Paramount provides top security and a crack team of lawyers to keep the Star Trek jewel safe. However, not even Paramount can halt Decker's Star Traks parody, although they appear to steal ideas from him on occasion, allegations unprovable. BorgSpace by Meneks was adapted (mutated?) from Star Traks' image.
Cat Burglar
102 of 240 reached above her head, carefully aiming the spray bottle nozzle at the darkened light strip. A stream of solvent impacted the juncture line between metal and strip composite, developing into a thin white foam. Simultaneously, 78 of 310 inserted a crowbar-like apparatus into the widening juncture line, working the tool back and forth. After several minutes of the drones' respective squirting and jiggling, the light strip popped free from its mounting. Most of the three meter length thudded to the deck plates unopposed, but one end tagged 78 of 310 on the shoulder.
"Ugh," said 78 of 310 mildly as he used 102 of 240's eyes to survey the damage to his shoulder. It wasn't great - the light strips only weighed 15 kilograms - but the solvent had a tendency to discolor the composite metals common to the Borg exoskeleton. Yes, one hose and several seams were slowly taking on a purple tinge.
102 of 240 rolled her eyes, "It is cosmetic damage. Irrelevant. We have until regeneration to replace the burnt out light strips in this hallway, as well as corridor 57 and junctures 26a and 32c. You are so snobbish when it comes to your appearance."
78 of 310 mentally dithered, then firmly moved the marring of his exoskeleton to the low spot on his priority list. It wasn't a sense of vanity, but rather a desire to be presentable if he just happened to come upon an unassimilated sentient. Or so thus 78 of 310 related to 102 of 240.
"Yah, right. We all believe that, now don't we?" retorted 102 of 240 sarcastically, including the several alcove-bound drones in the vicinity. "Let us just get the replacement beamed in, charged, and reset to the ceiling. Justifications to fix your appearance can wait until later."
A substitute light strip materialized on the deck next to the burnt out one. 78 of 310 mumbled something unintelligible, but nonetheless bent to work. Quickly the pair of engineering drones had primed the organo-crystal lattice of the new strip and begun applying the bonding agent which would serve to attach the light to the ceiling.
At the side of the corridor, a few short meters beyond the work zone, a drone suddenly opened his eyes. He had not been in regeneration, but rather participating in the more intangible operations required to keep the cube (more or less) operational. It was 21 of 46, and he had sensed danger, not to himself, but to his pet toupee.
Stepping out of his alcove, 21 of 46 turned to regard the niche in which his toupee was usually kept. He stared: his hairpiece was missing! Frantically, 21 of 46 began reviewing the camera always trained on the niche to guard against theft. Sure, the other sub-collective members claimed they would not touch the toupee, but what about "accidents"? At timestamp 21.64, the toupee had been in its appropriate position; and in the next frame it was gone! There was no apparent sign of tampering with the recording, not that such an observation meant much in a ship comprised of 4,000 natural hackers.
21 of 46 swiveled to peer suspiciously at the busy duo of 102 of 240 and 78 of 310. They had begun their operations near his alcove at timestamp 20.93. No other drones were labeled as active in the area over the past hour; and no transporter signatures were logged. Therefore, by process of 21 of 46's illogical and incomplete elimination, either 102 of 240 or 78 of 310, or both, had stolen the toupee.
"You took my toupee! Return it!"
78 of 310 paused, looking over his shoulder at the advancing 21 of 46. "What are you babbling about? We haven't touched that mat of fur you adore so much. We are replacing light strips."
"Irrelevant!" shouted 21 of 46. "You stole it, now give it back!"
Backing a hasty step, 78 of 310 raised his arms. "Whoa! How can we give back what we didn't take? 102 of 240, tell the maniac how it is."
21 of 46 made a breathy whistling sound, her species' equivalent to shaking her head in a negative. "Leave me out of this." Pause. "Say, where'd the burnt out light strip go? I didn't beam it to reclamation. Did you? No, you did not," she said as she checked transporter logs.
"I don't care about useless scrap. Convince 21 of 46 that neither you nor I took his pet toupee before he attacks. He's rabid, I tell you, rabid!"
Elsewhere in Cube #347, Captain was well appraised of the developing toupee situation, and was dispatching members of both weapons hierarchy and drone maintenance to control the scene. The former would physically return 21 of 46 to his alcove while the latter introduced sedative agents: 21 of 46 was known to be overly resistant to command codes when he was worked up in a frenzy concerning his toupee. Perhaps it was past time for neurological surgery by assimilation hierarchy to moderate 21 of 46's attitude, but another, more serious problem was developing. The apparent disappearance of both toupee and dead light strip were only the most recent symptoms to a larger dilemma.
Over the past four weeks, items had been disappearing. At first it had been minor - a screwdriver, a wrench, a drill bit, things easy to lose if left unsecured. Engineering drones on maintenance patrol routinely found supposedly misplaced items, but the instances of objects misplaced had risen noticeably above the background average. Sundry tools, easily replaced, had not been the extent of the loses. More recently, larger items, some unique to various drones' neuroses, had been blatantly stolen; and, as of yet, no camera or drone had caught sight of the perpetuator.
The origination of the thefts did not appear internal. Although statistically the most likely culprit was a drone, none had yet to confess. Still, there were always those designations which were evasive when questioned, not able to outright lie, but quite facile in wiggling through even the most minute loophole that presented. Thus far those drones closely interrogated had shown to be hiding secrets not related to the incidents, but several known kleptomaniacs remained to be questioned by command and control. Additionally, Cube #347 had onloaded a dozen new sub-collective individuals at its most recent new-ship tune-up, drones which had yet to manifest the full extent of their developing aberrations.
"No transporter signature," muttered Second aloud as his mind dug through the internal sensor summaries gathered from the sensor hierarchy, "and no evidence of phase shifting. None of the exotic particles associated with the few cloaking or blurring systems able to be adapted for use at the individual level. It could be a Q or another omnipotent being, but the pattern of theft is dissimilar to the scale they usually endeavor so their involvement is only 1.03%. Spontaneous wormhole hypothesis is 0.05%." Second frowned slightly. "This should not be happening."
"But it is," interjected Captain. "It is a good thing the Collective has excellent paradox buffers installed now, because circumstantial evidence indicates the problem originates from within the sub-collective, as well as shows the illogic of such a conclusion."
Within the dataspaces, both Second and Captain's minds stepped between virtual interrogation chambers, watching as the increasingly small pool of sub-collective suspects were questioned, as personal firewall barriers were peeled away. Simultaneously, they also coordinated their respective duties as related to basic cube functionality.
