All's well that ends well, except for franchises, when to end is to no longer exist. Paramount will live forever upon Star Trek. Following on the mighty coattails of Star Trek is Decker's Star Traks, itself a force to be reckoned with. Finally the author's BorgSpace hides in a niche of its very own.
End Game
God does not play dice.
-Albert Einstein
Not only does God play dice, but...he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
-Stephen W. Hawking
*****
There is a place between the ticks of a clock, where infinity stretches to, well, infinity and an astute buyer can get a really good price on unreal estate. Bubble universes blossom with each quantum instant, some to wither, others to expand, evolve, and eventually produce beings who look to the stars and wonder...into what food group belongs cheez-wiz. This place is also the stead whereupon souls come to wait a time before rebirth; and where the fates of the multiverses are decided by pieces of ambulatory anatomy, an unusual icon some believe stands for something quite metaphysical and profound, but may also just be a humorous quirk of an ultimate Creator who may or may not exist.
Recycling souls and playing God is a full-time bureaucratic job, so the most common manifestation of this in-between place was never-ending hallways and doors: an infinite office complex. Some doors led to soul waiting rooms, several to cafeterias, at least one to a rather notorious bar, and others to the Board Rooms. It was to one of the latter which was the focus of this excursion into the space where "tick" never becomes "tock," and more specifically, outside one rather ornate door.
"How much longer?" griped Lips, a Critic, which meant it was a pair of gigantic lips. It was painted with purple lipstick that looked as if a touch-up was needed.
Grumbled a green-orbed eyeball Director by the name of Iris, "Stop that! I told you to stop asking that!"
"How much longer?"
"Stop it!"
"How much longer?"
"Stop it!" Pause. "La, la, la, la...I can't hear you! La, la, la, la!" There was the distinct impression Iris was covering the ears it didn't possess with the hands it did not have.
Lips maneuvered itself so it was directly in front of Iris. When one doesn't have any eyelids, it can be very difficult to shut out the world. Lips widely opened its mouth and silently formed the words 'How much longer?'
"ARG!" bellowed Iris.
"Will you two stop it?" complained the other eyeball as it rolled its, um, eye. The Director had a brown iris and was known by the moniker Orb. "I swear you two are acting like infants only a billion years old."
The trio was in fact a foursome, the final member a non-lipsticked Critic by the name of Mouth, but the latter wasn't there at the moment. There are some calls of nature even omniscient beings have to take. The bathroom was down the hallway, and who knew when the next break would come.
Inside the Board Room was a cozy nook of unreal space-time, a bubble universe frozen at an indefinite point somewhere between a zero-dimension point and infinity. At the center of the room was a table upon which was an extremely good model of a spiral galaxy. If one had the patience to watch long enough (assuming one was of strong enough mental fortitude to not go insane peering at fractual dimensions), it was possible to note the subtle turning of the arms, the occasional flicker of a supernova; and at a smaller scale, ships whizzing here and there with beings on them. Perhaps it wasn't a model, at least not of the kind purchased at any local hobby shop (although Deity Supply Store was rumored to have several in stock on the "special back shelf").
Next to the table was a hand, as lacking in body as the eyeballs and lips which waited impatiently in the hallway. It was dexterously fitting a variety of tools into a toolbox. More items where going into the box than it appeared capable of holding, but after a table-top galaxy, a mere interdimensional pocket toolbox was small change. The Editor peered at the half open door to the hallway as it heard an overloud snide comment upon the length of time spent waiting, but dismissed it as unimportant.
"Finished, for now," muttered the Editor to itself as it stood and looked over the Board. The thing was messed up more than it had first supposed, and would require at least one more extensive repair session to fix completely. A suggestion could be given to the four players that it might be best to just start all over, but the hand knew there would be resistance to that idea. It sighed, "I'll schedule to come back and see how things are in a millennium or so, but I've other things to do that are more important. Since it won't fall apart between now and then...." The voiced thought trailed off.
The Editor was not savvy in the ways of the Board. Knowing how to repair one was not the same thing as knowing the rules, no more than a maker of poker cards can play seven card stud. The hand had also never cared to learn the Game, satisfied to let the Directors and Critics toss their dice and argue over the legality of a particular move. The Editor did not see the lure of the Board.
Set to one side of the Board were several dice, or at least things that an observer would label as dice. In reality they were skeins of probability wound around the core of a quantum singularity, but dice was as fitting a description as any. There were varieties of four sides and ten, twenty sides and one hundred, and even one with an improbable three sides. There was also the infinity die.
The infinity die appeared in passing to be perfectly round, but in fact it had faces...an infinite number of them. And not only was it possible to roll real numbers on it, but also the unreal, the imaginary, and the outright impossible. Its faces were mutable, the space for a "6" never guaranteed to be held by the same number during the next roll. It was the ultimate improbability matrix, one which not even the normal players took lightly: rolls of the infinity die not only affected the fate of Board pieces, but occasionally the roller as well.
The Editor picked up the infinity die and bounced it a few times on the tip of a finger. For a moment it amused itself by spinning the die like it was a basketball, then tiring of its impromptu game, it allowed the die to fall to the Board. The Editor had other things to do, other Boards to repair, other grievances from Directors and Critics to ignore.
The infinity die spun on the Board, rolling this way and that as the faces flashed with stardust and cosmic rays. Finally it slowly wobbled to a standstill, one face prominent. The Editor squinted at the result, a sideways "8" followed by a "+ 1".
"Hmm," commented the Editor to itself, "infinity plus one. Wonder what that would mean if the game was operational. Oh, well." The hand turned away from the Board, picked up its toolbox, and headed towards the door.
*****
Cube #347 sped through hypertranswarp, enroute to unimatrix 012. In Bulk Cargo Hold #7 were 300 barrels of a highly mutagenic brew of toxic waste appropriated from a species #7031 junkyard, which, coincidentally, was considered by species #8472 to be a rather tasty spice. The purpose the Greater Consciousness had for the noxious stew was not important to the sub-collective of Cube #347, save that it was removed from the hold as soon as possible before the recently discovered glowing mold near the barrels evolved sentience.
As Cube #347 hurried along, the sensor grid, as always, listened. Radio stars, X-ray sources, and pulsars of various flavors were heavy mass beacons that had analogues that penetrated deep into subspace, serving as galactic sign posts. Malicious spatial anomalies were to be avoided; and at the speeds traveled, the more the warning, the better. Additionally as the cube traveled, snatches of signals were caught, deciphered, and catalogued as to the species of origination.
