Welcome to a new season. As usual, Paramount owns Star Trek, as it has since the Big Bang and will continue to do beyond the heat death of the universe. Decker created Star Traks; and I write BorgSpace.
The More Things Change...
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
By the old Terran standard of recounting, it was 2919 AD; species #8492 called it 72,012 TITLTWCC (This Is The Last Time We Change Calendars); and for unknown and untranslatable reasons, species #6766 had decided it was the Year of the [Hippopotamus]. However one calculated it, 503 years had passed in an eternal eyeblink for the former sub-collective of pre-Dark Exploratory-class Cube #347; and now collectively designated as the sub-collective of a contemporary Exploratory-class Cube #347.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
{Oh! Directed dampening field! The manual says this weapon is able to disable an unwarded enemy energy grid at a distance of up to 3,000 kilometers!} exclaimed a voice excitedly. {An emitter is located on each face, in the center of the impulse engine cluster.}
Over five centuries ago, the Borg Collective found itself faced with a devious and highly fecund opponent called species #11086, or Dark by those who did not use numerical designations. Forced to cooperate with unassimilated races for reason of survival, the Collective performed the equivalent of a lobotomy on itself, and, thus, Borg became Hive. As perfection was no longer synonymous with involuntary assimilation, a desperate consortium of individual species and multiracial confederations, with the Hive at its heart, rid the galaxy of Dark 102 painful years later. The subsequent collapse and rebuilding of a myriad of civilizations was watched by the Hive, whom later began peaceful interaction with the likes of the Delta quadrant Quorian Empire and the Alpha quadrant Second Federation. However, a pivotal incident 501 years after lobotomy revealed the Conspiracy for what it was, and a trigger carefully kept in the holds of an unknowing and sleeping pre-Dark Cube #347 reawoke the Collective, returning Borg to the galaxy.
History did make sense, after a fashion, as long as one didn't dwell too much upon paradoxes and confusing timelines. A flow chart helped as well.
{Look at the specs for the subspace ripple charge! It temporarily collapses local spatial fabric to warp and transwarp initiation! And this section describes the transmutation pulse, technology which blocks subspace fractual frequency communications. How interesting!} the voice rapidly continued. With each weapon listed, a new set of instructions and schematics flooded the dataspaces. It might have been interesting, as the voice proclaimed, the first one or three times, but this particular manual was now in its dozenth recitation.
{Yes, Weapons,} said a second voice, {we absorbed it the first time.} Naturally, Voice #2 was ignored by Voice #1.
Intimately linked with the beginning, and end, of Hive history was the imperfectly assimilated drones which comprised the sub-collective of then and now Cube #347. Not only had Cube #347 carried the payload which resurrected the Borg Collective (before being ordered to time warp back to the cube's temporal beginning point), but the sub-collective had been instrumental in the early years of the Dark War by drawing the Federation into the fray. The reward for the sub-collective's involvement in the Dark War had been untimely termination.
Death in the Trekkian version of the universe, however, is not as permanent as it is in other realities; and so, with the intervention of a Director, the whole of Cube #347 was given a second (third? fourth?) chance. Unfortunately, bureaucracy being what it is, even in the after life, reincarnation had been delayed 500+ years following original termination.
{Listen - "The Exploratory-class Cube, Mark XXIX, is equipped with state-of-the-art neutron-plasma disrupters - neurupters - along all edges. Combined with traditional cutting beams, phaser, and disrupter technologies, this offensive weapon makes the Mark XXIX much more powerful than earlier versions. See section 5-3 for filter options to change the color of the neurupter beam; standard color is green."} Voice #1 was practically salivating. In fact, the body to whom Voice #1 belonged was salivating. {The neurupter is a powerful version of the cutting beams on the pre-Dark Cube #347. Neutrons are melded into a plasma state, then focused towards the target. Old-technology shields protect against charged particle weaponry, radiation, and kinetic damage. Because the neurupter is electrically neutral and has no associated radiation, old shield technology is ineffective. I must change the parameters on the BorgCraft simulator promptly. The Enterprise can't stop us now!}
A third Voice answered Voice #1, {The Enterprise you refer to is nearly five centuries gone.}
{Can't be too sure,} was the response from Voice #1, {especially concerning temporal rifts.} The parade of specifications continued.