After several moments of silence, Second spoke again. It was merely an extension of the previous conversation despite the minutes-long lapse. "If something nonreplicatable is stolen, we will be filling out requisition forms, as well as creating reports as to the circumstances surrounding the loss."
Despite PR to the contrary, there was in fact a thriving vestigial bureaucracy within the Collective. Every time the Greater Consciousness attempted to purge itself of the unwanted "organ," it regrew elsewhere. Regeneration time required months or decades, but it always returned. At this point in the purge cycle, the part of the Collective which shuffled virtual paperwork was strong. In another year or three an effort would be made to excise it, liquidating the associated drones in the process. Until then...
Captain shuddered with unexaggerated dread. "Don't even think that. Even this sub-collective has more important things to accomplish than filling out forms gigabytes in volume, replicating each one ten to one hundred times."
Above the drones, a black shape flowed across the ceiling of the nodal intersection. It paused for a moment, pooling into a formless, out-of-place shadow, then bonelessly moved on, disappearing down corridor 26. It was never noticed.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! This is Wild Wally's World of Wacky Widgets! And does Wild Wally have a deal for you! That's right, warp on over to Wild Wally's today and buy wacky widgets and great gadgets at low, low prices. I guarantee it! Wild Wally isn't always sure what they are, but the price is always right!!"
It was a Wild Wally commercial, filmed in the vein of annoying advertisements the multiverses over regardless of species. Used car and shuttle dealers practiced the technique most often, but merchants of second-hand mattresses, discount pet stores, and volume electronics superstores of dubious quality employed it as well. Wild Wally himself, a human dressed for unknown reasons in a chicken costume, carvoted across the scene, speaking sentences that only ended in exclamation points. Lots of exclamation points. Meanwhile, stellar coordinates and subspace calling frequencies flashed on the lower part of the camera view, accompanied by the occasional WOW! And GREAT! as Wally exhorted his wares.
An astute person, as the Borg were not in these matters, would notice that the features of Wild Wally were oddly similar to the great stellar businessman Bradley Dillon of five centuries prior. It was not an accident, for Wally in fact was a descendent of Dillon, a great-great-great-great-something grandchild. Unfortunately, a degree of genetic drift and poor taste in spouses had occurred between Dillon and Wally, for the former merchant had been the purveyor of a great interstellar marketing empire that was rivaled in its time only by the Ferrengi; and Wally owned a super discount bargain store perpetually advertised to be "Going Out Of Business."
Wally ungainly waddled to a large picnic table (missing one bench) covered in a variety of odds and ends. His chicken suit bobbled up and down.
"Attention all shoppers, but Wild Wally has a deal for you! On this table is a, let's see, brush gadget! That's right, a one-of-the-kind brush gadget, and it is yours for only 9.99 credit! A unique item, so if you want it, you'd better warp to Wild Wally's pronto!"
Wally held up an odd contraption, a nightmarish cross between an electric sander and a toothbrush only a dentist-torturer could love. While not particularly one-of-a-kind, it was indeed rare. To be exact, it was a species #6430 shoe polisher, used by one Sensors of Cube #347 to buff her exoskeleton. It even had the bit of colored tape around the handle Sensors' used to identify it as her property, not for communal use nor for polishing chrome.
{That is Sensors' missing [cubicle partition],} accused Sensors. As the commercial continued on, Sensors captured the relevant scene, zooming in on the suspect item and highlighting it with an orange aura. {Sensors' missing [cubicle partition]! Sensors' exoskeleton has not [whistle] well since it was [skated].}
As the twenty minute infommercial dragged on, Wild Wally maniacally (the man /must/ have been souped up with drugs) peddling his collection of junk and proclaiming astounding prices, the majority of which were 9.99 credits, several things of Cube #347 origin were espied. Certain items of a tool nature could have once resided within the Borg ship, but such could not be conclusively determined. Of the paraphernalia which decisively did hail from Cube #347...
10 of 19: {That's my species #7534 "Stupid Day" hat.}
{That device resembles the metabolic stabilizer misplaced in Maintenance Bay #5 ten days ago, only spray painted silver and with small LEDs attached to it,} said Doctor.
{Those are discarded Borg relay chips,} indicated Delta, in stereo. {Two buckets were stolen from subsection 5, submatrix 13, junction 51b.}
{Pink flamingo!}
{My prized moss moonstone basalt!}
{Flange supports from deflector dish mountings!}
{A deflector dish?!}
The list went on and on and on. Finally the infommercial spun to an end. Even before Wild Wally had fully yielded his advertisement presence to the "MegaIonosphere Device, Guaranteed To Clean Even the Worst Polluted Global Atmospheres, Buy Yours Now, Only 10,000 Left" sales pitch, Cube #347 had already altered heading. Next destination - Wild Wally's World of Wacky Widgets.
Wally's World glittered with undulating neon confined not in tubes of glass, but instead caged within freeform twists of electromagnetic force. Flashing liquid crystals dueled with light emitting diodes; and roving spotlights of multiple colors banished shadows. Above all sparkled the words "Wild Wally's World of Wacky Widgets" in holographic display with letters each thirty meters high. If one didn't know better, one might assume a casino, not a shrine to second-hand (third? fourth?) garage sale rejects, "distressed" merchandise, and pawn shop bric-a-brac.
Complimenting the visual presentation was a never-ending subspace infommercial stream. Wild Wally presented his merchandise on not just one channel, but five, with programming ranging from "The Best of Wild Wally's Commercials" to "Oops, I Didn't Know I Sold You A Thermonuclear Device - Wild Wally Outtakes." In all cases, Wally spoke nothing less than exclamation points, and when he wasn't wearing costumes his taste for tacky suits left a lot to be desired.
Wally's World had once been a small asteroid, an irregular lump of rock half a kilometer across its largest axis. That origin was now largely obscured due to the cosmetic surgery which had blasted and carved the rock into the precise angles so beloved by engineers, resulting in a vast block of a store. The native stone had subsequently been hidden by a vacuum-applied cement tackily decorated to resemble cinderblocks. The final insult of overindulgence in wattage was merely an afterthought, considering the larger picture.
Despite the fact Wally's World was the only destination object in the solar system, besides a minor tourist attraction called the Galaxy's Third Blackest Asteroid, and was more than a little off the normal spacelane, numerous ships were parked near the discount megastore. There were big ships and small, of all designs and origin; and even a Second Federation warship or two, stocking up on the odd gadget essentials every chief engineer had on his or her "must" list. Blood enemies tolerated each other, truce held in order to allow more cunning and strength on the battleground of the ten-minute super sale special. While there were no Borg ships present (Colored varieties, not Collective), Cube #347 did not look out of place.
