization just can't have word leaking back to the Collective which might prematurely, on the temporal scale, halt dust production.

"Which brings me to my final point. My hold is nearly full here, and the courier ship is on its way. By the time it arrives, an updated Sleeping Beauty worm will have lobotomized your memories. I expect the worm will be ready in a few days at most." Pause. Vinni's voice became harder, "And don't try anything cute with the weapons. Sure, you may be able to destroy me and my ship, but in the process, I guarantee you nothing of this cube will be left either. And as of now, the block on Collective subspace communications is expanded to include transferring your essence to echo in the Collective; i.e., no eternal Borg nirvana for you. Think of it as a Deadman's Switch."

That warning instantly quieted most of the discussions within the dataspaces. Subunit #522 abruptly halted its attempts to contact the Greater Consciousness; even Weapons dropped his budding plans of destruction. A threat to the Borg version of immortality was nothing to take lightly.

Sensors: {Temporal disturbance one hundred twenty kilometers distant of face #2. Three vessels are emerging from the chromaton wake. Ship silhouettes unknown.}

As Captain focused inward to partake of incoming sensor data, Vinni's face suddenly wrinkled in disgust. Although no obvious manner of information relay was apparent, the human suddenly spat on the ground. "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Cops!"

After the six drones had been hustled out of the drug manufacturing ship by Vinni, they had beamed themselves to their respective "homes." 143 of 1810 was back in Bulk Cargo Hold #3, the trio of the weaponry hierarchy returned to their alcoves, and Delta A was now with one of the teams tasked with determining how extensively the alien ship had compromised the physical systems of subsection 22, submatrix 13.

Captain materialized in the nodal intersection he frequented, immediately activating the large viewscreen to show the incoming vessels. Seconds later, Second transported into the intersection as well; he was cursing the moment his form was fully present.

"Trouble?" Most of Captain's attention was directed at the screen, but his awareness included his eloquently vocal second-in-command.

Second passed the sensation of electrocution to Captain. The Flying Bird had electrified its hull in an effort to fry the drones dismantling the exterior. Not exactly painful, the scrambling of personal systems Second had experienced was nonetheless not a good thing, the closest analogue of which was dizziness. "And I'm still have problems with my optical implants; near blind in one. One moment the surface of the smuggler's ship is inert, the next myself and the fifteen others who were on it might as well have stuck our heads in an arc wielder."

"Go see Doctor."

"He /will/ stick my head in an arc wielder. 16 of 240 is having that procedure performed on him right now." Which was true, when Captain took a few microseconds to isolate the named signature. How unpleasant. "I'll wait until after the crisis, thank you."

"Fine." Captain had split himself into multitasking mode, and meanwhile had completed his examination of the incoming ships. The three vessels were alike to each other, resembling an ovoid at the nose before sweeping aft to a truncated cylinder. Dimensions were 150 meters in length and 70 meters at the widest point of the beam. A glowing nacelle ring of blue was set flush to the ship's hull three-quarter the length back; a similar ring of green-blue encircled the vessel at the one-third mark. No windows punctuated the hull, although lateral rows of phaser banks gave the ships a striped appearance. Eight torpedo ports were spaced equidistantly about the midship region; eight additional apertures at the nose did not fit with any known sensor or weapon system. Painted a menacing black, it would have been impossible to distinguish the ventral plane of the otherwise radially symmetrical ships, except for the fact names were embossed in large letters and lit with floodlights: SFSS Ferret, SFSS Mastiff, and SFSS Wolverine.

Sensors: {Subspace hailing, but not directed at us. Sensors is routing the signals into the general dataspaces.}

Captain's viewscreen split in two, a pair of faces replacing the picture of in the incoming ships. One visage was familiar - Vinni glaring defiantly, background indistinct. The other was also a male human, this one with long blond hair pulled back in a tail, dark eyes returning the drug smuggler's pointed stare. A black uniform with a double stripe of red on the shoulders clothed the unknown human; no obvious rank could be noted. A symbol, vaguely similar to a melted Terran Federation insignia, adorned the upper left breast. A small yellow light occasionally blinked below the right ear, approximately where the jaw joined the skull.