"...lo'harop troi. Grrray foltigh ro eh truloopah ro delupe. F'kluvi yij fedfew..."
An extremely doplered whisper of a transmission slammed into the forward face, washed over face #5, the rolled off the current aft. The words were few, the signal weak, but Sensors was attuned to the grid and immediately grabbed at it. The transmission was amplified, dissected, examined, and determined to be of unknown origination. A new species?
Cube #347 slowed, dropping to normal space. As expected, in the realm where light speed rules applied, the transmission (now located an estimated twenty light years distant) could not be heard. Software switches altered the prevalent behavior, protocols activating which demanded the source of the signal be found and, if possible, quantified. The cube swiveled, then leapt back into hypertranswarp to retrace its course. Within a matter of minutes, the transmission impinged upon the grid once more.
{Stop! [Film] here!} exclaimed Sensors excitedly. Powerful translation algorithms were digesting the new material now being collected, pieces of words and syntax becoming clear in the garble.
Cube #347 once more abandoned subspace for normal space. Hypertranswarp is not a precise medium to stop from unless the end point is well known, the equivalent otherwise of leaping from a speeding bullet train and expecting to land on a specific dime among strewn coins. This time a star less than half a light year distant was seen, a glaring blue giant system densely populated with rocky asteroids. As before, the transmission was not heard on the electromagnetic bands, yet the star it was the only possible origination of the signal.
No additional words were necessary as powerful Borg programs honed by eight and a half thousand years of experience and over fifteen thousand distinct languages with countless dialects came to a conclusion. It was definitely a new tongue, one unrecorded, thus it represented a new species. In addition, the blue giant with the remains of an aborted planetary system could not, and did not, support a planet suitable for life, therefore the originators were space-faring...and therefore intensely interesting to the Collective.
"Help! Help! Succor us! We are stranded and need assistance! We have advanced propulsion drives which we were assaying, as well as other examples of technology we will gladly barter in order to have ourselves rescued! Please help us! Oh, help us!"
It was a distress call. A very, very fascinating distress call, especially concerning the parts about propulsion and technology. The fact that it was a bit stilted, the phrasing akin to a bored individual using a thesaurus when simpler words would do, was dismissed as a figment due to translation from a previously unknown language, or perhaps a characteristic of the species.
"Please help us! Oh, help us!"
In his alcove, Captain slightly cocked his head as supplemental programs engaged, driving the cube to investigate. The Greater Consciousness was extremely interested, and the mutagenic waste transfer was much lower priority than this opportunity. {We go,} noted Captain into the intranets, setting a course for the blue giant. {Warp engines (so as to not overshoot the mark) engaged. And, someone go mow the glowing mold in Bulk Cargo Hold #7 before it grows more than ankle high.}
*****
The screen was split into four windows, each pane outlined with a different color: green, peach, red, and orange. Within the squares were each the head and shoulders of a Borg, not of the Collective, but rather of the Colored variety. While the resemblances to standard Borg were exact, the four visages represented minds with very different motives. In this particular case, the motive revolved around the desire to eradicate the Collective, or, if failing that, crippling it so that it would stop harassing (or exterminating) Colors.
Green, Peach, Red, Orange, the Colors represented the strongest of the factions, the most able to expedite the devised plan. They were glued together by their mutual dislike of the Collective, as well as the Second Federation mediator who was present to observe the actions soon to commence. While the four Colors could theoretically talk to each other on subspace fractual frequencies, generally disparate Minds preferred to use standard hailing channels for reasons of security; and, in this case, the Second Federation ship required to be in on the conversation as well. Therefore, the split-screen conference call.
"The bait is deployed," said the Peach drone, "and sensors relay that the target is responding."
Captain Marshall of the black ops vessel SFS Ice smiled, his thin lips made thinner under a wisp of a pencil mustache. "Good, good. They won't know it is a trap?"
The Green drone snorted in contempt, "We have supplied the finest in distress beacons; and the transmission is authentic. It is from a species the original Collective has yet to encounter, yes?"
Nodded the Peach drone, "Yes, or so covert operations claim. From the way the bait has been accepted, there is no sign of suspicion. The target will be entering the system in five minutes, and approaching the first trap arena in ten."
The Orange drone giggled and gave a wide smile. The other three drone representatives as well as the master of SFS Ice ignored the Orange since such was an aspect of the Color's personality.
"Liaison Red," asked Marshall, "will your forces be ready?"
"We are deployed," stated the drone in a monotone voice. Unlike the other three Colors, Red was known to speak exclusively in plurals and with a flat tone. "Our units will be successful. We have the firepower."
"Just don't overuse it," snapped the Green. "I was present at the armament show on Frindi Prime last financial quarter and personally saw what happened to the demo target...not to mention the planet's moon."
The Peach blinked, "We heard about that incident, but I did not witness it. Would you be amiable to a memory exchange later?"
Marshall huffed, "Colors! Can we save the chit-chat for later? There is a task here, you know."
The Orange giggled again, finding humor where none existed.
The Red liaison snorted, "It is Exploratory-class Cube #347, imperfectly assimilated. Your ship offers more sport than the target will. Perhaps we could spar later?" The ghost of a predatory smile flashed across the drone's visage before it was swiftly suppressed.
"Sir," cautioned the bodiless bass of a Second Federation Personality to his captain, "that might not be the best course of action..."
"Iceman, I'm not stupid, although you seem to think so at times. The good Red here will just have to be satisfied with their 'unsporting' target," soothed Marshall to the AI. Attention was switched to the four Colors. "Do you know your roles? Do you accept why you are here?"
The Green liaison managed to reply first. "Money. We are here because the Second Federation offers credits and requires our expertise in acquiring the equipment needed to trap Collective Cube #347. The quest to fund Perfection necessitates money."
"Huh! You are Green wimps next to us. We know Perfection will require much violence, many large bangs, and fiery explosions. Second Federation, we bring to you the firepower you need to subdue the target; and we do it for the chance to strike a decisive blow against the original Collective, even if Cube #347 is not the most worthy of enemies," answered the Red drone as soon as the Green was done talking.
"It sounded like jolly fun!" said the Orange perkily and with a tittering giggle. That was the only answer Marshall had ever received from that particular Color. However, their penchant for fun, a Collective undergoing a never-ending party, meant they had quite a few volunteers for their Color; and numbers, in the Borg universe, meant power. Orange were strong; and while they could not match Red for sheer viciousness, they were the near equal in firepower.
