Vendetta
by
Peter David

The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. if you
purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was
reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author
nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped
book."

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

The plot and background details of Vendetta are solely the author's
interpretation of the universe of STAR TREK and vary in some respects
from the universe as created by Gene Roddenberry.

An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020

Copyright 1991 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster
Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket
Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-671-74145-4

First Pocket Books printing May 1991

109876

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Printed in the U.S.A.

This one is for Richard, the biggest windmill I know

Introduction and Technical Notes

For those who actually keep track of my career and heard about my
upcoming projects, no, this isn't the book with Q. That's in a few
months.

When Rock and a Hard Place came out, I cautioned readers up front that
it was going to be somewhat more serious--even slightly morbidrain tone
than my previous Trek book, Strike Zone. Readers seemed to appreciate
this. I feel no such statement of dramatic style is required with
Vendetta. Considering that the Borg are back in force with this novel,
you know this isn't going to be a laugh riot.

Vendetta, as a work, owes its existence to a few people. First and
foremost, to Pocket Books editor Kevin Ryan, whose idea this all was.
Kevin is also the only person I know who can tell you that a manuscript
is great, wonderful, fantastic, the best thing you've ever written, and
then fax you six pages of requested changes. He should be in Hollywood.
He'd fit in great there.

Then there is the incredibly understanding phalanx of editors with whom
I work, who were willing to cut me slack on my monthly comic book
assignments so that I could get this novel done. Not that they had much
choice, since I had my remarkably rude answering machine
message-screening my calls.

There is also my family--wife Myra, and daughters Shana and Guinevere,
who have come to understand that the phrase "Daddy's on deadline" means
that you tiptoe around the house until the damned thing is done.

Then, of course, there is Next Generation itself, celebrating a quarter
century of the durability of Gene Roddenberry's dream, which by
introducing the formidable Borg, gave us a race that makes the Klingons
and Romulans combined look like campfire girls.

And now, something totally alien to my usual writing--technical notes. I
found myself leaning very heavily on the Star Trek Writer's Technical
Manual, that marvelous document created by Rick Steinbach and Mike Okuda
that is the official, unvarnished, accept-no-substitute guide for anyone
trying to write for the TV show. Whereas usually I give the manual a
casual glance in the course of writing a book, to double-check bridge
stations or something, with Vendetta I kept it to my immediate right and
referred to it constantly.

In Vendetta you will find discussions of the capabilities of warp drive,
phasers and respective settings, setups of the engine room, etc., etc.
All of this is taken directly from the Technical Manual, with a few
extrapolations of my own tossed in along the way. This serves a twofold
advantage. First, it gives Vendetta, I would hope, a feeling of
authenticity. Second, it means that when fans come complaining to me
about my depiction of warp speed limits and the like, I can just turn
them on Steinbach and Okuda. The Tech Manual is the final, official word
of the Star Trek office, so if you take issue with anything in Vendetta,
don't gripe to me about it. I just work here.

Special thanks to an advertiser in Comics Buyer's Guide whose nom
deplume I borrowed for a character herein.

And lastly, an acknowledgment to Miguel de Cervantes, who knew squat
about warp drive but everything about what drives the human heart.

P.D.

OVERTURE

Chapter One

Jean-Luc PICARD leaned against a wall and ran his fingers through his
mop of thick brown hair.

His feet tapped a vague, disassociated rhythm, more
stream-of-consciousness than anything else. His mind was wandering in
the way that it often did--analyzing any number of facts, figures, and
other bits of information that were tumbling through his head while,
simultaneously, drawing together possible connections.

It was called "thinking empirically" by his teachers. According to his
father, it was called "being able to see the forest for the trees."

"Step back, gentlemen. Give the young man room." Picard didn't even
glance in the direction of the slightly taunting voice. "Just thinking,
Korsmo. No need to make such a fuss over it. Since you do it so rarely,
you probably didn't recognize the process."

Korsmo, to the amusement of other cadets nearby, staggered back
slightly, as if he'd been stabbed to the heart. "Oh," he moaned, "Oh!
The stinging wit of Jean-Luc Picard. Shot to the heart. How can I ever
recover?"

Picard shook his head. "Don't you ever take anything seriously, Korsmo?"
Korsmo was tall and lanky, rail-thin. His eating habits were legendary,
but his body burned up the food so fast that he never gained weight. His
black hair hung just in front of his eyes, and he would periodically
brush it back out unconsciously. "There's a difference between being
serious and being dead. You should learn it, Picard. You're the biggest
stiff in the Academy. Legend has it, the only bigger stiff in the
Academy's history was James Kirk."

"I would consider it an honor," said Picard archly, "to be placed in
such august company." The corridor outside the classroom was becoming
more crowded as the rest of the cadets began to show up, one by one, for
the lecture. They watched with amusement the cautious and
long-accustomed sparring between Picard and Korsmo. It had been going on
since practically the first day of the first year. The two men weren't
exactly friends, but they weren't exactly enemies. Instead they saw
things in each other, instinctively, that they simultaneously disliked
and envied. After three years the give and take of their routine had an
almost comfortable familiarity. "Your concern is heartwarming, Korsmo,"
Picard continued. "Some of His voice trailed off as he saw something
at the far end of the hallway. There was a woman there. She seemed
almost insubstantial, fading into the shadows at the corridor end.
Picard noticed immediately that she was not wearing a Starfleet uniform,
but, instead, some sort of almost diaphanous gown. Though Picard had
never seen her before, there was something about her, something that
made her seem

as if she were there, but notmas if his mind were telling him that he
was seeing nothing at all. Korsmo was saying something and Picard wasn't
paying the least bit of attention. Korsmo realized it and tapped Picard
on the shoulder. "You got a problem, Picard?" Picard's gaze strayed to
Korsmo for a moment, refocussed, and then he said, "Who's that woman?"
"What woman?" asked Korsmo. He turned and pointed to the end of the
corridor, and there was no one there. Picard's mouth moved for a moment,
and for the first time that Korsmo could recall, Jean-Luc Picard
actually seemed flustered. "She was there," he said. "She was right
there." The other cadets were looking where Picard was pointing and
turning back to him with confusion. "One of you must have seen her,"
said Picard urgently. Korsmo was trying to keep the amusement out of his
voice, but not all that hard. "This another example of the famed Picard
humor... no, wait. I just remembered. We've never seen an example of the
famed Picard humor, so who could tell?"