Reincarnated among a Borg Collective six years removed from Hive, the sub-collective of pre-Dark Cube #347 had been forced to adapt; or, rather, had been reassimilated into the contemporary Collective, which amounted to the same thing. Upon discovering the extent of assimilation imperfection corruption, the Greater Consciousness considered three possibilities: (1) termination, (2) integration into the imperfect crew of Lugger-class Cube #238, or (3) commission a new cube onto which to shuffle the recently acquired rejects. For various reasons, many of them exactly the same line of reasoning used for over eight millennium, option one was discarded. Option two was also not feasible, for the Lugger-class, like its Cargo-class predecessor, was a giant vessel comprised mostly of holds, and with a very small life support area. Lugger-class Cube #238 was already at capacity, and the refit necessary to permanently expand alcove and environmental limits by four thousand bodies would be difficult to perform. Therefore, option three was the logical choice. By very odd coincidence, the designation of the Exploratory-class cube at the top of the "ready to use" list was #347.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Voice #1 gasped, as it had gasped twelve times before. {Singularity torpedoes! Two protons are collided together, creating a miniature black hole! Although the black hole evaporates very quickly, it is active long enough to destabilize any object it contacts with! The specific technology is as follows...}
{Weapons, shut up!} chorused Voice #2 with a Voice #3, backed by the combined minds of thousands of other drones. Even members of the weapons hierarchy joined the chorus, for one could only take so many reiterations of new ways to annihilate a target.
Weapons, 45 of 300, nee Voice #1, quieted. For a moment. {The BorgCraft simulation really requires updating. Oh, wow, look at these shield specs! Utterly different from our old Cube #347, which follows considering neurupter technology.}
Exploratory-class cubes had not changed much in 500 years, at least not on the outside, and, for that matter, not on the interior neither. Of course, little alteration had occurred to the cube class for over five millennium, that being the time the Collective had determined the dimensions of 1.3 kilometers an edge to be most optimal. Like the cubes of yore, the new Exploratory-class Cube #347 was divided into 27 subsections, each of which had 27 submatricies; and there was a total of eight cargo holds. A primary core was located at the center of the cube, with ten auxiliary cores scattered at strategic locations. Transwarp coils. Tri-segmented warp nacelles. Impulse engines. Alcoves and internal cameras were mounted in predictable locations; and if one went to subsection 14, submatrix 5, one would even find a place which, like the pre-Dark Cube #347, and /all/ Exploratory-class cubes past and present, was deficient concerning the primary core heat dispersal system, raising ambient air temperatures to an uncomfortable 46 degrees Celsius.
The new Cube #347 was slightly different from earlier versions, incorporating technologies which had not been available at the beginning of the Dark War. In addition to the offensive and defensive technologies on the contemporary Cube #347, which alone made it comparable to a pre-Dark Battle-class cube, a new propulsion - hypertranswarp - was available. Less significant, but equally important, advances had been made in the areas of replicator efficiency, dilithium crystal growth, effective transporter distances, tractor beam control, and duralloy composition.
Unfortunately, one could not blithely compare the least of the contemporary Borg fleet to the most powerful vessels of yesteryear. For one thing, the galaxy of now was a more vicious place, the evolutionary technological arms race conducted between Borg and many other races having achieved near parity during the Hive era. For another thing, Cube #347 /was/ assigned to an imperfectly assimilated sub-collective, and included all the intrinsic inefficiencies implied by such a label.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Of all the things that had changed, surprisingly, the composition of the sub-collective of Cube #347, or, more precisely, the hierarchy heads, had not been one of them. After the expected physical poking and prodding following reassimilation, not to mention the mental scourings (during which time the impression from the Greater Consciousness was one distinctive of a person cleaning up something disgusting with eyes closed and hands held as far from body as possible), the sub-collective had been ordered to their new cube, hierarchy structure intact.
{Gray #23a has a 0.0012% drying rate difference from Gray #23b,} dully recounted 13 of 20, subdesignated Assimilation. The moment he had discovered 500 years of progress had not included the ability to return his color vision, he had returned to his old hobby of categorizing monochromatic paint by slight variations in hue and drying time. {The Gray #23 series is distinctly different from Gray #22 series by a margin of 0.05%.}
The reason behind the disallowance of the sub-collective to change hierarchy heads (other than 45 of 300, who would be Weapons until the day dawned whereupon he either died, else an even more rabidly violent personality than him usurped his position) was unknown. Not even the Greater Consciousness could voice a reason, or, at least, the Greater Consciousness was ignoring the question as irrelevant, which amounted to the same outcome. In the end, the various hierarchy heads found themselves locked into their subdesignations - 4 of 8, Captain; 3 of 8, Second; 45 of 300, Weapons; 12 of 19, Delta; 27 of 27, Doctor; 1 of 3, Sensors; and 13 of 20, Assimilation.