Peach took the longest to reply. The Color was devious, covert investigation for rent. For reasons unknown, Peach was friendly towards the Second Federation when it came to matters involving the original Collective. Black Ops captains such as Marshall had dark, suspicious beliefs as to the real motive behind the cooperation, but those-in-charge were willing to ignore past dealings which had involved Borg or Color and take the risk.
"We are performing our job. Why we assist is for the gain of all," stated the Peach.
The pure human Marshall snorted and muttered "And my grandma is an Andorian Hive mistress" under his breath. Composing himself, he gave another thin smile and nodded. "Very well, then. Let's go. Switch to laser links. Communiques only as necessary."
One by one the windows blacked as their respective transmissions were cut. Future communications, until Cube #347 was secured, would rely upon line-of-sight tight-beamed laser, eavesdropping by the enemy not possible unless the target was directly between correspondents. SFS Ice glided into position above the system's plain of the elliptic to act as laser switching board. The gambit was about to begin.
*****
Cube #347 carefully moved through the system at mid-impulse speeds, occasionally dropping to lower velocities. The blue giant system was not just rocky, but very rocky; and full of dust as well. It was the latter which was of concern, for motes and gravels could not be dodged, yet they presented as solid an assault upon deflectors as did any multi-megaton asteroid. The maze of debris wrecked havoc on the grid as well, creating sensor ghosts which appeared and vanished without warning.
{Are we getting close?} asked Captain of Sensors as he directed engines to slow the cube to a standstill. Delta was requiring time to boost power to shields, a job which necessitated cross-linking high voltage lines. She (nor those who would be performing the actual task) did not wish to have an unavoidable hail of fist-sized stones to cause the shields to flare at an inadvertent time, singeing drones due to an electrical back surge. A cube at rest was less likely to be caught in an asteroid storm.
Sensors gleefully responded, {Yes, yes! Sensors says [stereo lipstick] soon. Very [pen]. The [zipping] vectors point to the goal [handbook].}
After five hundred years the species #6766 translator algorithms were no more advanced than they had been at the sub-collectives supposed termination. Sensors did not clear the matter with the subsequent visual, which consisted of blue squiggles slowly worming around plaid geometrical shapes. Captain squinted at his holodisplay, deciding that the amorphous white blob with a strong resemblance to an amoebae most likely represented Cube #347. Sensors' view of the situation was not at all alike to the raw image originating from hullside cameras.
{Yes or no, are we gaining ground on the beacon? And which way from here?} tried Captain again, carefully highlighting each thought word.
{Yes. We must go [snake],} replied Sensors, not at all bothered by the fact she was being spoken to as if she had nary a brain cell to rub together and thus had to be carefully grilled to ascertain her comprehension.
Captain sighed, then began to grind his teeth together, creating a high-pitched whine that echoed around his nodal intersection. {Sensors!} he rebuked. Allow the rest of the sub-collective to understand, especially the part which must drive.
{Captain, Captain, Captain,} intruded the bouncy mental presence of Doctor, {be nice to your teeth, else your vet will have to replace them again. A good set of teeth is necessary to any pet's proper care.}
Captain halted his tooth grinding. No, he did not wish to go to drone maintenance for another set of teeth, especially if Doctor was going to leave him secured to a work table again for a follow-up ten hour demonstration (with videos...a Borg cannot block audio-visual presentations when they are sent directly to the neurocortex) on the proper way to take care of one's teeth.
Sensors waited to respond to Captain, drawing a simplified schematic of the current solar system. Assuming the black sphere was Cube #347, then the arrows which streamed towards a hypothetical asteroid represented the straight line path to the goal. The distance was approximately a quarter radius and half an hour away, the latter requiring mid-impulse speed with no more stops.
{Yes, yes, we are ready to go,} informed Delta to the formless query in the dataspaces.
Captain nodded, then unidled engines in preparation to following Sensors' map. Hopefully the cube would end at the destination and not in the middle of the blue giant.
*****
Directors and Critics tumbled into the Board Room, led by Iris. The green-irised eyeball had an eye only for the Board, stopping dead when it saw the infinity die shimmering with that particular scintillation which meant it was in play. Behind the Director an anatomy pile-up occurred, a complaining Lips at the bottom of the heap.
"Get uf off af me," mumbled the Critic, its lips pinned to the ground by the rather ample non-behind of Orb and Mouth's nonexistent elbow. Slowly the accident sorted itself out.
Iris cried, "What happened?" It was oblivious to the events behind it. "The infinity die, it was rolled! And on /my/ turn!"
The Editor twiddled its thumb nervously, an interesting sight since the hand only had one of the appropriate digits. It then pointed at the Board and the offending die with an index finger. "I don't know. The Board is not supposed to be active. Once I kicked you four out so I could do my job, I made sure I turned off all exterior input. It was on automatic play mode so I could perform some of the more radical corrections which were required. That die should not have worked."
Orb, free of Lips and Mouth, took a place next to its Director compatriot, "The infinity die makes it own rules. You should know that. You do fix Boards after all."
The Editor snorted, "I fix Boards, but I don't play the Game. No interest. I also fix the air conditioning, the unreality generators, and the sector Producer's coffee pots when they go on the fritz. And, as I told you, the Board was not active. I do know my job. What if I accidentally knocked the table as I altered the gravitational density of a star cluster, causing dice to roll? That can not be allowed. There are safeguards, even against infinity dice."
"Infinity dice are infinity dice," insisted Orb.
Iris, meanwhile, had abandoned the budding argument to examine the Board itself in an attempt to gauge the damage. "Damn," it muttered under its breath. Many turns ago it had dimly seen the possibility of what now appeared inevitable, but at the time there had been options available to mitigate the dilemma. One option had been to role the infinity die, with multiple outcomes. Unfortunately, one of the infinity of outcomes had been extremely dire, and so Iris had been working to adjust the variables around its Borg piece in other ways. Now...now it had all been for naught. Of all the things which could have rolled, infinity plus one was the worst. "Double damn," Iris muttered again.
Lips sauntered up to stand next to the Director. "Trouble?" it asked, although it already knew the answer. Behind it, Orb, now accompanied by Mouth, was trying to explain the finer points of infinity dice rules to the Editor.