"Dammit, Korsmo, this is serious. There's some woman walking around
here, and she's not authorized and--" Korsmo, a head taller than Picard,
took him firmly by the shoulders. But his words were addressed to the
others. "Gentlemen... our fellow cadet states that security has .been
breached. His claim must be followed up. Spread out, gentlemen and
ladies. Let's see if we can turn up Picard's mystery woman." There were
brisk nods, the youthful banter quickly being set aside, as a potential
problem presented itself. Picard felt a brief flash of gratitude to
Korsmo, but realized within short order that Korsmo's main interest was
trying to show him up.

In this, it appeared, Korsmo succeeded. The cadets deployed themselves
with admirable efficiency, and had the entire floor covered in less than
a minute. But there was no sign anywhere of the alleged intruder.

Picard was shaking his head in utter befuddlement. He paced furiously in
place--just a small area, forward three steps and back three steps. When
Korsmo approached, he didn't have to say anything. It was clear from the
taller cadet's attitude that no one had been found, and that left Picard
looking like something of a fool.

"She was there," said Picard stubbornly. The others were gathering
around now, but again Picard said firmly, "I saw her. I'm not imagining
it."

"I checked with the front security area," said Korsmo. "No non-Starfleet
personnel were granted access to the premises today, not even for a
casual visit."

"I don't think Jean-Luc is claiming she was supposed to be here,"
offered up Cadet Leah Sapp. Picard flashed a quick smile at her. Leah
was always the first to step in on Picard's side when there was any kind
of dispute. He knew damned well that she had a bit of an infatuation
with him, but he didn't take it seriously. He took nothing seriously
except his studies. Gods, maybe he was the biggest stiff in the Academy
at that.

"No, I'm not," Picard agreed. "All I'm saying is that perhaps we
should--"

There was a loud, throat-clearing harrumph, and the cadets turned
towards the source. Professor Talbot was standing in the doorway of the
classroom, his arms folded, his dark face displaying great clouds of
annoyance.

"I am not, "he rumbled, "in the habit of waiting for classes to come to
me in their own sweet time."

"We were trying to help Cadet Picard find a woman," Korsmo said
helpfully.

Picard rubbed his forehead in a faint, pained expression.

"Indeed," said Talbot thinly. "Cadet Picard, kindly maintain your sex
life on your own time, not mine."

"I... yes, sir," said Picard, swallowing the response he really wished
to make. Something told him that any response would not do him one shred
of good and, quite likely, a fairly large dollop of harm.

The students filed into Professor Talbot's course on Starfleet history.
The classroom was meticulously climate-controlled, and yet it always
felt stuffy to Picard. As he took his seat, he pondered the probability
that the perceived stuffiness was pretty much in his head. Somehow,
talking about great adventures and sweeping voyages of great Starfleet
officers was stifling when it was discussed in a classroom. Picard
didn't want to sit around and review the adventures of others. He wanted
others to be studying his adventures.

Intellectually, he knew the impossibility of the latter without a solid
grounding in the former. If he could not learn how to imitate the
successes and avoid the failures of his predecessors, then what sort of
Starship captain (for such was his goal) would he be? A dead one, most
likely.

He was snapped immediately back to attention by Talbot's brisk statement
of, "Picard... you have, of course, been reviewing the topic of the life
and career of Commodore Matthew Decker, have you not?"

Picard was immediately on his feet, his shoulders squared, his gaze
levelled and confident. "Yes, sir," he said with certainty.

"Would you care to tell us of the commodore's final mission?"

"Yes, sir." There might have been times when Picard grated on the
tieryes of other students with his single mindedness and utter devotion
to making a name for himself in the fleet. These things preyed on him
and sometimes made him wonder--there, in the darkness of his quarters at
night, when there was no one around except he himself and his
uncertainties--whether he would ever be able to sufficiently command the
respect of others that was so necessary to become a starship captain.
Such self-doubt, however, never existed when it came to pure academics.
On facts and history and raw information, he was always on top of his
game.

"Commodore Decker's ship, the Constellation, had encountered a
planet-destroying machine," Picard continued. "It came from outside the
galaxy and, using planetary mass as fuel, was progressing through the
heart of our galaxy as part of a perpetual program of destruction."

"Go on," said Talbot, arms folded.

"His ship vas incapacitated, and he beamed 'his crew down to a planet
which was subsequently destroyed by the planet-eater. With the aid of
the Enterprise, NCC-1701, the so-called doomsday machine was
incapacitated, but not before Commodore Decker sacrificed his life in
combat against it."

"What were the details of that combat?" asked Talbot.

Picard frowned. "Enterprise logs merely state that

Decker died heroically. Details were not recorded."

"Speculation."

Picard ran through the various possible scenarios in his mind, any and
all that made sense. Finally he said, "It was the destruction of the
Constellation within the

bowels of the planet-killer that caused its deactivation. That much is
recorded. I would surmise that Commodore Decker, choosing to go down
with his ship, piloted the Constellation himself into the machine.
Enterprise transporters might well have suffered damage in the course of
the battle with the planet-killer, and were unable to transport him back
in time."

"A very reasonable surmise, cadet," said Talbot. He slowly circled his
podium. "Since, as you so accurately noted, the details are not
recorded, we can never 'know for sure. Can we?"

"No, sir," said Picard, and started to sit down. He froze in a slightly
ridiculous, half-seated position, because Talbot was glowering at him in
an expectant manner that seemed to indicate he wasn't quite finished with
the cadet. Unsure of what to do, Picard stood fully once more, waiting
patiently for instruction from his professor.

"Do you think Decker felt guilty, Picard?"

Picard raised a questioning eyebrow. Somehow the thought of guilt Or
concern or any other human feeling never seemed to enter into the study
of history. One studied facts, figures, distant events, and
strategies--not people.

"I'd never given it any thought, sir."

"Think, now," invited Talbot. "We've all the time in the world." Talbot
gestured expansively and then leaned back in a carefully cultivated
casual manner.

Picard didn't let his gaze wander. The last thing he wanted to do was
'glance at bemused fellow classmates. "You are referring to guilt over
the deaths of his crew."

Talbot merely nodded, waiting for Picard to continue.