{No, 49 of 133! Don't plug that thing in there!} exclaimed Delta suddenly as wiring diagrams were rapidly shuffled through the minds of the engineering hierarchy. A specific circuit path was highlighted in glaring yellow. {You'll...} she continued, then slowed as the illumination in Bulk Cargo Hold #2 died, {...short the lighting in...never mind. Crews 5 and 6, go fix it. And, 49 of 133, you and your chrome polisher - How did you manage to scavenge it off our original vessel, anyway? - report to primary core until such time drone maintenance requires you return to your hierarchy, further instructions forthcoming.}
In Bulk Cargo Hold #2, Delta, body B, stumbled as she was hit in the back of her head by a spare conduit accidentally swung around as 110 of 240 neglected to check near himself before heaving the length of metal onto an equipment rack. Elsewhere in the cube, the other half of Delta misstepped as that body reacted sympathetically with the minor injury sustained in the dark hold. {Turn on infrared, 110 of 240,} reminded Delta. So much to do to ready the brand new cube prior to its first assignment, so little time; and, of course, it was all up to engineering hierarchy to do. {Teams 56 through 63...report! Are all the plastic wrappers removed from the data pillars in subsection 9? We will not have a repeat of the heat shrink-wrap episode in subsection 2 when the pillars are activated.}
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
*****
"Yah, why /don't/ you choose new characters?" asked a large pair of purple painted lips as it idly shook a pair of dice with hands it technically didn't have. "It is sooooo passe, you know. Borgs, I mean."
The green-irised eyeball to whom the words were directed did not respond. Instead it stared as only a lidless eyeball can stare at the game board on the center of the table, contemplating the next move. The Director frowned, metaphorically, of course, for, like the smugly smirking pair of lips, it was a singular piece of anatomy lacking things like muscles, mouth, face. The eyeball was pretty good at peering into the too-cloudy future (non-linear existence allowed that, and the night class at Q-University entitled "Futures 101 - Using Crystal Balls, Ouija Boards, and Time Travel to See Beyond the Now" had helped as well), and it didn't like what it saw.
The eyeball snapped, "I'm thinking! Don't bother me. It is because of /you/ I'm in this fix. And I /like/ these characters, okay? I've put a lot of work into them."
"Not to mention how much time spent molding and painting the individual figures," loudly whispered a second pair of lips, normal red in coloration, to the first. Both snickered.
The board, or rather the Board, the eyeball considered existed somewhere between the second and third dimensions, or perhaps the third and fourth. Visually it resembled the Milky Way galaxy, a dusty spiral of stars, planets, and gasses spinning around the maw of a slumbering black hole of moderately immense proportion. A mere mortal would likely be plunged into insanity if he, she, or it gazed upon the Board, mind unable to comprehend the complex mix of full and partial dimensions which was being used as a game board. The Directors and Critics which sat in chairs around the board, however, had no such problem.
On the Board, a star flared, then died. The Board did not merely reflect the galaxy known as Milky Way, but in an undefinable way /was/ the Milky Way galaxy.
"Hurry up," said a second eyeball, iris of brown. "I want to take my turn. I do have manifestations to perform and mysterious advice to give to clueless linear organisms, hopefully sometime this subjective century."
"Shhhh," shushed Director One. After a few non-minutes, a cube figurine was re-positioned. "There, I take your challenge, Lips. I /know/ you cheated on that last roll, I know it! 'Oops, too close to the black hole,' indeed."
The Critic smiled. "You can't prove it, Iris. So...my turn. I think I will..."
"Ahem," interrupted a hollow voice. The brown-irised Director turned slightly to regard the new arrival. "I'm a bit late, aren't I?"
Director Two shrugged, "Give or take a million years. What took you so long?"
"Projects. You know what I mean. Editing stuff the boss /had/ to get done, yesterday." The arrival, like the others around the Board, was a piece of detached, ambulatory anatomy. Neither lips nor eyeball, it, the Editor, was an over-large, five-fingered hand. "Same old, same old, really. So, you say this Board is a little off?"
The purple lips snorted, "A little off? That last spatial anomaly, which shouldn't have even existed in the first place, took out an entire civilization I had. Sure, it was a minor civilization, but it was /my/ civilization."
The Editor gave the impression of rolling eyes, then grabbed a wrench and screwdriver out of nowhere. "I'm an Editor: I'll fix it. It's my job. Go on with what you were doing and ignore me." The hand crawled under the Board. After several minutes came the sound of saws and the electric whine of a drill.