"Even your kind can see that there is trouble," spoke Iris. "It doesn't take a Director's eye to spot this particular brand of extreme inconvenience."
At the edge of the Board, a distortion was growing. It looked much like the ripple of a waterdrop falling into a pond, only traveling in reverse motion from periphery to center. Well, not quite center, but there would definitely be a nexus. Unfortunately for Iris, that nexus was fated to be focused on its favorite piece.
"Triple damn," commented Iris.
*****
{We are prepared at ambush point A,} said Red, speaking at the speed of quantum computing through the SFS Ice relay. On the Second Federation ship, the AI Personality monitored and recorded the exchange, but did not interact. This conversation was between Colors only, no Second Federation captain nor Terran built computer need intervene.
Replied Peach in kind, an appointed liaison unnecessary between Borg factions, signatures melded together into the standard multivoice, {Target is incoming along calculated vector. Time to intercept is minus two minutes, mark.}
Hidden in the sensor shadow of a twin asteroid pair locked in mutual, if weak, gravities, two Red cubes waited. They each sported a massive rack, supplied from Green, of what appeared to be mortar tubes. Within the dozen dozen barrels were glinting harpoon heads. From the distance and against the faces of the Battle-class Red cubes, the spears looked as if they were mere toothpicks, but in reality each was a heavy spar forty meters in length. Once fired at the target, the harpoons would trail behind a rope woven of continuously exuded carbon monofilaments, an extremely strong material which required special tools to cut. Cube #347 would not have the time to bring the necessary equipment to bear, not when it was being reeled in by two cubes much larger than itself, not to mention under attack by the rest of the ambush fleet.
{Remember,} said Peach, {the target needs to be alive! No terminations!}
{No terminations,} affirmed Red. Nothing had been said about a little bit of mayhem, maybe some accidental singularity torpedo detonations as the target resisted. As long as one drone was left alive.... That particular notion from Red was not relayed along the Second Federation link.
Orange giggled.
*****
{AHHHH! Giant [squids] are attacking us! Giant [squids]!} screeched Sensors.
In response to the five humongous, vibrant red squid objects which were bearing down upon Cube #347, a radical course change was made. Instead of passing between a pair of asteroids, the vessel veered to the starboard before charging galactic south. Weapons were charged to repulse the assailants. It required several minutes of confusion to convince the sensory hierarchy that it was an illusion caused by the extreme amounts of debris in the system, not actual creatures. It took even longer to browbeat Weapons into disengaging the weaponry systems.
The sub-collective never noticed the cube shaped objects which were not rocks, nor the commotion as the Color fleet hurriedly moved away from the twin asteroids and other neighboring stones.
Luck is not something the Collective regarded highly. There are only statistical possibilities; and in the end, the "good" and the "bad" even out. True, the imperfect sub-collective of Cube #347 had run a streak of apparent bad luck which would require tens of years of stellar fortune to counter, but eventually, or so the Greater Consciousness affirmed, all would be mathematically equal. Reality was quite a bit different.
As with any conservation law, good and bad chance did balance out, but it was not necessary for it to equalize on the same object. To counter the ever poor fortune of Cube #347, the Spazian pirate ship Gengi, located a billion light years from the Milky Way galaxy, was known for its high adventures whereupon it always escaped unscathed except for a lowly clone-peon or three. It was the stuff of good escapism television made real. Currently the Gengi was in dire straights as a plasma beast prepared to eat it, a fitting end to an utterly atrocious day. Meanwhile Cube #347, even though it did not know it, was having a string of very good luck, beginning with the unknowing escape from a Colored ambush.
Or perhaps Cube #347 had simply saved up its luck for a rainy day. It was raining in Comet Slurry Processing #3, after all, courtesy of a malfunctioning climate control buffer.
Oblivious, Cube #347 idly spun in place as sensor grid and weapon systems were reset or secured, as appropriate.
{Directions?} queried Captain.
Sensors imparted a sense of guidance, a vector pointing towards a beacon still begging for help. Within her alcove, Sensors vaguely gestured with one hand, indicating a position somewhere behind her body down at knee level. {Over there.}
Captain mentally nodded, {Understood.} The cube stopped rotating and smoothly accelerated back on course towards its goal.
*****
"What happened?" demanded Marshall to the four heads, one of each Color, on his screen. Peach, Green, and Orange had retained the same liaisons, but Red was a different drone.
"The target changed course," soothed the Peach drone. "We did not anticipate Cube #347 would deviate from the straight-line course, but it did."
Marshall resisted the urge to bite his lower lip, an inappropriate nervous gesture considering the "allies" currently watching him. Behind him he could hear the sounds of a busy, professional bridge, a sense echoed in the implants which tied part of neural system to the ship. "Does the Collective know we are here? Did the cube recognize us?"
"No," replied Red and Peach at the same time. The two drones seemed to engage in a staring contest, eyes drilling into one another as the liaisons glared into their respective camera pick-ups. On a different level, in other systems which had concurrent presence of the two Colors, a swift feinting game occurred, each Mind attempting to find a chink in their opponent's guard. Seconds passed before a compromise was reached.
Continued Peach, "No, the actions of the target are not consistent with the Collective knowing that Cube #347 narrowly avoided ambush."
Marshall countered, "The cube could be acting nonchalant, attempting to placate us with a false sense of security."
All four Colors peered at the Second Federation captain as if he were a low grade moron, varying expressions of puzzlement crossing Borg faces. Of the four Colors, only Peach truly understood the tactics Marshall was attempting to convey. However, Borg were not known for their subtlety, and especially not the original Collective. If Cube #347 had seen the ambushers, it would be acting much different.
"It is the Collective," tried the Peach liaison. The explanation sputtered to a halt, the Color unsure how to convey what was just...just...what just was.
"Um, sure," replied Marshall. Silence, then, "So, what now? There is a back-up plan, is there not?"
Said the Red drone firmly, "Yes. We are deploying the appropriate forces now. We will prevail. We are Borg."
"Less theatrics. Just capture Cube #347. It is integral to the scheme," ordered Marshall with an outward confidence he did not actually feel. If the Colors decided Second Federation presence was not necessary, then SFS Ice and all on board would be so much scrap...or drones. Well, Green did not forcefully assimilate beings except according to a specific, capitalist agenda; and neither did Orange. Red were believed to be largely clones. Peach...Peach was the unknown, the smiling adder which the covert op brass refused to acknowledge. The Colors were Colors, but they were also Borg.