Captain was among the cadre of drones beamed to the store. His function was liaison, to directly talk to Wild Wally and demand not only a return of Cube #347 items, but an explanation as to how they had been acquired. He had tried to sidle out of his duty, but Second had pointedly iterated that the job was one among many which was Captain's own. Fun. Therefore, while most of the twenty drones sent to Wally's World fanned out to track and tag objects belonging to Cube #347, Captain stood in front of a counter labeled "Information." He had two burly weapons drones flanking him, not out of necessity, but rather as a psychological weapon against any secretary or clueless floor staff encounter.
"Can I help you?" asked the species #10541 female standing behind the information counter. Busy inputting data into a computer, she did not bother to rase any of her four eyestalks to face her customer, reacting solely to the presence she felt nearby. She wore a standard tunic in Wally World colors of yellow accented by garish midnight blue at collar and cuff. The hues clashed with her grass green epidermis. "I said, can I help you?"
"Direct us to Wild Wally," ordered Captain, "now. You will comply."
"Look, you Borger subfreak," responded the attendant icily, still not swiveling any of her eyes, "I told you before - no refunds. Read the posted signs, assuming you are literate enough to do so. All sales final. Wild Wally has better things to do than explain store policy to a fringe dweeb like you."
Captain ignored his escort as they internally burst into laughter, then began swapping bets as to how long it would take for the clerk to realize her mistake. As long as their exterior facade remained professional, Captain had other problems to attend. "We are not Borgers. We are Borg and we will see Wild Wally. Where is he? Respond."
The species #10541 female sucked in a breath and huffed it out. "Look, you little...er...um.... Well, Wild Wally, you said?" She had halted her data entry long enough to focus an eyestalk on Captain. Her attitude suddenly changed to one more fitting when confronted by Borg drones.
"Wild Wally. We must discuss merchandise he recently acquired from our cube without our knowledge. We must discuss this now."
The species clerk gave a shaky smile. "Um...back of the store, take the steps to the second floor. His office is the first one on the left. Say, you aren't Green creditors, are you? This is, like, just my job, you understand. I'm not a collectable asset, so says my contract."
"We are not Green Borg," replied Captain as he turned away from the counter and strode to the back of the showroom. His escort trailed close.
The interior of Wally's World was a vast network of wide aisles punctuated by open plazas set with display tables. Tools, plants, small animals, computer systems, furniture, clothing, pre-packaged food, everything conceivable was set out to buy. There was even an empty area full of nothing except shuttlecraft and their spare parts; and another section littered with ground vehicles. One could become lost in the store, forced to wander aimlessly in search of the shoe aisle. Everything, no matter how diverse the product, had one thing in common - a less than new patina. Second-hand, third-hand, or more, which was okay for a sofa, but just plain wrong where underwear was concerned. Other items, like the stack of three century old military Meals-Ready-to-Eat may never have been opened, but the fact that they had more years associated with them than the lifespan of many sentient lifeforms was frightening in an indefinable way.
After twenty minutes of hiking, dodging intrepid shoppers more focused on the latest red tag sale than imminent threat in the form of assimilation, and reminding away team members to only tag Cube #347 items, Captain arrived at the stairs. The stairs were slabs of stone, perhaps left over from the construction of Wally's World, balanced on a series of ascending gravity fields. They bobbled minutely up and down, but nonetheless were steady under the heavy tread of Captain and his escort.
The stairway emptied into a hallway of raw stone and flickering white glow strips as sterile as the main store was gaudy. Wild Wally obviously did not believe on spending money to decorate behind the scenes. The first door to the left, made of a cheaply replicated pseudo-wood composite, was slightly ajar, allowing one half of a conversation to escape.
"Fine, fine, fine. I'll take the load of ball bearings and felt soles, but even Wild Wally draws the line at reprocessed twoocool manure. Get in touch with me when I open up the garden center later this year." It was Wild Wally's voice, minus the exclamation point. Quiet reigned as the call ended.
Captain pushed open the door and entered.
Wild Wally was behind a minimalist metal desk, tapping at the screen of a PADD as he stared at a tabletop holographic display. The walls of the small office were covered with purple velvet, upon which hung exotic prints of alien landscapes and unusual animals. The floor was a deep beige plush; and the ceiling was an abstract mosaic of colored glass. The entire office, a mishmash of clashing styles, could at best be described "bad taste," even by the typical aesthetically-challenged Borg.
Dressed in a wrinkled pinstripe suit, Wally stood as the Borg entered. A false smile stretched his face into a rictus. "Ah...uh...hello, there. Can I help you? Look, if this is about that little loan, well, I can pay it back. Just give me another two days. Trust me."
"We are not Green Borg," stated Captain. {Stop gawking, ordered Captain to 93 of 212.}
93 of 212 protested even as he faced head and eyes forward, {Have you taken a good look at the second picture on the right? It is horrible! The themes are inappropriate given the color palette used. Abomination!} 93 of 212 had been an art critic prior to his assimilation. To tell the truth, the only reason he was alive was that the final assimilation of his homeworld had interrupted the lynch mob of artists whom had listened to his harsh criticisms one too many times.
Wally's grin relaxed a bit, "Purple? I can't extend you any more credit, you know."
"We are not Purple."
"Oh? Are you Plaid? I can explain about those radioactive thingamajigs. I didn't know until recently that they were supposed to be chew toys for rockhounds." Rockhounds were creatures all angle, blade, talon, claw, and nasty temper, province of a select group of exotic animal owners who claimed their deadly pets were merely misunderstood. The greatest threat to a rockhound owner was the rockhound; and rockhounds had no natural enemies, mainly because all had been eaten.
Captain spoke evenly, "We are not Purple. We are not Plaid. We are not Colored. We are Borg, the original Borg of no color. Colors are irrelevant." The only reason colors were irrelevant was that the first faction - Green - had claimed that coveted hue during the Hive era, and the Greater Consciousness refused to lose face by demanding it now. If the Collective could not have green, then it wanted no color. "You have items which belong to us. You will explain."
Wally made a sound somewhere between a whine and a whimper. "As in the actual Collective? Oh Directors, that means you don't believe in money. Please don't steal all my inventory. Don't assimilate me either. If I must be assimilated, I want to be part of a Collective that enjoys money."
Distaste crossed Captain's face, an expression he did not bother censoring. "You would not add to our Perfection. You will not be assimilated, now or ever. You do have items which belong to us, and you will explain how you procured them. Now."
"You know," said Wally, "that is just what all the Colored Borg I've met have said when the subject of assimilation has arose, even Plaid. Concerning your merchandise, you must be mistaken. I only deal with reputable junk and scrap merchants, and only browse the best garage sales and pawn shops. I do not resale stolen merchandise!" Wally was, if anything, indignant concerning the accusation; and he quivered as he stood straight in refutation. The resemblance to an irate chihuahua was uncanny: a small being puffed up to seem larger than he actually was, but still too minor to take seriously. 32 of 83 was holding her breath in an effort not to laugh.