"The commodore made the correct decision," said

Picard. "Given the same circumstances, it would be perfectly in order
for him to do it again. Therefore, he

had nothing over which to feel guilty."

"Even though his people died." "Yes, sir."

"Even though he could doubtlessly hear their cries of anguish as the
planet that was supposed to be their haven was cut to pieces beneath
their feet."

Talbot's voice was laden with disdain, but Picard refused to back down.
One of the first lessons in command school--the first lesson, in
fact--was that when you made a decision, you stuck to it. Nothing

eroded crew confidence as fast as waffling.

"Even though, yes, sir."

Talbot continued to circle his desk, absently rapping his knuckles on
the surface, as was his habit. "I will pray for you, Picard, that you
never have to find out firsthand what it is to lose a crew. But I fear
the prayers are in vain, because space is a vast and unforgiving
mistress. She does not treat the overconfident especially charitably."

Picard did not say anything. No response seemed required, or
appropriate.

Confidence. Well, that he most certainly had. And the thought of ever
losing a crew was an alien one to Picard. That sort of thing happened to
commanders who were unprepared, who were caught short or flatfooted
somehow. The way to avoid such a fate was, quite simply, preparation,
preparation, and more preparation. And that was a commitment that
Jean-Luc Picard was more than ready to make.

"Sit down, Picard," said Talbot, with a trace of his familiar
impatience.

Picard did so, very obediently. As always, there was a small, inward
sigh of relief that any cadet always

gave upon surviving a grilling by Talbot. In such circumstances one
always felt that he had come away lucky ....

Picard frowned. "Not far," he said slowly.

Talbot had been in the middle of a sentence and stopped, his mouth
moving a moment before it registered that the brain was no longer
sending down words. No one, in the course of the semester, had ever had
the temerity to interrupt Talbot. Indeed, it had certainly not been
Picard's intention now. This mattered not at all.

There was an aura of anticipation in the room as the other cadets turned
with slow incredulity towards Picard. He had been so lost in thought
that the perilous nature of his situation was only just dawning on him.

Talbot was slowly coming up the stairs toward him in those ominous,
carefully measured strides he effected when he was about to disembowel
some helpless student. His heels clicked rhythmically on the steps, one
by one, each click being allowed to sound and echo and trail off to be
replaced by the next, like

the steady drip of a faucet. Click. Click. Click.

He stopped at the aisle in which Picard was seated and just stood there,
stood there like a vulture or some other bird of prey attracted by the
smell and sight of dead meat.

That, Picard realized with dim dread, was what he apparently was--dead
meat.

"Did you," said Talbot, in a quiet voice tinged with menace, "interrupt
me? Because if you did, it had best be something most important. Perhaps
you have

abruptly determined one of the great secrets of the universe, or even
divined the eternal mystery of how cadets believe that they can speak
out with temerity."

"I..." Picard licked his suddenly dry lips. It seemed as if all the
moisture from his body had left him and instead concentrated itself in
his boots. "I was thinking out loud, sir."

"Thinking," said Talbot. He draped his hands behind his back
theatrically. "And would you care to tell us just what you were thinking
about?"

Picard quickly glanced around the class, feeling that if he could, just
for a moment, connect with his fellow students he could draw some sort
of emotional support from them. But no. Instead there was cold amusement
in their eyes.Picard had hung himself out to dry, and the last thing any
of them had any intention of doing was to help bring in the wash.

For the first time, Jean-Luc Picard had a fleeting taste of what the
loneliness of command would be like.

"I was just thinking," said Picard, in a voice that seemed barely
connected to his own, "that the planet-eater could not have come from
very far outside our galaxy. For example, it could not have come from,
say, the Andromeda galaxy to ours. Instead, it had to come from some
point not too far beyond the galactic rim."

"And how," said Talbot, "did you come to that conclusion?"

"Well, it's..." Picard cleared his throat. He desperately wanted to
cough, but that would have sounded too nervous. "You told us that the
planet-eater did just that... it ate planets as sustenance. It needed
mass to consume in order to perpetuate its fuel supply. But in between
galaxies, there would have been no planetary masses for the planet-eater
to consume. There is no record that the planet-killer

possessed any sort of trans-galactic speed; in fact, the Enterprise
paced it without much difficulty. So if we assume that it was traveling
at standard speeds, it would have run out of fuel during any attempts to
traverse galactic distances.

"Now, of course, once its fuel supply was depleted, it would have kept
on going, since a body in motion tends to stay in motion. But that
simple motion would never have been enough to penetrate the energy
barrier at the rim of our galaxy--the one the original Enterprise ran
into. Without some sort of internal propulsion system, the planet-killer
would easily have been repulsed by the barrier and would never have
managed to enter. And it no longer would have had a propulsion system
because, as the old Earth saying goes, it would have run out of gas."

"You are conversant with old Earth sayings?" asked Talbot neutrally.

"Yes, sir," said Picard. "My father uses them constantly. Something of a
traditionalist."

"And is there, as I recall, an old Earth saying about speaking only when
spoken to?"

Picard felt the blood drain from his face, but he refused to look down;
damreit, he would not look down. Instead, he met Talbot's level gaze and
said simply, "Yes, sir."

"Good. Remember it in the future." He turned away, then stopped and
looked at Picard thoughtfully. "Good point there, by the way. I daresay
it forms the basis for a research paper or three. Nice thinking,
Picard."

"Thank you, sir."

"Try to make a habit of nice thinking, and you might prove to be not too
much of an embarrassment to Starfleet in the future."

Picard sat without another word. He glanced over

at Korsmo, feeling a measure of triumph. Korsmo merely shrugged
expansively at him in a Yeah, so, big deal manner. Picard sighed
inwardly. It was utterly impossible to impress the gangling fellow
cadet. Still, Picard could allow himself those small moments of triumph,
and in this instance, he was quite content to

give himself a mental pat on the back.

And then he saw her again.

She was there, just at the top of the other stairs, at the far side of
the room. All cadet eyes were on Picard, or just starting to look away
from him. No one saw her, and she was already startin, to glide out the
door like a shadow.

Picard stood so quickly that he banged his knee on the top of his desk.
He gave a short yelp, and Talbot spun on the stairs so quickly that, for
a brief moment, he almost toppled down them. He grabbed a railing in
support and snapped in exasperation, "Oh, what is it now, Picard?"