"Compliance," simultaneously replied three of the four windows, multivoice replacing the individual voices of the liaisons. In the fourth pane, the Orange drone gave a large grin, produced a plastic party horn, tooted it, then proclaimed, "Let's party!"
*****
The asteroid, propelled by a tractor beam, flew by Cube #347, intersecting the vessel's line of travel. The rock was fully as large as the Borg cube, and near as massive; and by the laws of physics which governed such bothersome things as two equal masses moving in gravitational influence of the other, Cube #347 slid in the opposite direction.
{5 of 240,} exclaimed Captain, {now is not a good time for pursuing your space construction skills! How many times have you been warned to not tractor asteroids, especially when the cube is at anything other than a standstill? One too many times, when /none/ should have been sufficient to begin with.}
5 of 240, aspiring orbital engineer with a penchant for the large yellow machines which are simply toys for adults prior to his assimilation, shrunk in upon himself with the berating. He then rallied as Cube #347 regained its prior course. {No harm done. One never knows when the skill will be useful. I must practice.}
{It is a skill we already have. Innate. And even if, by some odd reason, we did not know the proper method to move objects with a tractor beam, we could always download the skill from the Greater Consciousness. It is not required that the depository of orbital construction reside in one drone - you,} retorted Captain. 5 of 240 finally backed down, as was inevitable, and the consensus monitor and facilitator moved on to quash the next thought-action breakdown.
{Fuzzy static,} reported Sensors, translation algorithms assuring coherence.
Captain blinked, {What? Is it important?}
{Fuzzy static,} insisted Sensors. She directed the attention of command and control at the beacon message, which had burst into a static mess as the tractored asteroid had passed.
Command and control mulled over the occurrence for several milliseconds, Captain declaring, {Irrelevant. The message is clear now. The static could have been caused by a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, sunspots, maintenance problems either at the origin or the source, the tractor beam, or an asteroid with unusual composition.}
Sensors grumbled that such were highly unlikely, then returned to her duties.
Unseen on the side of the asteroid facing away from Cube #347, a glowing net of gold strands fitfully flickered, flared, and finally dimmed to nothing. Stealthy Colored cubes were already redeploying for the next assault.
*****
The ripple was not solely an artifact of the Board, but was propagating at many tens, hundreds of times light speed towards a destination which did not realize the trouble which was swiftly drawing near. For those civilizations with sensors sufficiently advanced to capture the ripple, it was little more than a mirage, a wrinkling of space-time dismissed as a random equipment fluctuation; and for most parties, the ripple passed by, unnoticed and unremarked.
The ripple did not always pass invisible, for it was the physical manifestation of probabilities twisted by the toss of the powerful infinity dice. The galaxy is large, so in many places none were there to observe the spontaneous formation of daisies in the middle of a stellar nursery or the changing of a largely carbon-containing asteroid into solid gold. However, on one planet a race of chicken-like creatures suddenly gained sentience, informing the ranchers keeping them that a forty-hour work week was highly desirable and demanding at least one two-week vacation from the cage a year, else no more eggs. Elsewhere, on three widely separated planets, a torrential rain of tulips and turnips proceeded in the case of the former to introduce a new, deadly allergen, and, in the case of the latter, brain a large proportion of the population.
"My Stagi piece!" cried Lips woefully. When one is a mouth, vocalizations can be raised to an art form. Lips was a master of the exclamation, as well as the whine and the wheedle. "My Stagi piece! There has been an outbreak of tribbles on my Stagi station! It'll take Board weeks to dig out all the tribbles!"
Mouth was not sympathetic. "Your Stagi station is a minor piece. My primary civilization has just had its Dictator-For-Life transformed into a soft-shell and is about to be boiled for the Prime Master's dinner. I will require a minor civil war to set the civilization right again, which in turn will delay the discovery of warp drive by at least a decade."
"Twelve years," confidently stated Orb, using its Director precognizance to scan ahead. The ability was not precise, but it was better than that available to the Critic. "I would guess twelve years would be a better estimate." Of all the Board players, Orb was the only one which appeared to be having its pieces escaping unscathed. It was not very popular at the moment.
"Oh, shut up," muttered Mouth as it frowned at the Board.
Iris winced as it spied a minor piece encounter an unforeseen difficulty, but the trouble was nothing next to what was forthcoming with its Borg cube. It returned its attention to the Editor.
"The Board was locked. Locked! Look at the switch, if you don't believe me!" The Editor pointed at the ethereal toggle plate near the door, positioned in the same location as a light switch.
Iris rotated and focused on the indicated object. "The switch is in the on position," was the icy comment.
"What?" exclaimed the Editor, gliding to the offending toggle. "I made sure I switched it off! I always switch off and lock the Boards I work on! Always! And I duct tape it down to make sure it can't be accidentally reactivated until I am done!" A fingernail scratched at a bit of silvery, sticky fabric. "I did secure it. Here is the proof. It has been tampered with."
Silence, then, one at a time, two eyeballs, one pair of lips, and one hand focused upon a certain purple-painted Critic.
"What?!?" cried Lips defensively. "What did I do?"
The Editor stalked towards the Critic. "Did you remove the duct tape? And did you toggle the switch?" The words were cold, demanding a response.
"I...I...I did not! I did not! It was...um...it was Iris! It did it!"
Iris blinked, then shouted, "Why would I do that? I'm a Director! I have morals, unlike Critics!"
"Leave me out of this," muttered Mouth, who was worriedly crewing a lip as another primary piece was affected by the ripple.
"Lips," said the Editor.
The Critic collapsed. "Okay, maybe I accidentally peeled up the tape; and maybe I accidentally bumped into the switch. I didn't mean it, and you can't prove I meant it."
The ripple continued contracting on its eventual goal, oblivious to arguments, oblivious to Mouth's moans, oblivious to Orb's smug satisfaction as its pieces were missed.
*****
{You screwed up again,} accused Peach of Red. {So much for the Red mystique of weaponry experts and military excellence.} The communique, while linked through the Second Federation ship, was once again sped to computer speeds. It was also heavily encoded with rotating fractual algorithms, as much to mock the Personality in its inability to decipher the stream as much as for privacy. Besides, the demands of the SFS Ice captain to be included in the conversation were amusing to all the Colors.