Captain erected walls between himself and his escort's mirth, determined not to be infected by it. Simultaneously, he directed several items thus far tagged as belonging to Cube #347 to be beamed to the office. On floor and desk materialized an arm prosthesis, a circuit board with blinking green lights, and a quantity of senile neurogel, the latter in a five liter bucket. All were of obvious Borg manufacture.
"This is an example of the items stolen from us. There are more. Where did you obtain them?" asked Captain. He put a bite into his monotone.
Wally's grin was gone, as was his ire. He carefully reached out to pick up the blinking board, turning it over to reveal a silver sliver discretely attached next to one edge. "Inventory tag," he explained as he waved his PADD over the sliver, then read the resulting output. "Ah. I think I remember this one.
"It was all part of a lot from a tramp freighter. No, don't look at me like that! I don't usually buy from unknown sources, but his papers were in order. I guess they could have been forged. I'm just a simple businessman. The ship's hold held all manner of interesting things, claimed salvage from an old Colored Borg wreckage. Honest! Wild Wally is always honest! So I bought 'em."
"How long ago was this transaction?" queried Captain. All the items found so far were stolen within the first ten days of the start of the burglarizing.
"A week ago! I saw it, and immediately made a new commercial to showcase it!" Wally had begun to sweat.
The timeline fit. Perhaps Wally was telling the truth. At any rate, he would not be assimilated just to determine if he had lied. If necessary, there were more primitive, but no less effective, ways to garner truths. Captain locked a transporter on the examples brought to the office and beamed them back to Cube #347. "Provide us with the name of the freighter, and its crew. If you have told us falsehoods..." The threat was left hanging, left to the imagination of Wally to fill in the blanks. A mind could always dream up worse warnings than the Borg could elucidate.
Wally quickly punched a few buttons on his PADD, causing it to beep. "The ship was named Golden Feather. The captain didn't provide any personal names, and I didn't press. The crew, well, I didn't see much of the crew as we only spoke store-to-ship and they never left for any shopping. The captain, however, was that cat species, um, Fluvian; and all I saw in the background of his bridge were the same.
Captain and his escort beamed away with nary a thank-you, store detail and tagged items retrieved at the same time (plus, undoubtedly, several unauthorized finds). Thank-yous were irrelevant. For half an hour, Cube #347 sat motionless near Wild Wally's World of Wacky Widgets, ignoring the comings and goings of shoppers as they in turn ignored the cube as not pertinent to their world view of deep discounts. Finally assimilation and command and control hierarchies tore the data needed from the local public dataweb. With new course plotted, Cube #347 leapt into hypertranswarp, hunting.
A black shadow stopped to nick a loud Hawaiian shirt, peering at it quizzically for only the briefest of seconds before giving a minute head shake and stuffing it into a bag. A blurred electronic notepad was examined for a moment, a box checked off, and the shade appeared to dissolve, one more of a thousand bits of darkness.
Cube #347 followed the trail of the Golden Feather. The sub-collective could have cut straight to the most recent sighting, but there were other considerations. Most important among them were the various bits and pieces of the cube which had been stolen and therefore required recovery. The Greater Consciousness was aware of Cube #347's errand, but did not care to micromanage the pursuit. Instead, the Greater Consciousness simply demanded that /everything/ stolen had to be retrieved, method up to Cube #347 as long as the standard tenants of Borgness were followed and that the sub-collective's personal proscribed limitations (i.e., no mass assimilations) were observed. It would not be good in the PR arena if small beings formed the idea that theft from the Borg was allowable.
Bills of lauding, manifests, records of porting, the scent was one of electronic paperwork. Golden Feather was a tramp, and so had no set schedule nor cargo: she would accept whatever freight was available and trek to the next most convenient port of call. Oddly, the Golden Feather always had items to offload at each dock, no matter she had left her previous station with barren holds and a manifest showing her to be completely empty. Not every stop offloaded objects of Cube #347 origin; and as there was no algorithm to predict which port might receive Borg goods, each one had to be examined. The sub-collective's actions quickly became repetitive.
The starports were inevitably a variation upon the "seedy" stereotype. They were places where few questions were asked and things which had accidentally "fallen off the back of the runabout" readily found a market. The nature of the stations located them in systems, uninhabited more often than not, that were out of the way. The clientele frequently opted for secrecy over convenience, and privacy over official notice. The tradeoff was that most of the ports were relatively poor when it came to armament and munitions (beyond that which passed through docks), willing to let dissatisfied customers work out a reasonable solution with a dealer on the theory that it was an example of natural selection. If the dealer won, well, perhaps the next customers would pick their fights more wisely; and if the customer won, then it was obvious future dealers either had to be more honest, or more devious. The stations themselves practiced a type of camouflage whereupon they blended into the background, knowing better than to be in the middle of a dispute.
When Cube #347 arrived in the poorly guarded systems, chaos would ensue as some ships tried to escape while others advanced to attack. This was not Wally's World with the attraction of shopping, but working ports of sane people. After allowing Weapons to channel his aggressions for a while, Cube #347 would advance on the station target, demanding all information relating to Golden Feather. Usually it was immediately forthcoming, but occasionally it was necessary for the sub-collective to extract the information, leaving behind a horrible data mess for station techs to clean up. If Cube #347 items had been offloaded, they were found and retrieved. Finally, it would be time to leave, to follow Golden Feather on the next leg of her wanderings.
Golden Feather was unusually quick for a tramp freighter, able to cover more than seventy light years a day with her transwarp drive. The crew was swift to unload her holds and reload any cargo, but was unwilling to wait if the latter was not immediately available for transit. With the Golden Feather docking at least once a day, Cube #347 was hard-pressed to make measurable gains on her, yet, driven by the Collective to retrieve all lost items, the sub-collective did so. It required more than a week to catch up even with the substantially faster speeds Cube #347 could achieve in hypertranswarp.
Within that time frame, more things were stolen. Some were small, some were large, some were "official" Borg property, and some were important only in the eyes of select drones. Most worrying, most embarrassing, was the disappearance of an entire alcove. Alcoves were heavy and unwieldy. It had been unoccupied and unassigned to any designation, but the fact it had been stolen at all had Delta berating both sensory and weapons hierarchy for laxity in their duties, although somehow she was able to spread the blame to other hierarchies as well, including drone maintenance. As before, there was no recording of who or what had removed the objects, nor how they had been moved from Cube #347 to Golden Feather.
Most frustrating.