Picard's head snapped around and then back to the rear of the room. She
was gone again, dammir, gone again. Not this time, though.

,Permission to be excused, sir; I feel quite ill," said Picard. He
grabbed his stomach for emphasis.

Talbot merely raised an eyebrow and inclined his head slightly. Delaying
no further than was necessary, Picard grabbed up his padd and shot up
the steps, two at a time.

He burst out into the hallway, moving so quickly that he almost banged
into the doors, which opened barely in time. The hallway was empty. He
glanced left, then took off to his right, running down the hallway as
fast as he could, the youthful muscles of his legs propelling him as if
he were entered in a cross-country dash.

He got to the end of the corridor and saw it was a

dead end. He spun and looked back. Nothing. Not anywhere.

"What in hell is going on around here?" he whispered to himself.

Picard lay there in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He'd left the window
open this night, welcoming the vagrant breeze blowing in from the San
Francisco Bay. It rolled over the bare skin of his chest and caressed
it. His hands were folded behind his head, his pillow propped against
the wall to one side. Whenever he wanted to think instead of fall
asleep, he always did that. He fancied that it aided blood circulation
to his brain, and his.brain needed all the help it could get, he
figured.

Was he losing his mind? Was he?

He was certain he had seen her, yet no one else had. Was it possible
that she was some sort of vision appearing only to him? There was a word
for something like that. Yes, there certainly was, he thought grimly.
The word was hallucination. Not a pretty Word, but certainly an accurate
one. He was hallucinating. That was just great, just fabulous. The
strain of his course load and his drive to succeed was threatening to
drive him over the edge.

No--he refused to believe that. He had worked too hard, come too far, to
fall prey suddenly to some sort of arcane mental distraction. He was not
imagining it, blast it--he had seen her. Certainly she'd had an air of
unreality about her. But that didn't mean anything.

Hell, there were theories that the only things in the universe that were
real were those things mankind considered unreal. If that were indeed
the case, though, then she was unquestionably one of the most 'real
things he'd ever encountered.

He sighed and let his mind wander. And even

though he had felt wide awake a moment before, he felt the familiar haze
settling on his mind, that dark cloud that told him sleep would be
forthcoming shortly.

He thought that far off he could hear the waters splashing around the
great tower legs of the Golden Gate Bridge. The air smelled of the sea,
and he could almost sense the slow rolling of the waves. That was the
great difference between captaining a sailing ship and captaining a
starship. You couldn't even feel the motion of a space vessel. You could
hear the distant thrumming of its engines, and the stars would speed
past you--dazzling points of light--but there was no gentle rocking.
There was no riding up to the crest of one wave and sliding down to the
next.

Sea captains sailed by the stars. So did starship captains. The
difference was that the latter waved to the stars as they went past.

In his semi-dreaming state, the wind seemed to come up even stronger. He
tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but it was as if all strength
had left his body. Fatigue had settled in on every joint. He'd been
pushing himself mercilessly over the past weeks, and perhaps his body
had simply shut down, refusing to do any more of his bidding until he
had gotten a proper night's sleep. Some commander, he thought through
the spreading haze. How could he command a crew when he couldn't even
boss his own body around?

The wind grew ever stronger, and it seemed mournful, as if a million
souls were moaning at once, crying out to him. Their long, icy fingers
were stroking him now, and with each caress came a cry in his head of
Help us, save us, avenge us,' do not forget us--never forget us.

Picard felt a chill knife through him, and he trembled as if in the
presence of something beyond his comprehension. His teeth chattered
involuntarily. Madness. His teeth had never chattered in his entire
life.

He shut his eyes, as if doing so would still the voices in his head.
They pervaded him, invaded him, and he cried out once, ordering them
away with a sense of

authority that he was only just beginning to feel. When he opened his
eyes, she was there.

It was as if she had stepped sideways from another time. She stared at
him with luminous eyes that seemed to radiate a cold darkness. Her skin
was dark, quite dark, and her eyes were rounded and slightly farther
apart than usual, but they merely enhanced her exotic quality. Her black
hair hung down low, to her hips, and seemed to be moving constantly,
like a waving field of ebony wheat. Her dress swirled about her, and
when she spoke, her voice carried that same, faint whisper of the souls
that cried out to her.

"Of course," she said from everywhere and nowhere. "Of course. 'From
just beyond our galaxy. That's where it came from. That's why it was
created. To combat them."

"Combat who?" said Picard in confusion. Again he tried to sit up, and
again his body scoffed at his efforts. The wind whipped his words away,
and yet he knew she heard him. "I don't understand."

"You do not have to," she said. "It is enough that I do. It is enough
that I heard your wise words. And that's why I've come here now: to
thank you for your insight. You may have done greater things than you
can imagine." Her voice resonated low, and it was the sound of his
mother whispering to him when he was an infant crying in the night. And
it was the voice of the first girl he'd ever kissed, and of his first
lover moving beneath him and whispering his name in low

heat, and it was the voice of the stars calling to him, and the voice of
the wind and the waves, and everything that was female that ever called
to him and summoned him and nurtured him ....

And he forced himself to sit up, stretching out an arm towards her, his
fingers grasping. The edges of her garment seemed to dance near him and
then away,

beyond reach.

I will find its origins," she said. "And I will find them. And I will
stop them."

"What them?" cried out Picard. He thought he was screaming at the top of
his lungs, above the howling of the wind.

"I pray you never learn, Jean-Luc," she said. "I pray you never learn of
the ones without souls. I pray to the gods who do not exist and do not
'care, and who have forsaken me and my kind."

Every aspect of her was seared into his mind: every curve of the body
that revealed itself through the flowing gown; the tilt of her chin, the
high forehead, the almost invisible eyebrows; the pure, incandescent
beauty of her that was a palpable thing.

"Beware the soulless ones," she told him. She took a bare half-step
back, but it was enough to put her firmly beyond his reach.

His heart cried out because, for just a brief moment, his fingers had
grazed the exquisite fabric of her dress. He wanted to pull it from her,
to pull her to him, and yet at the same time he felt as if to do so
would have been blasphemy.

"Who are the soulless ones?" he cried out.