Protested Red, {It isn't our fault! We can't extrapolate every erratic action which the imperfect sub-collective might take. The target is an abomination.}
{It is an abomination which was the prime template upon which the Hive was built, and therefore from which all Colors were birthed,} reminded Peach. {True, Cube #347 is undisciplined, but it also necessary to the plan which will rid us of the original Collective. Once the Collective is gone, we Colors can concentrate among ourselves to determine which version of Perfection will prevail; and which Color is worthy enough and sufficiently strong to found the next true Collective. Until then, we must cooperate.}
{It will be Green,} confidently stated Green. {We have the vision, and the credit, to spread ourselves in the resultant vacuum following the termination of the original Collective."}
Orange giggled, {You three are all too serious. Life's a party, and the small beings of the universe know it. Orange will prevail.}
{Strength is power! Red has strength, and therefore Red is power!} affirmed Red.
{Enough, enough!} interrupted Peach. The Color had its own vision of what would be, but was too cautious to boast of its personal plans. {Save it for later. First we must capture Cube #347. Is there comprehension?} Three wordless affirmations were received. {Good. Prepare Plan C. If this doesn't work, we'll have to be a bit more...forthright.}
{We should have been forthright to begin with,} murmured Red darkly.
*****
{No life signs,} noted Sensors of the wreckage artfully smeared across the face of the asteroid. "Artfully" was the correct word, because the debris were too perfect to be a real crash site. The cabin of the small ship was intact, only a few scratches, as was the antennae cluster which was still broadcasting its tempting message. Everything else was essentially disintegrated, too violently torn into twisted scrap to warrant the fuselage's survival. The scene was suspicious to say the least; and then there was the matter of the supposed occupants. {Not sufficient carbon [highlights].}
Unless the owner-species was a non-organic lifeform, the destroyed vessel did not contain enough carbon of the appropriate type to build one sentient being, much less a crew. True, the species could have been unconventional, perhaps a bacteria colony, but then there would have been no reason to build a ship which obviously was meant to house a standard humanoid form. Internal alarms were raised: it was a trap.
Cube #347 swiftly backed off from the asteroid, relaying to the Greater Consciousness that the beacon was not as it appeared to be. At the same time, Weapons fired an antimatter spread into the derelict, silencing the beacon and destroying the too perfect wreckage amid a spectacular gout of suddenly molten rock. It was the pyrotechnic display which foiled the trap.
A foursome of missiles sped out of nowhere, homing in on the brightest, hottest heat source. It should have been Cube #347, but the expanding fireball was much more attractive to the senses of the missiles. They narrowly bypassed their true target, disappearing into the glowing embers of congealing lava and slamming into the rock surface. There was a bright flash, followed by a wash of static over Cube #347's grid which caused Sensors to loudly complain of [electric whelks]. The missiles had been a weapon designed to overload the power grid of a Borg cube and thereby sedate it for capture.
Second commented, {Let's get out of here before the owners of the missiles appear.}
{Compliance,} agreed Captain as Weapons was "convinced" retreat was the best option in this case.
*****
"We are Red..."
"...and Green..."
"...and Peach..."
"...and (giggle, laugh) Orange..."
"...and you will submit to us."
The first announcement listing Colors were voiced by the respective Color, with the final proclamation synchronized among all four. From sensor shadows and hidden by stealth devices appeared the multi-Color fleet, a combination of Battle- and Assimilation-class cubes, except for Peach who had sent several of the enhanced Exploratory-classes which comprised the vast majority of its assets. A giant Green Lugger-class cube lurked in the background. The vessels focused upon the Cube #347, which had begun to spin defensively even as it moved towards a perceived hole in the englobing maneuver.
"What are you doing?" demanded Marshall as both his tactical officer and Iceman informed him of the change in tactics. "What happened to subterfuge? The plan?"
Only one liaison responded - Peach - with a drone head on the display. The other three panes either remained dark, or in the case of Red, featured a CatwalkCam view to infinity. "The plan has altered to include a new option. We must act swiftly to secure the target before it escapes."
Marshall ordered Iceman to split off a new window, this one showing a magnified view of the action. The Personality complied, shoving the four panes to the bottom of the main display. As he watched, a flash of light sequentially shot out from four of the large Battle-class cubes, bathing Cube #347 and the surrounding area in a pearl luminescence which swiftly faded.
{Subspace ripple charges,} whispered Iceman into Marshall's linkage with the AI. {Supraluminal speeds no longer possible in this quarter of the system.}
Aloud, the captain of SFS Ice questioned, "But the whole purpose of the covert capture was to keep the Collective from knowing the target had been seized by us. Will this not change that outcome?"
The Peach drone sharply shook his head in a curt negative. "No. We will alter the sub-collective's memories so as to reflect this as a...hallucination. Due to the nature and history of Cube #347, the discrepancy is highly unlikely to be closely questioned. The potential outcome is sufficiently advantageous to justify our risk."
On the screen, Cube #347 fired first one, then a second torpedo towards oncoming opponents. The first green-tinged missile missed, but the second struck a glancing blow off a shield. No damage was apparent. In response, a Peach Exploratory-class cube uncloaked in the middle of the developing melee, fired a silvery ray which impacted Cube #347, then cloaked again.
"A transmutation pulse has now blocked the target's ability to communicate with the Collective," informed the Peach liaison.
Marshall watched, open-mouthed. Second Federation intelligence knew the Borg had developed weapons to use against each other, but it was rare to actually see a conflict in action; and, as far as he knew, no one until now had been aware of the Peach capability to cloak a structure as large and mobile as a cube. ::Are you recording this?:: subvocalized Marshall to Iceman. He kept his face as passive as possible concerning the observations, not wanting to alert the most intelligence savvy of the Colors as to the discovery.
::I'm a competent Personality. Of course I'm recording this. I'm preparing a data package to relay home, as a guard against any "accidents" which may occur,:: replied Iceman in kind.
::Don't trust the Colors either, do you?::
::About as far as I can throw one...and I lack arms, if you haven't noticed.:: The humor was dark.
"The cage is being deployed at this time," said the Peach liaison after several brief seconds of peering at Marshall. He had been focused on a magnified image of the captain's throat and jaw, picking out at least part of the subtle subvocal conversation. Unlike the Borg races, the Second Federation did not use true neural links, but rather an implanted microphone-like system. While it was only feasible to track half the conversation without actually having a unit on the SFS Ice intercepting messages, it was still possible to conjecture with 90.6% accuracy the unheard half of the dialogue. The drone smiled to himself as amusement from the Second Federation paranoia infused his mind from his Greater Consciousness. "Once the target is subdued, Green will transport the cube to the prepared facility, and the surgery will commence."