Still, Cube #347 finally caught up with the tramp freighter target. The cube currently waited at the fringes of the system labeled on Borg astrometric charts as 2S63.Zrf, observing as only a top-of-the-line Exploratory-class cube can observe. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the machinery doing as it was designed to do, only with the drones wielding it. This particular system was moderately developed with a settled colony planet and several dozen outposts dug into asteroids and moons, plus a scattering of orbital stations. Golden Feather had received a legitimate and legal cargo at its previous port of call and was here to deliver it. There was no need for Cube #347 to risk entering the system, especially as it had a naval construction yard circling the largest gas giant, when ambush of the freighter as it left was a perfectly valid course of action.
Or so continually reminded Captain to Weapons, who was showing overt signs of bucking the sub-collective consensus. Captain stared at the holographic screen floating before him: the Golden Feather was disengaging from its berth. The sensory hierarchy tapped into station chatter, confirming Golden Feather's forthwith departure.
Golden Feather was of a standard freighter design, built by species #8523 and utilized by several dozen races in the Beta quadrant. Take a 120 meter long cylinder with a 40 meter diameter and taper the bow to a blunt point. The underside was flattened to facilitate landing on lunar surfaces and other low gravity, sparse atmosphere planetoids, necessary as not all ports orbited free. The ventral surface had a 75 meter green transwarp strip nacelle centered on it, flanked by a pair of offset 35 meter blue warp nacelle strips. Four massive landing struts - fore, aft, and two longitudinally centered at underside periphery - retracted into shallow wells in the underside. The dorsal hull was relatively featureless save painted name on bow, various apertures for thrusters, seams delineating hatches, and the slight discoloration of sensor patches. Weapons were next to nonexistent, freighter captain trusting to speed to outrun potential threats, offensive systems requiring space better suited to cargo; and defensive shields with ablative hull armor were sufficiently robust to absorb several direct hits, if necessary. Overall, the design was one which maximized hold volume and ship performance. The transwarp drive and strip nacelle technologies were trickle down engineering originating from the Alpha Quadrant Second Federation, and while perhaps not as efficient as they could have been, they were more than adequate.
Golden Feather pivoted away from the station and slowly accelerated until she had reached the system maximum speed limit of three-quarters impulse. Sedately sailing along, the ship reached a designated transwarp exit grid coordinate and shifted into overdrive. By visual, Golden Feather had torn a hole in space, disappearing into it.
The freighter was not invisible to the cube as Sensors roughly shifted the grid to a standard configuration for following objects in subspace. The bits of orange which tended to skip in and out of the edge of vision if one concentrated too closely on the sensor stream were annoying, but able to be filtered at the level of the individual drone unit. Transwarp conduits could be likened to stress fractures in ice, with the most efficient transit to follow the cracks; and the more often a conduit was utilized, the easier it became for future ships to use. New conduits could be drilled, if one had sufficient power (e.g., Borg vessels), but they had a tendency to collapse immediately behind the passing vessel if the lane was not immediately stabilized by high volume traffic. Most captains took advantage of already existing natural or artificially created conduits, however, and the Golden Feather was no exception.
Cube #347 sunk through subspace, then began to burn a conduit parallel to the main tunnel. In the hellish quantum environment, it was highly unlikely that the freighter could "see" the shadowing Borg cube, not unless the ship possessed a sensor grid equal that of an Exploratory-class cube. After several real-universe light years of observation, just as Weapons had tipped consensus into interception, a modified courier-scout class vessel entered the primary transwarp conduit, matching unreal velocities with the larger freighter.
The courier-scout was a commercially produced version of the Second Federation military Pickerel-class. While it lacked many of the accouterments of its military equivalent, such as bio-armor, the overall fifteen meter needle superstructure was the same. Usually a green transwarp strip nacelle pair was located on the extreme aft flank with two warp ring nacelles encircling the waist, but not on this particular ship. One ring had been moved to the forward third of the fuselage; and the second was replaced by four exterior cargo holds set in a diamond pattern around the midsection. As in the unmodified courier-scout, there was no provision for an organic pilot, the mind driving the vessel either the factory installed computer or some flavor of AI, although not necessarily a Second Federation derived Personality. Courier-scouts usually mounted stealth gear, but little, if any, weaponry, defensive or offensive.
{Sensors [chairs] Second Federation private-produced courier-scout,} correctly identified Sensors as the sub-collective temporarily aborted an attack, much to Weapons' disapproval. {Long way from Alpha [couch with cushions].} Sensor hierarchy highlighted the appropriate data fork containing the vessel profile, spilling the information into the general dataspaces.
Captain absently perused the data, absorbing it even as the newest decision cascades returned the next course of action for the cube. The sub-collective would wait and observe...until Weapons managed to push for a new attack, an eventuality given the situation. Weapons hierarchy would not be fought concerning the action, but rather modulated so that the assault did not occur too soon.
The courier-scout lined itself up with the midship section of Golden Feather, then closed with computer precision until the hulls of the two were less than a meter apart. Next, tractor beams from the scout secured it to its larger comrade: the emitters were custom placed for just this event, the conclusion derived because the locations of the emitters were not factory standard. Locked together, the ship pair continued down the conduit, velocity constant, unaware of their stalker.
{Attack!} urged Weapons, his hierarchy beginning to sway the consensus.
{We wait,} calmly replied Captain. Scenarios and calculations swirled through the dataspaces as hierarchies meshed with each other. It was not a smooth melding, compared to a normal sub-collective, but it was one of Cube #347's better performances. The reason had to do with the "special" items yet to be recovered and their probability of residing on the Golden Feather, goading certain drones who normally did not "play well with others" to concentrate their mental resources to the common goal.
{Attack!}
{Wait.}
{Attack!}
{Wait.}
{Sensors [feels/tastes] transporter signatures. She also [smells] Borg technology, including alcove [carpet].}
{Attack!} ({Attack!} echoed Delta, uncharacteristically agreeing with Weapons' demand.)
Consensus swung to the offensive.
{We attack,} confirmed Captain. He directed the cube to slip into the main byway, allowing its current conduit to collapse.
Conflict in transwarp conduit space is not a healthy pastime. Torpedo explosions can precipitate unpredictable effects if impacted against conduit boundary, from no reaction to a gout of strange matter not even the strongest defensive measures can blunt. Phasers, disrupters, neurupters, and other energy weapons were even worse because a path leading back to the originating vessel was created for quantum plasma to travel. Similarly, misaimed tractor beams were potentially fatal. And to lose deflectors during a battle spelled instant death, the deflectors emitting the thin shell of unseen force that prevented vicious subspace energies from ripping through a ship.