"Whatever," distractedly responded Director One as it continued to stare at its game piece.
*****
Cube #347's first assignment in this brave new future and technology was...delivering parcels. Thousands of wooden crates occupied volume in Bulk Cargo Holds #1, #6, and #7. Smaller than a breadbox to larger than a mid-sized runabout, the boxes were of all sizes and appeared to be made of an artificial wood substitute complete with fake knotholes. Stenciled in red on the sides of the crates were phrases such as "Do Not Touch," "Do Not Open," "Delicate," and "This Side Up."
The directions provided to the sub-collective did not include a manifest beyond notation of "replacement parts," therefore, the crates, and more specifically what was in them, became an immediate source of fascination, much as a jackdaw is drawn to a shiny object. The lack of specifics was not surprising, the data obviously considered irrelevant as long as the cargo arrived at its destination. Drones, normal drones, did not have the curiosity, the will, to question directives. Cube #347 was different, and the omission - the sub-collective knew better than to attempt a futile dialogue with the Greater Consciousness concerning the crates - only served to stoke the fires of those facets of individuality, of stunted emotions such as curiosity, left to members of the vessel. Therefore, as soon as a course was set, the endpoint a badly damaged Lugger-class Cube #1113 stranded far from dry-docks and unable to synthesize needed propulsion components, it was not unexpected the filled Bulk Cargo Holds became the nexus of operations to discover the exact contents of the crates.
Captain was not immune. The normal reserve and aloofness he cultured as necessary for an activated Hierarchy of Eight member was lost through an infectious need-to-know (or, perhaps, plain boredom) propagated by the great majority of the sub-collective who had lent weight to successfully alter some of the parameters which governed cube behavior. A consensus cascade concerning the crates had returned the decision to "peek" in as many boxes as possible, the logical reason being the safety of cube infrastructure should any cargo be hazardous. Further self-rationalization by the four thousand minds in the cascade noted that as long as the cargo arrived intact to its destination, no harm would come of investigation. Captain, thus, was one of the many engaged in the examination.
Second shook a small package, no larger than a loaf of bread, labeled "Fragile." Something inside slid back and forth sluggishly. The box was reoriented upside-down, which resulted in a glassy snapping sound. Now many somethings rattled around inside the package. Second emitted a quiet "Oops" and replaced the box on a stack of similar objects. After several quiet seconds looking at the compromised crate, he buried it under a layer of its comrades, camouflaging it.
"I saw that," said Captain as he diligently attempted to drill into his chosen crate. His box was of a size to comfortably hold an alcove, or a coffin. Many races considered the two items the same. Attempted was the key word, for while the crates appeared as if made of low quality wood, the truth was very different. So far, Captain had dulled or broken four bits in his search to find a weakness. His situation was no different from others who had also undertaken the task.
Drill bits, saw blades, bent crowbars, abused and overheated lasers, all manner of broken and discarded tools were scattered on the deck waiting for salvage. Neither X-ray machines nor quantum imaging devices could look through the wood which plainly wasn't wood. Even nanoprobes set to disassemble mode made not a scratch, although Assimilation had been forced to be called in during that particular experiment. Some of the nanomachines had dribbled off the test crate and onto the floor, much to the detriment of said floor until the microscopic machines had been deactivated.
{Sensors sees something,} announced Sensors as Captain contemplated substituting a plasma cutter for the mechanical drill.
Captain set down the drill. {This is the third time in the last hour you've seen something, and it was seven times in the hour prior. Each time it was a grid anomaly originating from the hypertranswarp environment.}
{Sensors has correctly filtered the grid,} the insectoid protested.
Picture a book, each page representing a particular reality. Each page is a minute permutation of its neighbor. Disregarding the fact that said book is infinite in length and would most certainly not fit on any ordinary bookcase, the quest of entities who live embedded in the pages often becomes one of fast travel. The need to look beyond many mountains in as short a time as possible, or the need to run from those coming over the mountain, is a drive common to all sentient beings.
Gravity alters the topography of space, with heavy objects such as stars and Buicks found at the bottom of valleys. Since light must stay in the plane of reality, it is forced to bend around any object which has enough mass to disfigure the plane; thus, it is not necessarily most economical to follow the path of light because light does not travel in a straight line. Warp is the first step in conventional faster-than-light progression, vessels skipping over gravity-induced troughs in increasingly true straight lines.