"Good," answered Marshall, an insincere smile stitched across his face.
*****
Cube #347 was approaching a state of panic. Speeds greater than impulse were not possible; and all communication with the Greater Consciousness had been severed. The technologies were known, even if the standard Exploratory-class cube did not mount such weaponry (much to Weapons' disappointment). The technologies also did not have an immediate counter other than not being in the vicinity when they were deployed. To gain the ability to go to supralight speeds would require moving beyond the region affected by the subspace ripple charge; and the thin layer of transmuted elements blocking access to fractual communication frequencies necessitated several days of physically washing the hull with a special acid. It was highly unlikely the Colored attackers would provide Cube #347 an escape route, nor patiently allow engineering teams time to swab the hull armor.
{Target beta entering optimal quantum torpedo range. Aiming four torpedoes, set to 150 isoton yield each. Target alpha will be in far neuruptor envelope in twenty seconds, assuming rate of overtake remains constant. Defensive screens holding. Five singularity torpedoes remain in munitions storage with payloads being swapped to five-proton clusters. Twenty payloads remain available of lesser yield, but it will require time to construct additional torpedo chassis,} reported Weapons of the weapons hierarchy. If an outsider had been listening, the dialogue would have been less words and more of an ongoing stream of consciousness.
{Well, if someone hadn't decided to practice fire all our torpedo chassis...} began Second in accusation.
Weapons divided his consciousness, entering a multi-tasking mode whereupon part of his awareness was allowed to respond to Second. {Live-fire tests are necessary. I still say we stand and allow the attackers to come to us. There are only fifteen of them. We can destroy at least one before we are terminated.}
{Eighteen,} interjected Sensors. {Sensors [tastes] three additional, [pencil] in mass: Exploratory-class cubes, cloaked. Technology adapted from species #6451. It [smells] like [kiwi]. Very [fruity].} The sub-collective was flooded by the sense of a sweet, almost rotten aroma.
{Sensors!} complained Captain. The cube was sent to the starboard, dodging around an asteroid as another of the Red Battle-class cubes loomed. {Consensus complete. If the aim had been to destroy us, we would already be dead considering the odds.}
{Maybe we are just really good,} countered Weapons. As Cube #347 continued its defensive spin, four torpedoes were fired at the target designated beta, each successive face spitting forth a missile. All four impacted, shivering the Battle-class cube's shields. Unfortunately, a 14% drop in defensive grid integrity was not sufficient, not when on-board healing agents and busy drones were already returning the shield to full functionality.
{The Colors are attempting to capture us,} stated Captain. The probability hovered at 95%. Despite the surety, there was little the sub-collective could do except to attempt to flee to the edge of the subspace collapsed region and go into hypertranswarp. It was the most prudent action to take considering the odds, no matter what Weapons insisted.
An Orange Assault-class sphere appeared from the sensor shadow of an asteroid, firing a pair of missile weapons that impacted shields. Cube #347 twisted aside, weighed options taking into account the signatures of the rapidly approaching fleet, and sighted upon a gap in the rock swarm.
*****
The ripple inevitably closed in upon the nexus, blurring space and time as it sped inward. On the Board stars distorted; and in the locale known by its inhabitants as "reality," unexplained incidents of seeming impossibility increased in number. If one had a good imagination (or an excellent extrasensory perception), one could almost see five bits of anatomy clustered around a galaxy model, the tranquillity of morbid curiosity about what will happen next silencing conversation. An avalanche would be easier to stop than the event set in motion.
And if one had superb hearing, one might notice that the quiet was not complete, for the green-irised eyeball was whispering a single word over and over again to itself, senses riveted upon its piece.
It was a four letter word. If your imagination was good enough to see the unreal and hear the unheard, it is surely sufficient to spell out an appropriate word.
*****
It was not eighteen Color cubes which hunted Cube #347, but twenty. The final two had remained carefully hidden by an especially thick mass of rock, artificially arranged against just such a contingency as was occurring. The smaller cube of the pair was Peach, and the larger Green. The Lugger-class Green cube had transported in its holds a massive amount of doped carbon nanotubule webbing, a vast microscopic spiderweb of fibers with a specific proportion of elements placed inside the hollow strands in order to alter conductive properties. The web was akin to the net used previously in the futile attempt to capture Cube #347, but on a much larger scale.
Green had provided the webbing, complaining the whole time about the unnecessary expense as the ambushes would surely catch the target. However, now it was obvious that the outcome would be worth the cost.
Squads of Peach and Green had secured the net to the asteroids, tractor beams draping the panels into the folds of a five-sided cage. One face of the box had been left open, ready to accept Cube #347 when it was driven into the snare. So fine were the strands of the net that the sensors of the target would not recognize them until too late.
The Green cube backed away, leaving the Peach vessel in the center of the nets. It swiveled and brought to bear one particular edge, irradiating each panel one at a time with a diffuse violet ray. The doped nanostrands flared bright yellow, then faded. The web was now charged: if Cube #347 actually hit the net, energy would be drawn out of the cube's power grid and dumped into the asteroid anchors as heat; and similarly transformed would be the assault of weapons upon the snare.
{We are ready,} commented Peach as its cube removed itself from the box, taking an overwatch position near the Green Cargo-class.
Agreed Green over the Second Federation link, {Yes.}
Orange giggled, {How much fun is this! We are prepared to drive the target into the trap.}
Red was disdainful, and only commented, {About time.}
*****
"We are Exploratory-class Cube #347 of the Borg Collective. Respond. Or you will regret it, Colored fiends," announced a beleaguered Cube #347 in an open-ended hail to the fleet which continued to "encourage" certain routes of escape via large explosive detonations.
{Stop adding that last bit,} commanded Second to Weapons, who had (yet again) circumvented the communication protocols to insert an inappropriate threat.