"This is Captain Gerry Jackson of the Second Federation Starship Mastiff. You will prepare to be boarded. If you get the itch to destroy your contraband, remember what happened to your comrades at temporal coordinates 5z23.7 beta, leeched to contemporary Borg Battle-class Cube #1032."

Sullen reply, "Yah, yah, yah, you copper. Vinni Hydrom of the Freighter Flying Bird, this crew will cooperate. Out of curiosity, how did you track us here?"

"Your courier had the bad luck to be boarded after a minor insystem traffic infraction. During a routine inquiry, the computer developed a nervous breakdown and blabbed everything." A grin split Jackson's face, daring the other to accept the explanation. Vinni did not look pleased.

"Sure, like I believe that. My employers will have me and my crew out of lock-up inside of a couple of weeks."

"And the hunt will begin anew. One of these days we'll break the cartel."

Vinni gave a close-mouthed smile. "Sure, if you say so."

Cube #347 had been collecting what information it could, which was rather limited. Aspects of propulsion, communications, and weaponry were familiar, yet exotic, as would be expected after several hundred years of technological advancement. Vinni and Jackson continued to converse sedately, ignoring the sub-collective as if it did not exist. It was time to remedy that oversight.

Breaking into the subspace signal, Captain overlaid the Borg multivoice, subverting video with an interior cube shot. "We are Borg. Incoming vessel, we demand to know your purpose, or we will fire. Resistance is futile."

Silence from both parties; abruptly the feed from the cube was regulated to a simultaneous secondary channel as the link between the Mastiff and Flying Bird was reestablished. Jackson began to berate Vinni, "I don't believe it, you little weasel! You know the temporal laws and the punishments when broken!"

"Have a heart, cop. This cube can't contact the Collective with the information. A little worm, and the damage will be fixed. If you had waited a couple of days to bust us, everything would have already been taken care of," whined Vinni.

"Forget it. You and your crew may not be able to be held on drug charges, but you have blatantly broken temporal directives. And the fact that whatever black-market worm hack you are using obviously didn't work to begin with doesn't bode well your 'fix' would do much better," Jackson's voice was hard and he was no longer smiling. The yellow light under his ear was rapidly blinking. "You will prepare to be boarded."

The three ships bore in rapidly, power to phaser banks building. Alarmed, Weapons responded in return, diverting additional energy to shielding and activating phasers along the appropriate edges. The Second Federation temporal vessels ignored the posturing, sedately passing through Cube #347's shields, then shrugged off the green lances of directed plasma which scored direct hits.

Jackson: "Borg cube, you will desist your futile actions. We have no quarrel with you, and will happily explain all that is happening. If you do not comply, we will be forced to take deadly action." The sub-collective quickly conferred among itself, then halted its firing. "Thank-you." Jackson was quiet for a few seconds, during which the yellow telltale winked in a series blinks before holding steady. Jackson spoke in surprise, "Our temporal records for this time period indicate your designation is Exploratory-class Cube #347. I am honored to meet the 'imperfect' sub-collective! Unfortunately, while I would wish to relate more, enough damage has been done by Vinni. Once we have begun our removal of the leech freighter, I would like to beam aboard your cube and meet your current facilitator."

It was unnerving, the manner Jackson spoke to the sub-collective. Not only was he at ease with his words, he acted as if conversing with Borg was an everyday affair! And he implied to know much about the interior workings of the Collective, in much the same way Vinni had. The touch of idol worshipping, as if he were in the presence of a Very Important Personage instead of the Collective's rejects, was also weird. "Do we have any choice?"

Jackson's wide grin was back, this time touched by a hint of irony. "Actually...no. Resistance, as you so eloquently say, is futile."

The Second Federation starships hung less than one hundred meters from the concealed Flying Bird. The last hour had registered a flurry of transport signatures between the temporal ships and the attached freighter, accompanied by the erection of a type of jamming field within the latter. Remote sensors beyond the most gross resolutions were now useless, enveloping the Flying Bird and beginning at a point inside the tunnel connecting the craft with the cube.

Sensors registers the departure of the last of the biosignatures aboard the freighter; a transporter beam is materializing something three meters from the present location of Captain.

{I can see that, Sensors. I'm not blind, even if Second partially is at the moment,} said Captain in response to the general announcement out of the sensory hierarchy.

