Star Trek The Next Generation - 105 - Resistance by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780743499552
Publisher: Star Trek
Published: 2007-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

8

EVEN AS PICARD MATERIALIZED ON THE BORG vessel, he gratefully sucked in air. The atmosphere aboard the Enterprise had become so cold and dry to him that it pained his throat and lungs. Here it was obligingly hot and so moist a fine mist veiled his surroundings.

The voice of the Collective was clearer here, utterly pervasive yet somehow less intrusive, as quietly a part of him as his own breathing or the beating of his heart. The part of him that was Locutus found it welcoming. At the same time, he felt his level of anger increase. At first, he thought it was a natural reaction to being back aboard a cube. But slowly he came to realize that Jean-Luc Picard wasn’t angry. It was the Borg.

Emotion was not typical of his connection to the Collective. The Borg were systematic. Even with all the added voices, Picard remembered that the last time he was Locutus there was an overall sense of calm. Of reason. The Borg did not see themselves as evil. They were merely performing a function of their superior biology. They had never attacked with malice; they were simply fulfilling their natural prerogative to expand their race. The sense of preservation was still there, but now it was mixed with a need for vengeance. And a feeling of satisfaction.

The queen’s gestation is nearing completion. Prepare to receive a directive…

He found himself on the uppermost deck. Overhead hung exposed circuitry and conduits. Beneath his feet lay exposed metal scaffolding above a hundred other scaffoldings just the same, spiraling downward into infinity, and row after row of honeycomb alcoves filled with inanimate drones. To the human Picard, the sight was dizzying. To Locutus, it was unremarkable; the Borg’s vision focused on what was closest to him, the better to detect intruders or beings to be immediately assimilated. Distant objects receded into near invisibility: height meant nothing. Only an individual could be afraid of falling.

Only individuals would desire to see colors, to appreciate aesthetics; Borg vision detected shades of gray because those were the functional colors of the Borg cube.

Levels Twenty-two A through Thirty-nine A now at acceptable life-support levels, ready for habitation.

Picard began to move slowly, deliberately, at the Collective’s steady pace. He was keenly aware that he had beamed onto the precise spot where Battaglia and his search party had started out. Unlike them, he needed no coordinates to guide him.

He had grown sufficiently accustomed to the Collective’s steady patter in his mind to focus on his own thoughts. He let Locutus guide his feet and let his mind recall each individual of the lost away team. He wanted to remember them separately; it fell to his responsibility to notify their families when he returned to the Enterprise.

If he returned, the thought whispered, and he corrected it quickly, firmly. When.

He could not let himself forget the cost of his own reluctance to face the Borg alone. The lost were not faceless officers, aware of the dangers of service aboard a starship.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.