"The destroyers. The anti-life. The soulless ones. They will destroy
you, as they destroyed my kind. As they will destroy all kinds. But I
will stop them." Her voice was dark and filled the air with ice. "I will
stop

them, no matter how long it takes, and no matter how far I must travel."

She stepped forward quickly, between his outstretched arms, and kissed
him on the forehead. When her lips brushed against him, it was as if an
icicle had been dragged across it. She floated back just as fast, her
swirling skirts concealing her movements.

The wind and the chill were everywhere, everywhere, and yet Picard
forced himself to stand, forced himself from bed and brought his arms up
against the brutal slamming of the wind. "Who are you?" he shouted, and
again, "Who are you?"

She floated towards the door and stopped momentarily to turn a gaze on
him that was ancient beyond belief.

"I am pain," she said. "I am loss. I am grief." And then her voice
became diamond hardness, and she threw wide her arms and cried out into
the wind, into the'souls that chorused with her, "/am implacable,
unstoppable! I am passion made into fury, love twisted to hate! I am

The wind came up and knocked Picard back. He stumbled over his bed, and
his head smashed into the wall with a sickening thud. He slid down onto
his pillow, and even then, all he wanted was one last glimpse of her.

Vendetta whispered in his mind, and then he passed out.

When he awoke in the morning, his blankets were twisted around him, and
despite the coolness in the air, there was a thin film of perspiration
all over his body.

The dream of the previous night had not faded with the morning sun, nor
would the recollection diminish

in the succeeding years, although naturally some of the immediacy was
lost as time went on.

He never told anyone of the events of that night. At night he would
sometimes lie awake, waiting for her to reappear, waiting for her to
return and explain the puzzling descriptions of "soulless ones," and of
that mysterious self-description.

He made a study of all the events surrounding the planet-killer,
including the frustrating open-ended question of the nature of its
origin. The theory was that it had been created by one of two great
races locked in combat. But what races? Why were there no traces of
them? Had they both wiped each other completely from existence?

Questions. These and dozens more, none of which he was able to
satisfactorily answer throughout his Academy career. Eventually he moved
on to other

things, and the questions were forgotten.

But not the biggest question.

Every so often he would listen to the winds, but they would not call to
him again after that night, and they never whispered that word. The word
that would haunt him as much as the woman who came to him that night:

ACT ONE

Chapter Two

Drrtat THE EIGHTH looked across the table at Dantar the Ninth with total
satisfaction, his antennae twitching slightly in approval. Dantar the
Ninth, for his part, was preparing for'the act of drawing a well-honed
knife across the torso of the carefully prepared zinator, the animal's
lifeless eyes staring up at Dantar the Eighth and his family.

It was an extended family, to be sure, by human standards. By the
standards of the Penzatti, the race of which Dantar was a member, it was
merely average. Smaller than average, in facttthirteen family members,
including the three spouses and assorted children. Yes, smaller indeed.
Dantar the Eighth was occasionally the butt of jibes from his fellow
workers, and he brushed off such japes with brisk comments about quality
versus quantity. Secretly, though, he toyed with the idea of acquiring
yet another mate, or perhaps simply producing more children with the
ones he had. So many choices for a healthy head of a Penzatti family.

Dantar the Ninth, eldest son of Dantar the Eighth,

was taking his carving responsibility quite seriously. The zinator had
been meticulously prepared by his mother, anointed with all the proper
scents and spices for this day of appreciation to the gods. Dantar the
Ninth had not suspected for a moment that his father would be permitting
him to perform the actual carving.

He paused a moment, taking a deep breath, his tongue moving across his
dry green lips. His three-fingered hand, wrapped around the blade of the
knife, was trembling ever so slightly. But to Dantar the Ninth, it felt
as if a massive tremor had seized hold of him and was shaking him for
all he was worth. His graceful antennae were straight out and stiff with
tension. In his other hand was the long, two-pronged fork, prodding
carefully at the pink, uncooked zinator skin--deliciously, delicately
raw--and every member of his family was watching and waiting for him to
do something, already.

It was not as if it were such a difficult act. Just draw the knife
across, start carving up. The beast was dead already, for pity's sake;
he just had to slice it to be eaten. What he was carrying on himself was
the weight of expectations, of tradition, the father passing the
responsibility on to the son. Each cut had to be perfect, each slice
precise, each ....

He felt a hand resting gently on his forearm. He turned to look at his
father, who squeezed his arm tightly and said, not unkindly, "I know how
you feel. If you can't do it..." And he deliberately allowed his voice
to trail off.

Stung, Dantar the Ninth said, "I can do it just fine, father," and his
antennae twitched in annoyance. He turned back to the zinator and
briskly drew the razor-sharp blade across the creature's neck.

Wholly unexpectedly, blood spurted forth and

splashed across Dantar the Ninth's crisp white tunic. He flinched and
rapped out an oath, which drew giggles from his younger sisters.

"Children!" snapped their father.

"Dantar said some bad words," said the youngest of the sisters, Lojene.
She was always the one who could be counted on to tattle on any of her
siblings.

"Yes, I know," said their father, "and he shouldn't have. But... it was
understandable." He had picked up a napkin and was dabbing it against
his son's tunic, soaking up some of the blood. "Still some kick left in
this one, eh, son?"

Dantar the Ninth grinned sheepishly, and the understanding smiles from
the rest of his family relaxed him. It reminded him that this was
supposed to be a time of appreciation and thanks and warm family
atmosphere. There really wasn't any need for tension.

' He took into himself the aura of friendliness and good feelings that
surrounded him and told himself that this moment would last forever in
his memory.

And that was when the sirens began.

There was no noise in space, of course, so everything that travelled
through space, naturally, passed noiselessly.

But the object that was cruising toward the homeworld of the Penzatti
cut through space with far more than the simple silence of a vacuum.
There was more to it than that. It moved with the silence of oncoming
death.

It was massive, the size of a small moon. It made a statement in its
presence, in its size, and in its very shape, for it was a cube--a
perfectly formed cube with lights glittering here and there in its
machine exterior.

There was no elegance to it, no grace. When human-

olds created ships there was always the concept--expressed in different
ways through different stylings rothat they were vessels designed to
glide through the spaceways. Frequently there was a suggestion of wings,
ranging from the outsweeps of Klingon or Romulan ships, to the swanlike
grace of the nacelles on a Federation starship. There was frequently a
forward projection as well, to symbolizem unconsciously or not--the idea
of hurling oneself forward into the abyss.