Next in the progression of speed is transwarp. Between the pages of reality is subspace, a hostile environment for any who wish to pass through it. However, the deeper one goes in subspace, the less the interaction with local page of reality. Think of a stream of water running along a solid surface: the molecules closer to the solid flow less readily than those further away. Such as it is in subspace, with the deeper layers more fluid, more easily traversed than those close to normal space. Transwarp takes advantage of the shallowest of the subspace ocean.
Hypertranswarp delves much deeper into subspace, thus, allowing a vessel to transverse real space that much faster. However, the more massive an object, the more power required to open a tear into subspace; and, similarly, the deeper, faster an object is wont to go, the more energy needed. Information in the form of massless data can travel the deepest subspace layers, taking advantage of the quantum weirdness which was considered mundane in the spaces between pages of the book of reality. While hypertranswarp could never hope to transverse the same paths as data, it was still pretty damn fast.
Of course, there are other, less conventional, ways to make a ship or body go fast. For instance, one galaxy has an entire subway system created by a race which can manipulate wormholes; and the Pataki have learned to harness the nearly instantaneous speed and power of gossip. Light, after all, is only a limit for those unable to dream of going faster, or for those who have been ticketed one too many times by the cosmic cops (which, thankfully, are too busy in Mitak Galaxy #1, on the other side of the universe, staging a drug sting to worry about the speeders in the unimportant backwater known as the Milky Way).
Captain sighed, {Let us see. If it is those little pink sparkles that are supposed to be neutrino shadows...}
{No, not [yellow sticky notes]. Observe.}
If there was one area the Collective had progressed in the centuries it had been Hive, it was displays. No longer did the Borg employ porthole viewscreen of low-resolution and fish-eyed nature. Instead, holoemitters were standard in all cubes (much to the delight of Weapons), and the primary function of the devices was to project visuals with 3D accuracy, be it exterior views, strategic simulations, or circuit diagrams. Some things had not changed, however, with one of those things being that the holographic displays had the same distinct greenish hue present in their flatscreen predecessors.
The anomaly was imaged as a pulsating yellow star nearly in direct line with Cube #347's trajectory. The cube, represented by a small purple cylinder with eyes for an unfathomable reason only known to Sensors, appeared to be crawling along. The slowness was illusion, for if hypertranswarp velocities were translated to speeds the normal universe could comprehend, one would realize that the ship was hurtling along at many, many multiples the speed of light.
{Expand,} ordered Captain, heeding the sub-collective requirement for further information.
The display centered on the anomaly and magnified until it was the size of a double-fist. Simultaneously, grid sensors concentrated resources on the irregularity. Sensors reported, {[Bug juice] is intelligent in origin. It does not [blanket] known records.} Translation: the anomaly was the reflection of an artificial artifact in normal space, builders not in the extensive Borg database.
Captain initiated an abridged consensus cascade. On the one hand, crates demanded delivery; and on the other hand, unknown sentience demanded investigation for technological and biological uniqueness. The decision to stop and take a look was not unexpected. The Lugger-class cube to which Cube #347 was delivering the mysterious replacement parts was crippled, but not in danger; and the begetter of an anomaly that could reach to the hypertranswarp layers was certain to be more interesting than crates that refused to yield to inspection.
The Greater Consciousness agreed in a distant, off-handed matter when Captain supplied the vague outlines of what the cube had discovered, minus irrelevancies such as the attempt by crewmembers to illicitly open crates. What was not divulged could not be forbidden.
In Bulk Cargo Hold #1, activity which had paused during the consideration of path to follow resumed. A drilling laser, an immense behemoth of a device balanced atop tripod scaffolding, was taking shape nearby. Elsewhere a crash echoed across the hold as a crate was transportered fifty meters into the air and allowed to drop to the deck.
The cube exited hypertranswarp. Captain turned his head slightly to regard the second display which opened next to the first. He was an eddy of calm amid the busy deconstruction occurring around his position, as was nearby Second, both drones busy incorporating incoming data into the cube's world-view and coordinating actions. Unlike display 1, which continued to show Sensor's exotic view of the surroundings through the grid, display 2 was a real-time view of the originator of the anomaly as seen through the mundane lens of a camera.
A sphere, ten meters in diameter, busily tended a motley collection of sensory equipment with the single-minded dedication of a bee visiting flowers. The sphere was a patchwork of hull plates, each slightly different in color from the next, all a variation upon the dull hue of old brass. Dark apertures and lenses of unknown function interrupted the hull at irregular intervals. The contraption which the small sphere buzzed around had the rough dimensions of 20 by 15 by 15 meters. Dishes, antennas, and taunt metal cables sprouted here and there with no sense of aesthetics, not that the Borg were noted for their appretiation of elegance or artistry; and one corner was a constantly churning morass of blocks.