Second replied, {I won't dignify that observation with an answer.}

The being who had appeared was the one named Captain Gerry Jackson. He was 1.7 meters tall, of medium build, and affecting the lopsided grin last seen on the viewscreen. He was also unarmed.

Before Captain could stop himself, stealthily placed commands from subunit #522 tripped themselves, cued at the sight of Jackson. "We are Borg. You will be assimilated," crossed Captain's lips and he actually took a pair of steps forwards before managing to neutralize the compulsion. {Second, deal with subunit #522. Use as many resources as necessary without compromising systems.} Second could be felt gleefully gathering the needed mentalities to erect an encrypted firewall to block temporarily the subunit from the communal dataspaces.

Jackson instinctively took a long step backwards, his arms raising up in defense. Looking from behind his hands when Captain stopped his advance, the smile which had fled Jackson's face reappeared. The yellow light blinked in a steady rhythm below his ear, "Sorry there, chaps, but I really should inform you that you can't assimilate me; due to the hazards of temporal travel and my job, I've been, um, vaccinated for lack of a better word against the nanites of this era." Pause as Jackson peered at the two stationary drones. "Our records indicate you are 4 of 8, subdesignation Captain. Your comrade here is 3 of 8, subdesignation Second. So pleased to meet you! Oh, and don't bother with pluralities and such, the condition of this sub-collective is known."

{Sensors, did you see where he got that information? And since when does the greater universe seem to know one of the Collective's deeper secrets?}

{Sensors is already working on it. No obvious communication link with the temporal ships.} Sensors did not answer the second, rhetorical, question. One of her hierarchy did start to offer an observation, but quieted when a neighbor kicked him in the shin.

Doctor suddenly inserted his opinion, {The drone maintenance hierarchy has a conjecture based on observation. That yellow light located at the base of the human's jaw may be an external manifestation of an implant, one at the very least which is transmitting aural information to the mastoid bone for relay into the ear. However, the technology seen thus far would support direct neural interface as more efficient. I would suggest the sensor hierarchy to be good boys and girls and examine the less obvious frequencies.}

{Understood. Sensors is modifying search parameters now. Still nothing to report.}

Captain shuffled the stream of consciousness relay of updates to the background. Less than a second had passed. Second was still embroiled in an internal battle of wills with the subunit, although the latter were obviously not giving their full attention to the potential block from dataspace input. Weapons tried at that moment to divert power to the nearest cutting beams, but was blocked.

Jackson: "You okay?"

"We are having some internal problems at the moment. It is being rectified." Captain refused to apologize. "We have questions." Specifically, the general query was knowledge of 'now what?', followed closely by engineering hierarchy's want for technological input about the temporal ships...and a demand to remove the freighter as soon as possible. Jackson listened as the questions were ordered, appeared to look inward for a few seconds (the tempo of the yellow telltale picked up again), then began to answer.

{Sensors sees another transport signature originating from the temporal vessel SFSS Mastiff. Destination: immediately inside the hatch area of the smuggler's ship.} Sensors threw up a schematic of the still attached ship into the common dataspaces, highlighting the area of materialization. Two life forms registered on internal sensors; however, beyond that nugget of data, no other information was forthcoming. The interference jamming was too intense.

Captain swiftly directed directional audio receivers to be trained at the hatch, plus set maximum zoom of all visual sensors with line-of-sight up the connecting tunnel. The latter proved next to worthless as only a pair of vague shadows was the reward. Movement of the shadows and quiet beeping from a single touch pad indicated computational interface with a computer. Frustration!

Jackson was smiling at Second and Captain as he completed his report. The part of Captain which had been listening did not learn anything new; Second had completed the temporary isolation of subunit #522, neutralizing the backdoor they had coded to circumvent the firewall. Jackson finished up, "And so, we are most sorry to be bothering you fellows here in this century. We'll be leaving shortly, but there is still quite a mess to clean up. Physical proof, such as the drug vessel, our temporal ships will take with us, but there are less tangible evidence to modify as well. To this end, we'll be reprogramming your memory of events...and by extension, the Collective's as well. Technicians are preparing the worm; it should have been done sooner, but historians had to do a bit of searching to find the appropriate flavor of code. Don't worry, our programs are much better than that second-rate slop Vinni and company used." Another smile.