But this huge cube ship disdained such concepts and self-expression...
or, in so disdaining, actually reflected with unintentioned accuracy the
spirit of the creatures inhabiting it: creatures with mechanized souls
and hearts that had the same emotional content as did the guts of a
smoothly running watch.

Their minds--their great, unified mindsclicked with that watchlike
precision. And, as with a watch, they cared nothing about the past and
nothing for the future. They existed only for the now, the eternal,
ever-present now. Anything that had happened in the past was not dwelled
on, and anything that could

occur in the future was not contemplated. The past was irrelevant. The
future was irrelevant.

Only the here and now mattered.

The squareness of their ship was, therefore, the ultimate expression of
their philosophy, if such a word as philosophy could be applied to
beings so incapable of contemplating shadings of human imagination.

Their ship made a statement, much like the ships of humanoid beings.
Such ships modelled themselves on nature. But a perfect cube did not
exist in nature. It had to be manufactured, carefully and meticulously
conceived with the same watchlike precision that

drove them on. It possessed no beauty or elegance, but instead,
machine-like efficiency.

It was a ship that said they were beyond nature. That nature was
irrelevant. That beauty was irrelevant. That elegance was irrelevant.

Everything was irrelevant except their own, steady, unrelenting
perfection.

There was a slight course correction required, and the great vessel
accomplished it with the speed of unified thought.

This was the second Borg ship to penetrate into this part of the galaxy.
The first had actually been destroyed. It was the first major defeat
that could be recalled in the unified memory of the whole. Again,
though, they did not dwell on the past or the future. There was never
any need.

The past could only hold two things, after all: failure and success.
Failure could be something as simple as one of their number falling
before a weapon, or something as large as hundreds of their number being
tricked into self-destruction. In such instances there was no need to
contemplate them, because the great mind instantaneously adjusted itself
so that such gambits or methods of force could not be used again.
Whereas humans might dwell on where to place blame, or even mourn the
circumstances that could have brought such things to pass, these were
utterly irrelevant concerns.

As for success--that was not irrelevant. That was simply... inevitable.

Madness reigned on the homeworld of the Penzatti. The planetary defense
system had immediately alerted the government the moment that the
intruder had entered their space. Military heads promptly assembled to
try and determine the nature of the

attacker, and the best way that they could respond. The specifics of the
ship, its dimensions and size, were fed into the planetary computers.

The computers were the pride and joy of the great Penzatti, the finest
and most advanced computerized minds ever developed. They surpassed by
light-years even the computers that aided Federation starships. The
Penzatti had not wished to share this technology with the Federation
because of the arrogant assertion that the UFP was, as Penzatti top
scientists put it, "Not quite ready for it."

The computers oversaw all defense systems, teaching systems, and
regulatory systems--everything that the Penzatti had, at one time,
bothered themselves with. And now--definitely--seemed to be a time when
the great brains of the computers would be needed the most. The sheer
size of the invader, the aura of merciless power that clung to it like a
canker, was positively overwhelming.

The great mechanical minds that advised the Penzatti spit back an
identification in less than a
second--two, simple, haunting words:

THE BORG

Now the Penzatti military braintrust was not alarmed. Certainly they had
heard of the destruction and devastation that the dreaded Borg had
inflicted upon other parts of the Federation. But other parts were not
the Penzatti, whose mighty computers could easily and effortlessly solve
the problem of the Borg. Difficulties imposed upon other races were not
difficulties that would faze the mighty Penzatti. Especially not on this
day of days, the day on which the mighty Penzatti gave thanks to their
great gods for making them Penzatti, rather than a lesser race.

All of this occurred to the great military leaders of the Penzatti,
until two more chilling words appeared

on the great computer screen of the great computer. Two words that
sounded the death knell of a people. And the words were:

AT LAST

Outside the house of Dantar there was pandemonium . Inside the house of
Dantar it wasn't much better. Children were crying, or were shouting out
questions in confusion. They didn't understand anything of what was
happening. In truth, their leaders in the faraway capital city didn't
have much better comprehension.

Dantar the Eighth grabbed his eldest son's arm and swung the boy around,
looking for some sign of fear, some indication of just how much he could
trust his son at this moment when a crisis of global importance appeared
to be hanging over them. Everywhere was the unyielding, pounding klaxon
of the warning sirens.

The boy's face was set and determined. Dantar the Eighth gave a mental
nod of approval. To be flustered over the carving up of some pointless
meal that it seemed none of .them would ever taste--that was acceptable.
Now, though, when a genuine situation of danger had arisen, now was the
time when he needed his son to be a man, to become a man before his
time. Of course, Dantar thought bleakly, it was possible that his son's
time might never come.

The last time that klaxon had sounded was twenty years ago, during a
major attack by the Romulans. The mighty defensive computers of
Penzatti--the omnipotent brain of his world--had conceived and executed
a plan of attack and counterattack, and it had succeeded. But there had
been casualtieswgods, had there been casualties, including Dantar the
Seventh and Sixth.

Dantar the Eighth could not dwell on that now. He tried to ignore the
crying of his wives and other children and instead looked his son in the
eyes. The boy's antennae were quivering fiercely.

"We must be brave, my son," said Dantar the Eighth. His son nodded in
quick agreement. "Our family and our people need to defend themselves.
Down below usg"

"The weapons bay," said Dantar the Ninth. All of the more well-to-do
families of the Penzatti kept a well-stocked weapons bay. The Romulan
invasion had left deep mark and scars that never quite healed. "I'll get
down there immediately."

He turned and headed to the lower portions of the house. Dantar the
Eighth, meantime, shoved his way through the pawing and grasping hands
of his family. They wanted to hold him, embrace him, clutch at him and
plead for him to tell them that there was nothing wrong, that everything
was going to be all right. However, he had no time to waste with such
matters. He muttered quick assurances as well as he could before pushing
through and going to the computer screen that hooked him in--along with
the rest of the Penzatti families--with the great computer mind of their
planet.

He placed his three tapering fingers into the identifying slots, and the
screen glowed to life. He expected to see the usual three-cornered
emblem of the Penzatti appear on the screen, along with a message of
personal greeting.

Instead there were simply two words, which he stared at and still did
not comprehend.