Cube #347 received a hail. Captain pivoted his body a quarter turn as he opened a third display. He simultaneously chose a random internal camera for the return visual feed, making sure it did not have views of drones doing unBorg activities or equipment still wrapped in the plastic film which indicated a new cube recently out of the shipyard assembly line.
A robot appeared in display 3, or at least the sub-collective had to assume the form was a robot because the sensor grid was not registering any lifeforms in sphere or contraption. A torus head made of a clear material sat atop a skinny neck, which in turn was mounted on a bulky, barrel body. Lights of red, yellow, and green flashed in the head and on the torso. Two thin arms constructed of a black, accordion pipe material emerged from the shoulders. At the end of the erratically waving arms were simple pincher hands. The mechanoid's resemblance was uncannily alike to the robot from "Lost in Space," not that the Borg maintained a library of eccentric cult science-fiction videos from 20th century Terra, not even Cube #347.
"Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" exclaimed the robot, arms maniacally waving. "What do you think you are doing? I have important duties to do! You are..." The transmission abruptly ceased. Display 2 was now showing the aftereffects of neurupter caused damage. The resultant explosion had turned sphere and sensory device into dust.
{Neurupters on edge #2 are functional,} reported Weapons.
Second groaned aloud as Captain reprimanded, {Weapons! That was /not/ part of protocol.}
{It was threatening us,} protested Weapons.
A replay of the sphere's actions showed no threat, unless an adjustment on the Z-axis could be construed as such. In the paranoid world in which Weapons existed, it likely was.
{There was no threat,} said Second, who began the long and futile task of re-educating Weapons as to what equated threat to the cube. A small sphere hardly qualified as a threat.
Captain picked up a plasma cutter, positioning it against what looked to be a seam, but was likely just another cosmetic imperfection on his crate. So much for that diversion. As the cube returned to hypertranswarp and its delivery task, Captain was already burying the incident. Eventually the Greater Consciousness would request a routine update summary of operations, as it did every thirteen hours for every vessel not in a Situation which required close and immediate supervision. Maybe the incident would go unremarked, hidden as it was between maintenance reports. Most likely the Great Consciousness would dismiss the destruction as another reason why imperfectly assimilated drones should not be given important tasks.
{Anomaly,} announced Sensors, ten minutes after the return to hypertranswarp. {Sensors also [cable] translucent red shadows.}
The mining laser was operational, although, thus far, it had only melted a hole in the deck and managed to set a drone on fire. The first target crate was being dragged into position, and Captain had prudently retreated to a position which was not line-of-sight. Second was watching with interest and offering unhelpful suggestions.
{Translucent red shadows?} asked Captain. Universal translator algorithms for species #6766 had not appreciably advanced in five centuries, yet the computer insisted Sensors' words to be correctly interpreted.
{All gone now,} replied Sensors. {Anomaly still [speaker].}
Captain called for a new display, blinking as he saw the pulsating yellow object again. {That is the same anomaly type,} he said, dismissing the red shadow comment. Work in the hold slowed as the sub-collective pondered options, then sped up as a decision was reached.
{We will investigate,} declared Captain. {Weapons, you will /not/ blow up whatever we find. You will not maim it. You will not do anything except that which is decided by the whole. Understand?}
{Compliance,} was the sullen answer.
Normal space revealed another sphere and another contraption of sensory bits and pieces. Not brass, the hull of this sphere was variations of oxidized copper; and the robot that hailed the cube, arms waving, had a bluish tinge to its body, instead of the previous one's silver.
"Who are you and what do you think you are doing? Very busy, very busy. Danger, Will Robinson, danger! Very, very busy here, you understand," spoke the robot.
{Weapons....} reminded Captain a final time before Cube #347 responded.
"We are Borg. You will be assimilated. Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."
If the robot had any comprehension of its danger, it did not show it. "No time, Will Robinson, no time! Busy, busy, busy!"
On the holographic display of the outside, the sphere was industriously buzzing around the contraption, although no maintenance or adjustment activities were visible.
{Initiate sampling protocol,} voiced Captain into the intranets. {Only sampling protocol,} directed the consensus monitor to the weapon hierarchy head.
With an unrepressed grumble of disappointment, Weapons took control of a pair of tractor emitters and a cutting beam. One tractor beam captured the sphere, halting its manic bumblebee actions, while the other seized the sensory apparatus construct.