Cube #347 advanced on Golden Feather from behind. Considering the environment, the captain of the freighter knew defensive measures were limited, there just being no room to dodge in a transwarp conduit. Golden Feather accelerated slightly in a bid to run, but Captain pushed the cube to follow. As the larger ship bore upon the smaller in sternchase fashion, a low power, large arc tractor beam was initiated.
The tractor beam target was not the freighter, but rather its shields. Very quickly, power was leeched from the freighter with vampiric persistence no amount of shield modulation could prevent. Golden Feather did not dare to drop her shields because of their necessity to act with deflectors to turn unreal subspace particles. Threatened, energy stores beginning to falter, the Golden Feather took the only option left to it and performed an emergency exit to normal space. Cube #347 followed, ready to attack with conventional weapons in an environment which did not include accidental immolation due to a near miss. At least, not usually, although in Cube #347's case it had been known to happen.
Golden Feather was already beginning to vamp its warp engines from idle to active as Cube #347 found its bearings and its target. Weapons sent eight quantum torpedo shots across the freighter's bow, seven too many and all too close, before capturing it with tractor beams. Just in case the captain of the Golden Feather had difficulty comprehending the situation, a pair of neuruptor strikes disintegrated remaining shields; and a third neuruptor carved an unnecessary scar across the vessel's bow. The courier-scout, meanwhile, was gamely held to its berth, computer likely well aware it was damned if it stayed and damned if it didn't, but for the moment calculating a higher chance of survival it if didn't call attention to itself.
{Weapons!} berated Captain. {That is more than sufficient to subdue the target. Desist!}
Weapons, who had just finished constructing holographic miniatures of the battle so as to have a deity-eye view of the action, protested, {The engines must be disabled, at least. What if they attempt to blow up on us?}
Captain initiated a hail to the freighter, then handed the Weapons thread to Second. {Deal with him.}
Second, who had been in his alcove, not for regeneration, but rather for the stronger link to the sub-collective, grumbled, {Oh, goody. Gee, thanks, my favorite activity: sitting on 45 of 300.} The words were heavy with sarcasm. {Weapons. We do not want to blow up the freighter, not even a tiny bit, so don't form that thought process. To do so would defeat the purpose of our capturing it in the first place, instead of simply tracking it down and destroying it a week ago.} Second continued in explanation, attempting to keep word-thoughts as simplistic and easy to understand as possible, not because Weapons was stupid - he was not - but rather to leave no loophole for the volatile drone to exploit.
Establishing contact with Golden Feather, Captain dismissed Second's chatter to the back of his mind, so to say, allowing that task to run in the background. Similarly, only tenacious attention was kept upon weapon system status, that chore regulated to other parts of command and control hierarchy. The link to the freighter demanded the bulk of his concentration. Captain squinted at the figure which appeared on his holoscreen, simultaneously confirming that an appropriate catwalk camera view was being used on the return visual feed.
The captain of the Golden Feather, as Wild Wally had mentioned, was Fluvian. Fluvian - species #8713 - were feline in form, graceful biped cheetahs with bodies built for sprinting runs across the savanna. This particular Fluvian wore a blue collar of rank and a military vest, colors all complimentary to his silky cream fur. What else he may have been clad in was unknown, for the picture only included the torso above the console he was sitting at. In the background darted much more rumpled crewmembers, toting extinguishers to put out fire, tool kits to begin emergency repairs, and spare parts.
The Fluvian captain's ears were laid back and his brow creased. As he opened his mouth to utter the predictable words of resistance heard by the Borg over the last eight and a half thousand years, Captain keyed the multivoice.
"We are the Borg. You have technology which belongs to us. You will return it. Now. You will comply. Resistance is futile."
As if in punctuation, a cutting beam stabbed a hole in the freighter's bow. It must not have hit anything vital, for the vessel neither blew up nor gave much reaction beyond a thin plume of escaping atmosphere which quickly halted.
{Sorry,} chorused from many sources, including Second, which had not caught the weapon hierarchy's impulse fast enough.
"Resistance is futile," spoke the multivoice again. It would not be for the target to know that the strike had been anything but intentional.
The captain's ears twitched as a garbled report was shouted to him offscreen. As he began to reply to the demand, once more he was unable to form more than the initial syllable.
"That alcove you possess belongs to us," spoke the multivoice as it was hijacked by Delta, "as well as a plasma diagnostic tool and the Allan wrench set." There were precisely two sets of Allan wrenches on board, and both were kept in Delta's sight, one per body, at all times when she was head of engineering hierarchy.
{Delta!} reprimanded Captain.
"And the Hawaiian shirt," insisted 297 of 480, who did not bother to use the multivoice.
"My spare head!"
"The lawn flamingo."
"The obsolete computer equipment designated Commodore 64."
"A brand new limb assembly, shrink wrap still on it."
Captain urked and cut the audio transmission as the unified multivoice dissolved into the demands of individual drones using their individual voices. It was very nonprofessional. After a moment, a little used "hold" protocol broadcast was initiated.
The captain of the Golden Feather sat back slightly in his chair (the transmission from the freighter was still being received) as the Borg visual feed altered. Instead of monotonous catwalks, the new picture was a static photo of a drone in a maintenance bay, surrounded by drone maintenance busily (and graphically for those weak of stomach) fixing what was wrong. Fluvian words helpfully spelled out "Technical difficulties, you will stand by"; and heavy techno music played in the background, a sound seemingly as far removed from elevators and telephones as possible, yet still emanating that particular quality which could only be labeled "muzak."
Satisfied that all was under control and the multivoice function was securely routed through his designation only, Captain restored Cube #347's transmission. Actively speaking the words along with the broadcast Collective Voice, Captain reiterated the sub-collective's original demand, "We are the Borg. You have technology with belongs to us. You will return it. Now. You will comply. Resistance is futile."
On Captain's holographic screen, and mirroring the subspace feed available to all, the Fluvian captain once more made to answer, wincing only slightly as both shower of sparks and subsequent fire extinguisher foam sprayed by reacting crewmember offscreen intruded. Once again, anything which might have been said was lost.
"Excuse me," calmly spoke a voice without the synthesized tones of a Borg drone, accompanied by a forceful tap to Captain's shoulder, "but maybe I should explain at this point before the situation is blown even more out of proportion than it already is." Captain spun in surprise, part of his mind questing for the passive datastream from the internal sensors of nodal intersection #19, while another automatically catalogued all designation in the immediate vicinity (none, excluding himself). Simultaneously, he spat "Oh, sh**." Unfortunately, since his vocal processors were still linked to the multivoice, that indiscriminate swearing was transmitted in full Collective glory.
Captain viciously altered the cube feed back to hold protocol.
{Intruder!} called Captain in the intranets. Into the nodal intersection materialized three drones from weapons hierarchy as the alarm klaxon began blaring.