"Wait just a second..." bristled Second. Captain automatically began to protest as well, but the great majority of his split attention centered on the audio pick-ups as they registered bored speech echoing from the interior of the smuggler's ship.

A light bass voice spoke first, "I'm about done here. You?"

"Yah." The second voice had a tenor pitch, with a trio of harmonics woven into the simple syllable. It was impossible to determine either voice's species or gender; and doubly true for the latter, which was assigned a high probability to be a being of nonstandard type needing a mechanical device to aid translation.

Bass again: "Everything is ready? I'm not the best at this temporal programming stuff. Give me a good shoot-out any day, and I'm happy. Bosses will be mad if something I do sends this ship to the wrong place when we jump out of here."

"Of course all is ready! I've been checking your work, Juan, and fixing /your/ errors while I've been doing /my/ assigned task. Only reason you're here at all are the rules which dictate minimum of two in an away mission. It would have been more efficient if you'd just stood around looking the part of the proper police escort, while we did all the tech. It is our technology that allows the Second Federation access to the past, after all."

"Yah, yah, yah, Eighteen, rub it in every chance you get." Pause, "You know, you just switched plur...."

An interruption by the strained and slightly peeved voice, "Can't you call me by my proper name for once? Repeat after me, 'Temporal Liaison Eighteen of....'"

A confusion of static suddenly exploded across the awareness of the sub-collective, wiping the increasingly interesting conversation from immediate access. Second moved to reroute internal sensor data in subsection 22, submatrix 13 even as Sensors indicated the sign of transporters beaming the two sentients back to the temporal ship.

"What was that?" questioned Captain to Jackson. "We've just experienced a loss of sensory input!"

Jackson nodded his blond head, tail whisking back and forth against his neck, "Ah...that would be the worm. I was just informed a few seconds ago it had been uploaded to your systems."

"We have no record of any upload!" There was still no hint of communications between the human and the temporal ship, either. A large portion of the sensor hierarchy continued to scan up and down the electromagnetic frequencies, hunting for a clue. Subspace fractuals and the other eccentric bands, however, took time to conclusively search.

"Don't panic. First thing the worm does is erase memory of its entry; it should be beginning to isolate any information which relates back to us, the smugglers, or knowledge of the future. Progression happens in a backwards matter, from recent to past. The deletion will be triggered when I transport out.

"Speaking of which...I'm ready to go. Once again, although you won't remember this, the Second Federation thanks you for your help and cooperation, and apologizes for any inconveniences." Jackson disappeared in a shimmering of yellow and pale red.

Cube #347 and subunit #522 promptly forgot all the events of the past few time cycles, remembering only the boredom of travel. Seconds later, the Greater Consciousness suffered a similar lapse in memory.

She paused for a few minutes as sensitive sensors in her limb registered a gravitational anomaly. The anomaly was located along an otherwise featureless section of bulkhead in corridor 8 on the hullward side. Slight differences in gravitational potential were expected and usually considered unimportant; however, this particular anomaly was distinctly rectangular, as if someone had once cut a door into the hull, then subsequently wielded it shut. Visually no imperfection was apparent...and why would anyone want a door to the hull when one could simply use the transporter? Especially through ten meters of duralloy plating, ablative armor, and other hull components.

6 of 19 dutifully flipped though the list of reported hull stresses, confident the anomaly would be among them. Curiously, the anomaly was not listed. As 6 of 19 reexamined the rectangle, she began to be increasingly convinced it was of an artificial nature, the implications of which were not good.

Data subtly rearranged itself, a file inserting itself where none had been before. Before any in the sub-collective could remark upon the occurrence, all memory of the happenstance was erased.

Berating herself, 6 of 19 suddenly found the appropriate entry, describing the odd anomaly. Apparently it had been present since construction, and was not considered a detriment to normal operations or combat. To fix the stress would require removing a large section of internal hull...inefficient use of maintenance time and materials. As to why 6 of 19 had not found the relevant data in her first search...it had been misfiled, of course. She moved the file to its proper location of "Engineering Status Logs - Anomalies - Hull Stress" from "Engineering Status Logs - Rectangle Thingies"

6 of 19 moved on. There was still much of the submatrix to cover before the requirements of regeneration sent her back to her alcove.

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