The robot appeared to become more agitated, if that was possible. It was amazing an arm did not detach, so vigorously were the limbs flapped. "What are you doing? No time, no time! Must stay busy!"
Meanwhile, next to the casing housing the primary controls of tractor emitter #15, 256 of 422 rearranged her magnet collection. There were wooden apples and papayas, cute dobliths with razor teeth and painted blood, and chromed eating utensils shaped for a dozen dozen appendage types. Smuggling her collection, the product of nearly fifteen years of diligent searching, from the old Cube #347 had been difficult. Careful examination of the new cube using a resonance scanner had found /this/ particular place to have the perfect magnetic properties for purpose of magnet display.
Elsewhere, unaware of the actions of one 256 of 422, Weapons was adamant, {Control of tractor emitter #15 is failing. It is /not/ my fault. It is /not/ the fault of weapons hierarchy. Faulty maintenance by engineering is to blame.}
{Engineering is not to blame,} retorted Delta vehemently. {All the emitters were working perfectly during inspection twelve hours ago.} She supported her defense with a tidal wave of the appropriate data.
Captain watched as the erratically pulsing tractor holding the sphere slammed the little vessel into the sensor contraption. Both objects became engulfed in a ball of flame that quickly dispersed in the vacuum of space. As before, the only thing left behind was dust and trace elements.
{Not my fault,} declared Weapons. {Equipment failure.}
{3 of 230, 158 of 230, 97 of 310, report to tractor emitter #15,} snarled Delta. {This is not engineering's fault, and we will prove it.}
Captain stacked another layer of crates between himself and any possible ricochet from the mining laser. The piece of heavy construction equipment was fully powered and ready to be unleashed upon the target box. This second incident would be treated as the first, and Captain had already strategically hidden the disastrous misadventure as a footnote to tractor emitter #15's malfunction.
Another anomaly, another investigation, another sphere, another contraption, another robot. The mechanisms had to be part of a larger listening post network, although whom was being eavesdropped upon was unknown, as was the identity of the owners of the daft robots. It was too great a coincidence to be finding all the sensor-studded apparatus so near each other.
The sphere was in a tight tractor lock. On the display Captain watched the robot, reddish this time, gyrating wildly. This one had lost an arm, although the injury did not bother it.
"Not good, Will Robinson, not good! Desist! Halt! Do not continue! Must return to work."
{Carefully,} said Captain to Weapons. He ignored the dismayful discussion occurring near what had used to be a mining laser. Like its smaller cousins, the large device had been unable to do more than lightly scorch the pseudo wood boxes. Adding power had only burnt out vital components, leading to an exciting, though short-lived, moment when the laser had begun to melt.
A loud screeching scrape sounded as a monofilament saw was dragged across the deck. It was a relatively new piece of technology, only a century old and resembled an extremely large band saw, acquired by the then Hive through peaceful exchange. The monofilament saw could cut through neutronium, an alloy which made BorgStandard duralloy look like butter. Thus far, only Battle-class cubes were plated with difficult-to-produce neutronium, but all vessels carried equipment which could cut the metal, just in case.
{We are always careful,} rejoined Weapons, ignoring snorts to the contrary which sounded from various directions in the intranet.
A cutting beam lanced out, striking the hull of the sphere. The manufacturer of the ship must have had close cousins among the designers of an infamous car called the Pinto, for whatever shield protected the sphere's energy source, it was not robust. The core spectacularly exploded, conflagration spreading to the sensor contraption. Again.
A green-tinged robot and a sphere plated in tarnished gold. One of the robot's waving arms must have hit a vital button, for even before a tractor beam could be initiated, the machine had stopped and said, "Oh-oh, Will Robinson, oh-oh!"
Boom.
Sensors complained the red shadows were beginning to give her a headache.
Five minutes following the implosion of the fifth sphere, the sub-collective was still fuzzy on the events leading to the occurrence. The incident had included chapstick, a spork, an oscillating fan, and a homemade particle accelerator.
Captain stared at the two displays: this was ridiculous. Another sphere - pearly alabaster - and another robot - light orange. The sphere was darting back and forth behind the sensor contraption, just out of reach of the tractor beams. The weaponry hierarchy as a whole was growing frustrated, which in turn fueled Weapons' impatience.
"No time for you," spouted the inane robot, arms flailing. "Must work, Will Robinson, must work!"