{Why,} asked Second suddenly, {is the alarm a trumpet fanfare instead of the standard audio file?}
Captain glanced up at the nearest wall-embedded loudspeaker, as if the answer was to be found there. {No time. Low priority. We will examine the unauthorized change later and mete suitable retribution,} he responded curtly before returning full attention on the unexpected intruder. Through all commotion the trespasser remained amazingly calm, going so far as to buff the claws of his left hand against the fur of his right forearm.
The Fluvian male stood in the insolent posture of total relaxation achievable only by species (sentient or nonsentient) of feline persuasion. He was a living shadow, fur, exposed epidermis, whiskers, even eyeballs a deep, dark light-drowning black. He wore only the bare essentials for his species' modesty, a breechcloth of minimalist design, and simple harness covered with electronic devices, everything colored, again, black. As with all his race, his skeleton and musculature allowed him to drop to a four-point stance as necessary, although such was not considered "civilized." His fingertips and palms appeared odd, a network of uncharacteristic ridges, like the structure which allows a gecko to cling to wall or ceiling. A small silver arrowhead device, standing out as the only object not black, was clipped to one harness shoulder strap.
Something was not quite right, confirmed as 128 of 300 reached forward to grapple the intruder from behind, only to find her hand passing through the shoulder she had aimed for.
The Fluvian cleared his throat loudly, rolled his eyes, then performed an expansive bow. Straightening, he flicked a mote of imaginary dust off the shoulder 128 of 300 had tried to attack, before squarely facing Captain. "As you have undoubtedly discerned by now, this is not the actual me, although I am nearby. No, no, don't bother trying to find me, although I know you will, because you will fail. My name is, well, I'll tell you my trade name: Pussyfoot."
Captain stared at Pussyfoot, then through him, as he consulted with his sub-collective and absorbed various status reports. No, the local holographic emitters were not initiated. No, no illicit signal had been intercepted. No, no unauthorized (humanoid) lifesigns detected. Yes, weapons were still warded from an overeager Weapons. No, the dry cleaning facility adjacent to alcove tier 32, subsection 20, submatrix 11 was not yet repaired.
"Hello?" called Pussyfoot, waving his hand in front of Captain's face as he adroitly sidestepped another swipe from the weapons drones, this time from 199 of 300. "Could you tell yourself to stop grabbing at me? I'm communicating to you via an example of old mobile holographic emitter technology I picked up at a pawn shop a couple of years ago. A real antique. It is linked to me via a 'virtual waldo,' and so mirrors everything I do...all nice and safe from your, um, attentions. Therefore, if you want all those explanations you've been demanding, I suggest you stop trying to disrupt my emitter before you knock it out of alignment. I'm not a techie or an engineer, so I don't exactly know how it works, only that if I push the buttons in a certain way, it does what I want it to do. I would not be able to fix it without a trip to an expensive repair shop."
Staring at Pussyfoot, Captain so commanded the weapons detachment. He also quieted the inappropriate alarm.
Pussyfoot grinned, showing sharp teeth. "Much obliged. Now, I am a thief. I'm not going to paint what I do for a living with pretty words, especially when I'm proud of my career. I am a member in good standing with the Fluvian Chapter of the Omicron Thieves Guild.
"My purpose here has been to steal stuff, plain and simple. Every five years the Guild holds a competition, a type of scavenger hunt, where the top ten ranked members are given lists of things to steal. The lists are all different, but include items with point values; and the more points you gain, the better. One is given six months to steal as much on the list as possible.
"Now, you would not believe how astounded I became when I picked this cube, quite by random, I assure you, to pilfer a couple of Collective specific items. Do you know that I found nearly three-quarters of my list here? I shaved /months/ off my quest! In the over thousand years the Guild has been in existence, very few people have actually ever completed a scavenger list, and I have a strong possibility of soon to be added to their ranks." Pussyfoot paused, looking inordinately pleased with himself, as if he was, pardon, the cat who had just raided the fish bowl.
"Now, before you ask, I'll answer: more gadgets, plus a little judicious genetic engineering. Look, I'm a thief and, as I mentioned concerning the holoemitter, I don't pretend to understand all the nitty-gritty tech stuff. It works. I know better than to push and prod. It confuses your cameras and internal sensors and keeps me alive and unassimilated." Pussyfoot held up his hands for display, then ruffled his fur. "The genetic engineering allows me to clamber around anywhere that isn't the floor - you would not believe how little anyone, you Borg included, ever look up - and camouflages me into the shadows, blurring my visible and thermal signature."
The burglar ended his monologue with another sharp-toothed, mocking grin.
{He is a cocky one,} observed Second.
Captain sent the intranet equivalent of a wordless glare. {Enough commentary. Do something useful besides acting as an overlarge paperweight.}
{I do useful things: I am Borg. If I wasn't useful, I wouldn't be here. At the very least I function as Captain every eight duty cycles, or I did five hundred objective years ago. I don't have to like it, though,} mildly retorted Second. {We still cannot determine either the frequency of the intruder's holoemitter transmission nor where he is located. Query to gain answers - where are stolen items stored and how were they transported off of cube?}
{Acknowledgment,} replied Captain as consensus prompted him to ask the questions outlined.
Said Captain to Pussyfoot, "Where are our items stored on-vessel after they have been stolen, are there any there now, and how were they transported off this ship? Answer."
Pussyfoot sighed and shook his head. "Borg, Borg, Borg. So predictable. You cannot find me, so you are stalling for more time. I'm a pro, remember, and compared to some of the jobs I've pulled over the years, the security on a Borg cube is a joke. In answer to your questions...one, I am not going to tell you; two, no; and, three, what your sensors are now undoubtedly picking up since stealth is not engaged. The holoimage should fuzz for a moment, after which it will be a recording only. No interactive capabilities. I said it was an old piece of junk antique, after all."
{Transporter [bottle], nonBorg!} spouted Sensors. A schematic of the cube was constructed in the databases with Supply Closet #10, subsection 17, submatrix 17, highlighted. the beam-out location was less than 350 linear meters from Captain's current position. A second data thread leapt to the origination of the transporter: it was the courier-scout.
The image of Pussyfoot fuzzed with static, then stabilized. "Recording initiated." It wavered again, finally firming. "As you undoubtedly now know, unless Borg sensors have really gone downhill, I am no longer aboard this cube. I have all the things I need from my list able to be gained here, so it is time to move on. I am on the same little courier-scout which has been transporting my take to Guild inspectors and thence to a fencing ship such as Golden Feather. One of the courier-scout's holds has been outfitted for my comfort; and its stealth technology and AI driver make it much safer than any freighter. Eventually, I'm sure, you'll find the tell-tale wibblings and wobblings in your sensor history logs to indicate the courier-scout's comings and goings and transporter beamings, but I'm not going to help you with any hints.