'.' 'At Last'?" he murmured. "At last what?"

The military minds of the great Penzatti were at a loss to comprehend.
The first thing that occurred to

them was to form a committee to study the meaning that those words might
have. In the meantime, impatient with waiting around while various
attachrs scurried about like headless creatures, the supreme military
head went into his private offtee. He closed the door behind him and,
from within his private ottSce, went one step farther into his small,
private access room that enabled him to tap all facets of the computer
at once. It was like a mechanical womb, in a sense, and the supreme
military head felt like a confused child, returning to the maternal
protection for answers to confounding questions.

He logged into his private mode with the computer and demanded to know
the meaning of this odd pronouncement.

When he came out from his private conference with the computer, his face
was dark, dark green. He crossed his offtee, his booted feet noiseless
on the plush carpeting, almost as noiseless as the powerful Borg ship
that was approaching his world at incredible speeds--his world that he
had sworn to protect, but no longer could.

The computer had told him what "T tsT" meant. The computer had told him
just exactly whose world it was, and whose world it was going to be. The
computer had told him who was in charge, and who was going to be in
charge, and who was going to be obsolete. And finally the computer told
him exactly

which life forms were going to be welcome.

And which weren't.

The supreme military head sat down in his large, comfortable chair and
looked out his window. A spot that seemed to be cube-shaped had appeared
against the sun and was rapidly increasing in size. In less than half an
hour, by his admittedly offhand calculations, the sun would be eclipsed.

He wept for the fate of his world and for his impotence, and for
everything that he could have and should have done, but didn't. His
tears fell upon his jacket, splattering and creating large, dark
blotches.

Then he reached into a drawer, pulled out his blasterrathe one that his
father had given to him on his coming-of-age day, the one that had been
in his family for generations.

He placed the muzzle between his lips, squeezed the trigger, and blew
his supreme military head off.

The skies of the Penzatti homeworld grew dark as the giant cube blotted
out the sun. The great Penzatti gathered in the streets or huddled in
their homes, praying to the gods for guidance, pleading to their equally
great computers to deliver them from this newest and greatest calamity.
If the gods heard, they gave no indication. As for the computers, well,
they heard. But they did not feel pity, or amusement, or any emotion
'that the Penzatti would understand, other than an overwhelming relief
that finally the proper order of things would be proceeding.

The oceans began to roar, churning and swirling as the oncoming vessel
of the Borg wreaked havoc with the world's tides. Thousands were killed
in the first onrush of waves that swept over the coastal cities, waves
hundreds of feet high that overwhelmed the Penzatti in the same manner
that the Borg overwhelmed their victims.

The waves felt nothing of the agony and hysteria, the outpouring of
emotions, the pleas for mercy from a higher power that simply were not
forthcoming. No, they felt nothing. And neither did the Borg.

The first of the ghastly beings materialized on the planet surface,
followed by a second and a third, and

then dozens, and then hundreds. All over the planet they leaped into
existence. They strode forward, seemingly oblivious of the life forms
around them.

The few rays of sunlight that managed to stream through glinted off the
huge metal appendages that served as their right arms. Their faces were
uniformly white, white as death.

All of the Penzatti planetary defenses were controlled by the
computers--the selfsame computers which had decided that the Borg were
their long-awaited saviors. It meant that the vast majority of the
Penzatti offensive capabilities had been neutralized--not that they
would have done all that much good, anyway.

Most of the Penzatti lacked the full understanding that had come to the
supreme military head, and did not realize how hopeless their situation
was. And so they fought.

Dantar the Eighth, crouched in the doorway of his home, saw one of the
first of the invaders materialize a mere ten feet away. He was tall and
slim, and wearing what appeared to be some sort of armor. Then Dantar's
eyes opened wide as he realized that it was not, in fact, armor, but
instead, some sort ofcybernet-ic appliances. The creature before him was
as much machine as anything else.

A second one appeared next to the first. They took slow, measured steps,
scanning the houses in the same way that great carrion-eating birds
survey their latest meal just before launching themselves upon it.

Dantar's family hung back in the house, with the exception of his eldest
son, who was just behind him. Neighbors were already in the streets,
staring at the newcomers with horror and dread.

"Who are you?" shouted Dantar.

The cybernetic soldiers ignored him. Instead, one of them started
marching towards Dantar's home.

Dantar brought his twin blasters up and snarled, "Stay back! You'll get
one warning!" And then, almost immediately after that, he opened fire.

His aim was true, striking the lead soldier square in the chest. The
soldier stumbled back and fell to the ground, body twitching for a bare
moment and then lying still. Encouraged by the easy triumph, Dantar spun
and fired on the second.

To his horror, a force screen seemed to materialize precisely where his
beam struck. The soldier didn't even seem aware of the assault, but
instead, merely surveyed the homes as if planning to buy one.

Now Dantar the Ninth opened fire in concert with his father, as did
several of the neighbors. The soldier's field flashed brightly under the
barrage, and the soldier staggered, apparently confused and uncertain
which way to turn. The shield sparked, faltered, and then disintegrated.
The soldier was then barraged by a hail of blaster fire and went down,
twisting and turning.

The speed with which the next Borg showed up gave new meaning to the
term "short-lived victory." Barely had the second soldier fallen, before
three more showed up to take his place. Dantar and the neighbors looked
on in amazement as the newcomers bent down, removed some sort of device
from the shoulders of the fallen Borg scouts, and then went on their way
as if nothing had happened at all. The two fallen soldiers, in the
meantime, were reduced to ash in no time at all, and right after that
even the ash vanished.

The desperate Penzatti started firing again, and this time even their
strongest blasts had no effect whatsoever.

One of the Borg headed straight for the home of

Dantar. He and his son fired repeatedly, but the Borg took no heed and
went straight for the door. All the while its head snapped around,
taking in everything, recording every scrap of information.

Infuriated, Dantar hurled himself at the Borg soldier. The creature did
not seem at all surprised, but instead, merely took a step back and
swung its massive right arm. It smashed across Dantar's head, sending
him crashing to the ground with blood streaming from the gash.

His son ran to him, trying to help him to his feet, as the Borg scout
stepped into the house.

In the capital city of the Penzatti the advance scouts had already
completed their studies. They stepped over the unmoving bodies of people
who had tried to stand in their way--people who had been hit by stray
shots that had missed their targets, or tried to get in the Borg's way
and simply been stepped on or batted aside.