Earlier, Captain had emerged from his shield of crates once it became obvious the monofilament saw was to be as futile an effort as the mining laser before it. Most drones had returned to personal endeavors using handheld devices or were dropping crates. A small subset was constructing a ceramic vat into which different acids were to be poured, and small boxes subsequently dunked. Second was no longer present, having retreated to his alcove to regenerate.
Pent up weapon hierarchy frustration was released in the form of a torpedo. The weapon wasn't any torpedo, but one of Cube #347's limited supply of singularity torpedoes. The firing was unauthorized, a rogue command forced past censors by Weapons; and it also appeared to have been a futile gesture as the torpedo sailed past the target, failing to hit anything.
{What did I say, Weapons?} began Captain. He was not able to finish.
Weapons crowed, {Hit something!}
{That [tickled],} said Sensors at the same time as the universe beyond Cube #347...blinked.
The stars, the sphere, everything beyond the hull of the cube flickered, paling until it was a translucent shadow before reforming to solidarity. One place did not follow suit, that being the detonation point of the torpedo. The artificial black hole unleashed by the torpedo had caused damage before evaporating, damage which spat bolts of plasma and vented green gas. The shadow of a scaffolding could be seen through the haze.
All drones on the cube shuffled to a halt to contemplate the significance of the situation. Well, all drones except those in Bulk Cargo Hold #1 whom were mixing powerful acids.
"Um, whoops?" said the robot, arms stilled as its head swiveled back and forth.
Cube #347 began to spin, firing round after round of torpedoes - conventional photon, quantum, and tri-cobolt varieties. The target was not the sphere nor sensory contraption, both of which fizzled with each strike of torpedo against a wall which shouldn't have been there. Some torpedoes disappeared from sensor view, but others detonated against the vast scaffolding which loosely encased the cube.
At the same moment of the revelation, 113 of 203 and 177 of 300 poured concentrated hydrofluoric acid into the specially lined ceramic vat. Able to eat through glass, a substance normally nonreactive to acid, the drones were very careful not to spill any liquid on themselves least they melt like the Wicked Witch of the West in a rainstorm. 133 of 300 picked up a small box with a pair of tongs, then dunked the crate into the acid. Where all the combined technologies and shear brute force of the Borg had not prevailed, concentrated acid did. And what were the "Fragile" and "Delicate" objects to be delivered to Cube #1113? Lead weights.
When the Greater Consciousness was confronted with the hologrid and "replacement parts," it was as baffled as Cube #347. The Collective may withhold information for reasons of irrelevancy, and the imperfectly assimilated could bend rules and perception, but no Borg could outright lie to another. The crates, which had been normal crates when loaded, were supposed to be filled with spare parts; and of the hologrid, the Collective had not a clue.
In the confusion, Cube #347 managed to make a hole large enough to escape, fleeing from the situation. An entity which could capture and successfully detail a Borg cube was not someone the drones wished to meet: the sub-collective had too much experience, mostly of the bad sort, with that kind of situation.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
*****
To: Borg Collective
From: Transdimensional Security Enterprises
Dear non-energy entity customer,
Contract #15c is fulfilled. As per request made on Triden 15, 23001, we at Transdimensional Security Enterprises chose a time and place unknown to you to perform the contracted service of mind examination under field conditions. Throughout the test, the subject - Exploratory-class Cube #347 - performed within customer-supplied parameters. Although abnormalities did exist, none were of the noncomplience caliber or type specified by the customer. The presense of our agents went unremarked, except by a single entity of "Bug" origin. Enclosed with this document is a copy of raw data.
Please be aware that the test subject severely compromised the hologrid facilities we transported to your reality plane. However, as the overall damage was minor, we will not be charging you. When scaffolding is integrated with our solar system scale projects, we expect no problems.
This company would like to apologize for substituting polynuralitic crates and lead weights for your cargo, but we were unsure how much time the testing would require. The original cargo has been delivered to its destination using reliable couriers.
Again, we reiterate our finding, aberrant and neurotic behavior of single units aside, that the test subjects of Cube #347 are collectively integrated into the parameters supplied. If you have further questions, one of our representatives will be glad to speak with you.
Sincerely,
Transdimensional Security Enterprises
*****
"Have you fixed the Board, yet?" asked a brown-irised eyeball as it peered under the table. Fog obscured the view.
The sound of an electric screwdriver halted. "No! Not yet!" responded a hollow voice at the volume one uses when one has been working with loud machinery, minus ear protection. "It may be a bit. Do what you were doing and ignore me. There may be some unusual things happening during the next little while, but I'll keep them to a minimum."
"Just hurry it up," said a pair of purple lips.
Dice rolled.
Return to the Season 5 page