"By now, you have also figured out that this Golden Feather is not quite the same one you have been following since before the last port. If you wanted to be sneaky in tracking it, in the future I would not recommend a large cube blatently demanding information from every smuggler haven between here and the Houdanla system. The recording will pause now as you verify this finding and do whatever Borg are wont to do in such cases when they have discovered themselves snookered. When you are ready to listen to the rest of the recording, say 'We are just silly Borg.'"
128 of 300 reached forward as the Fluvian image froze to unnatural stillness. She was planning to grab the holoemitter and crush it in her hand, a petty retribution to Pussyfoot's impertinence, but one which was quite apparent in her thought patterns nonetheless. It did not help that several hundred of her comrades (with a sprinkling from other hierarchies) were egging her on.
"No," stated Captain simply, both aloud and internally with the force of a primary consensus monitor and facilitator. The poorly formed sub-consensus shattered, leaving 128 of 300 to pull back her arm amid emotions of sheepishness. "No," repeated Captain, then, Sensors, scan the Golden Feather closely. {Investigate all anomalous signatures, no matter how insignificant.}
{Sensors complies,} whistled Sensors cheerily, always willing to follow a directive.
The freighter and its attendant datastreams became the focus of the sub-collective. Within the dataspaces it was figuratively centered as resources were directed at it to the exclusion of the other minutiae monitored by the sensor grid, from position in relation to navigational pulsars to possible military threats to nascent space-time phenomenon. With electromagnetic frequencies, thermal imaging, quantum resonance, quark decoupling, tachyon reradiation, strange matter residue harmonics, and other technobabble methodologies which were more abstract mathematical concept scribbled on the blackboard of an insane mathematician than concrete verbalizations was Golden Feather dissected. Orders clear, Sensors unleashed her repertoire of unusual sensor grid configurations upon the vessel, to which the sub-collective paid the price.
{I'm blind! I'm blind! No, everything is just really, really black because I cannot open my eye nor activate my optical implant.}
{My head feels as if it is about to explode.}
{I'm seeing everything as if through a rose-colored filter.}
{Wow...my hand is outlined with orange flame. Wait a minute...I'm on fire! Put it out! Put it out!} Well, perhaps 175 of 230 didn't count in the general morass of complaints as he added himself to the drone maintenance roster with notation of first through third degree burns. Performing spot welds of supply rack structures in Bulk Cargo Hold #4 is unwise when one is unaware of the drizzle of very flammable solvent trickling down from a high shelf.
As Golden Feather was deeply examined it became increasingly evident she wasn't the freighter she superficially appeared to be. The vessel was a shoddily built hull wrapped around a barely functioning warp core with warp and transwarp drives salvaged from an entirely different breed of ship. There were no lifesigns, and no atmosphere for that matter, as well as a lack of anything which could be construed as crew quarters. There was a computer system, moderately powerful if exceedingly senile, with sufficient capability to animate a virtual Fluvian captain, populate a bridge with crew, and set a scene appropriate to whatever was happening to the ship. It would even puppet its captain figure properly, given the situation, making it extremely difficult to discern that the transmission from the false Golden Feather was bona fida. In fact, the transmission was still active, captain waiting with uncharacteristic patience as his "ship" continued to smoke up the bridge, all in complete defiance to the alteration of the situation, except as far as the computer was concerned, it was still on hold.
The sub-collective of Cube #347 had been drawn to false bait, or, as Pussyfoot's recording had so aptly put it, snookered.
Captain blinked, {Location of courier-scout?}
Sensors disengaged the grid from its focused study, realigning for a more encompassing view of the cube's surroundings. {Gone,} replied the insectoid. In her alcove she absently picked up on leg and set it down. {Sensors no [feel] target. Cloaked. Wait...warp [buckets] registering. Many warp [buckets].} Pause. {Decoys.}
The space around Cube #347 suddenly blossomed with the characteristic signature of a ship going to warp and speeding away. The problem was it was not just one signature, or ten, but three dozen, each with a plausible extrapolated destination assuming no deviation from linear travel. There was no way to determine which of the trails was real and which were false without tracking each one singly, without catching up to the originator and determining if it was courier-scout or warp capable drone. Unless the first choice was the correct one, chances of the courier-scout's successful escape were high as the ship was certain to deviate from its initial destination as soon as feasible.
{Ahah!} crowed Weapons as he regained fire control of cube weapon; or, rather as command and control relaxed prohibitions as it became clear that preventing "Golden Feather" from becoming a fireball was not an imperative. Several seconds later the fake freighter was debris, neuruptors searching out the larger pieces for target practice. Captain terminated the unnecessary static-filled transmission link to a vessel which no longer existed.
Second queried, {Might this be a good time to practice your oaths? At least this time it won't be broadcast to the general universe.}
{Oh, shut up,} darkly muttered Captain. He eyed the Fluvian holoimage, then choked out the words "We are just silly Borg."
Pussyfooy reanimated. "Well, aren't you just plain silly, then? Egg on your face! I tend to think so. Yes, you have definitely been snookered. I know you've been trying to get your stuff back, and to keep you from harassing the Guild, I'll just tell you where all the items I've stolen in the past two weeks, those that you haven't already picked up from following the real Golden Feather, can be located. But first, I wouldn't suggest you trying to look for the original freighter, because by now the Guild has made it disappear as effectively as if it had been swallowed by a black hole. Even you Borg would be hardpressed to coax her new registry from the computer nets, the Guild quite able to make anything vanish into one of the several hundred societies to which it has access."
"Come on, come on," urged Captain impatiently, "you talk too much." The recording did not respond, only continued its preprogrammed speech.
"Oh, yes, that location I promised you," said Pussyfoot. "I've found that the theme of the universe is best described as a circle, from the grandness of lifecycles on a thousand worlds to the myth of a giant galactic wyrm eating its own tail. If you go back to the beginning, you will inevitably find an ending...an ending that only leads to yet more beginnings. Have fun!" With his final cryptic revelation, Pussyfoot's image disappeared and the holoemitter fell to the deck with a loud clatter.
Captain looked down, deciding the act of reaching over to pick up the object was outweighed by the difficulty in finding the flexibility to do so in the first place. Back to the beginning...? Riddles were irrelevant. However, as the sub-collective slowly digested the meaning, as thoughts crystallized, the puzzle was gradually deciphered. Captain grimaced as a vision of bright lights resolved, accompanied by a commercial featuring a man in a chicken suit.
"So much for never reselling stolen merchandise. We began this journey at Wally's World, didn't we?"
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