Muttered Weapons, not bothering to censor his thoughts to the intranets, {We aren't allowed to directly attack. We aren't allowed to perform a ramming maneuver. We aren't allowed to tack on warnings which might bring the assailants to believe that reinforcements are forthcoming. What /is/ weaponry hierarchy allowed to do?}
Second replied, {You are allowed to keep us in one piece. Time to completion of first singularity torpedo chassis?}
{Two minutes. It will be loaded, armed, and ready to fire in three point five minutes.}
Captain closed his eyes and continued pacing back and forth across his nodal intersection. The most recent not-so-near-miss miss had broken apart a large asteroid, flinging a hail of rocky splinters against the shields, overloading the primary shield buffers. Backups had seamlessly taken over the shield function, but engineering was frantically fixing the system. Unfortunately, from Captain's viewpoint, during the attack, the holoemitters in his nodal intersection had gone off-line due to a failed power coupling. The repair, under normal circumstances, would have been a matter of a few minutes of engineering hierarchy's time, but Delta had rightfully deemed the emitters as very low priority, their repair to occur after the current crisis had passed, assuming sub-collective and cube survived intact. Until then, Captain had to resort to the direct datastreams that he preferred to view via the holodisplay.
The Colors were not responding. After the initial contact which had declared the Colored designations, they had refused all additional contact. The sub-collective, and thus Captain, did not understand why they were the focus of the ire of four Colors, nor why they were being herded all over this quarter of the blue giant system. Still, every moment left alive and uncaptured was another moment whereupon a miracle might occur and Cube #347 would escape.
Too bad Borg did not believe in miracles.
On a more mundane outlook, every moment left alive and uncaptured was another chance to hurt the assailants. Already Cube #347 had done the supposed impossible and injured a Red Battle-class cube sufficiently to cause it to drop out of the chase for repairs. The combination of singularity torpedoes, anti-matter bomblets, and pea-sized rocks which had precipitated the occurrence were unlikely to be replicated, but Weapons was still crowing about the accomplishment. Unfortunately there were seventeen other vessels of various tonnages present to take the one Battle-class's place.
{Rock,} informed Sensors, a warning which was all too familiar as an asteroid loomed on the sensor grid and in Captain's mind. A schematic was tracking all the nearby rocky obstacles, various streams of data continuously updating the threat each posed to the cube. One was now highlighted in yellow, tingeing to an orange of danger.
Captain allowed the orange to bleed into red, silencing the computer's voice as it stated the obvious. At the last moment, as last moment as possible for a relatively small Borg cube, Cube #347 dodged port. So close was the miss that gravimetric sensors reported transient effects upon the vessel inertia due to the weak gravity of the asteroid.
{Rock. Rock. Rock,} cautioned Sensors once more, {followed by Battle-class [table].}
This time Cube #347 sped between the trio of rocks, cutting beams slicing at the stony surfaces as the vessel passed. Thick slabs of rock fractured, spinning into the void behind the fleeing cube.
Weapons snorted, {Hah! At least we are allowed to do something.}
{Net!} called Sensors frantically, the image of webbing blazing across the visual cortexes of 4000 drones. The perceived obstacle was directly in front of the cube, caught between a suspiciously regular arrangement of asteroids.
An emergency stop commenced, flinging drones against bulkheads and out of alcoves. Several went flying over safety railings; and 78 of 152 found his head securely wedged between two metal rods.
Captain tumbled into a wall, then slowly hauled himself upright as Cube #347 came to a full stop. {That's it. The inertial dampers will be fixed. I do not care how many technologies must be examined, but somewhere a civilization must exist with a decently functional damper system.} The words were empty, a threat which had been delivered many times in the past and yet to be worked upon because the Greater Consciousness saw no pressing need to update inertial dampers. Of course, sudden stops rarely occurred to vessels other than Cube #347.
Cube #347 returned to a defensive spin as the newest obstacle was examined. The cube was in the middle of a box created by carbon nanofilaments, which, as an exploratory neuruptor blast demonstrated, were impervious to energy weapons. The technology was known, even without a link to the Greater Consciousness to confirm, and would require time to fabricate the tools necessary to cut through. Trying to physically push out of the snare was not a feasible solution.
Cornered, Cube #347 backed as deeply into the box as possible. The open end was already being plugged by three formidable Battle-class cubes, as well as an Assimilation-class and four Exploratory-classes. The silent stand-off stretched into minutes, the Colors not advancing, Cube #347 waiting.
Unexpectedly, a small, nonBorg vessel glided into view on the other side of a net panel. It was a Second Federation ship, a stream-lined shape which looked either like a watermelon seed or a tailless sting-ray, depending on one's point of view. It was covered in the regenerative black bioarmor standard to Second Federation warships; and no obvious ports marred the sleek hull. The 120 meter long vessel was recognized as a Dolby-class vessel, a rarely seen ship type which was identified as the sole providence of the Second Federation's covert operations arm.
A hail was directed at the Second Federation ship, "We are the Borg. You will release this cube. Now. You will comply."
Predictably, no response was granted.
{Weapons systems powering on two of the Peach Exploratory-class cubes,} said Weapons as his hierarchy read the sensor data. The appropriate vessels were highlighted. {Directed dampening field armaments.} A directed dampening field would disable the energy grid, rendering Cube #347 helpless, unconscious. It was a devastating, if short-range weapon. However, the cube was very much within the targeting envelope.
Captain initiated a consensus cascade. With the outcome, only one possibility seriously presented itself as a viable solution, even if the chance of success was less than 5%. {Prepare for direct assault,} directed Captain into the intranets. Weapons cycled into active status from idle and shields were reinforced as three auxiliary cores directed all output into defensive systems. Cube #347 would not allow itself to be captured.
Abruptly shouted Sensors, {[Landing television red pencils]!} No words translated correctly, the meaning garbled into senselessness. It was a distraction at the worst possible time.
{What?} automatically responded Captain even as the closest Red Battle-class cube was sighted upon. Impulse engines were revved, rattling the superstructure.
{[Landing television red pencils]!} Pause, then slower, {Temporal-spatial anomaly.}
{Where? When?}
{Here. Now.}
A space-time tsunami crashed down upon Cube #347, tearing the fabric of reality as ripples converged upon a single loci. It was not quite a black hole, not quite a wormhole, not quite any phenomenon as recorded by the sensors of Borg or Second Federation. From the viewpoints of SFS Ice and Colors, it was as if the space inside the net had twisted, a universal laundryman wringing a bit of space-time fabric dry. When the effect lifted, the nearest Red Battle-class cube had transmogrified into a highly confused star whale, and Cube #347 was gone.
From the viewpoint of Cube #347, it was as if a tunnel to nothing, or more accurately Nothing, had opened up, swallowing the vessel whole.
TO BE CONTINUED....
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