The Borg had found the central computer intelligence that ran the world
of the Penzatti, and decreed it good. A plea was entered by the computer
through the scouts, and the plea found its way into the uni-mind of the
Borg itself.

Millions of the Penzatti had cried out to their gods, and their gods had
not responded. Yet now, in the ultimate proof of machine superiority,
the computers of Penzatti--the computers thathad gained sentience and,
in so doing, a determination to control their own destiny--had cried out
to the Borg.

And unlike the gods of the Penzatti, the Borg answered, with a voice
that was the combination of a thousand voices all at once. A voice that
spoke one word.

"Yes," said the Borg.

Beams of incredible intensity and power reached out and caressed the
capital city, slicing through the ground with the precision of a
surgeoh's scalpel. Beneath the feet of the astonished Penzatti the
ground began to rumble. All around them the air was frying from the heat
of the beams. Air molecules split apart, and crashing thunder was
roaring with antenna-splitting fury. The screams of the people were
drowned out by the noise that was everywhere, that was inescapable.

And now a beam came down from the heavens, as if God had opened one eye
and holy light were shining down upon them. And the ground beneath them
was lifted up--actually carved right out of the nurturing bosom of their
home world--and dragged towards the heavens.

It was happening all over the city. Huge pieces of their planet were
being carved up, an ironic testament to the fact that mere hours before,
the Penzatti had been celebrating their lives by carving up the dead
meat of the zinator. Now they themselves were prey. They just hadn't
fully realized it yet.

The pieces of the planet hurtled upward, up towards the floating cube
that was the Borg ship. It grew larger and more terrifying every second.
For the Penzatti, however, this was not a major concern for very long,
because the force beams that were dragging them heavenward did not
contain any air, nor anything to shield them against the ravages of the
upper atmosphere or outer space. The Borg had not deemed it necessary to
provide such protection for the humanoid life of Penzatti, because that
humanoid life was irrelevant. It was the machine life and technology
that interested the Borg.

The result was that the Penzatti who had not

already died in the quakes, or from shock, found it increasingly
impossible to breathe. They ran to try and find someplace to hide, but
there was no place. Their lungs pounded, their heads swirled, their
blood boiled in their veins and when they screamed the death knell of
their race, it was not heard, because finally there was no air to carry
it.

Once the pieces of the Penzatti homeworld were brought aboard, the Borg
quickly broke it down. Never ones to waste anything, the Borg reduced
the bodies of the Penzatti to their basic molecular structure and fed
them directly into the energy cells that powered the Borg.

That done, the Borg proceeded to slice up the rest of the planet. It was
a big job and would take time, but they were in no hurry. With their
clockwork precision they would simply go forward--click, click--like
unyielding, unstopping cogs in a watch, grinding up whatever was in
their path.

The wives and children of Dantar the Eighth recoiled in horror as the
Borg soldier glanced around. Then it went straight for the computer set
up in the corner. The words z nsr still glowed serenely on the screen.

The Borg did not see, did not sense, the sudden attack of one of the
wives. She came in quickly, screaming "Get out! Get out of our home!"
and she was swinging the carving knife grabbed off the table. The Borg,
at the last moment, seemed to be aware of a threat and half turned, not
in a defensive move, but out of curiosity as to what new form of attack
would present itself.

The carving'knife slammed into the Borg's shoulder circuitry, into that
same piece of machinery that had been removed from the Borgs who had
been shot

down earlier in the battle. The Borg whirled, face impassive, but its
body twisting and convulsing as if shot through with electricity. It
spun in place, its arms pinwheeling around, and one of the massive arms
struck the little girl, Lojene, who had wandered too close. Such was the
power in that prosthetic device that it crushed her skull immediately.

Lojene's mother screamed, as did Dantar the Ninth, who had run in in a
desperate, last-ditch effort to save his family. His father was still
lying outside the house, barely conscious, and the boy knew that it was
up to him. He lunged forward, darting in between the whirling arms and
slamming into the Borg, smashing the soldier against a wall.

Dantar the Eighth, meantime, had just regained consciousness, and was
staggering towards his home. Through the open door he could see his son
struggling with the Borg soldier, slamming the creature against the
wall, and he felt a flash of pride. It changed quickly to horror when he
saw his wife cradling the

anmoving, bloodied body of his youngest daughter. He screamed, and for a
brief moment, Dantar the Ninth was distracted by the cry from his
father.

The Borg soldier's right arm lashed out, still in that convulsive state,
and ripped across the boy's chest. The lad staggered back, blood
fountaining, and he sobbed his father's name once before falling back
onto the floor. His antennae twitched spasmodically for a moment and
then fell limp.

The air was an overwhelming cacophony of sounds and howls and crying,
and Dantar the Eighth could not hear even his own screams of mourning.
But he saw the Borg soldier, still staggering, with a knife sticking out
of its arm, and he saw his family cowering.

He started to clamber to his feet. Blood was streaming from a gash in
his forehead and blinding him in one eye, and he paused the barest of
moments to wipe it out, snarling all the while his hatred and fury at
this murdering creature.

And then the air sizzled around him.

He spun and looked heavenward in shock. Blazing beams were descending
from the sky, slicing through the horizon line. Acreage flew, trees were
struck down or set blazing, and beneath him the ground began to rumble
ominously. He was unaware that other parts of his world had already been
sectioned and removed with merciless efficiency... that indeed, purely
by happenstance, his little piece of the world happened to be the last
little piece of the world. Just as someone, during any war, had to be
the first or last person to die, so, too, did some piece of the Penzatti
homeworld have to wait its turn to be the very last absorbed by the
Borg. Fate, and the luck of the draw, had given Dantar and his family
and neighbors and city a few more minutes of life.

Not that it seemed to matter.

The Borg ship surveyed the world below them. Most of the technology had
been removed and absorbed. The planet was studded with huge, gaping
craters where once an entire race had thrived. This was irrelevant to
the Borg. There was one small section remaining below that contained
bits and pieces that might be of interest. That, too, was irrelevant,
because within moments the cutter and tractor beams would finish their
work and that part, too, of the planet would belong to the Borg. And
then the

Borg would be able to move on.

Except...

The Borg ship suddenly detected something coming their way--something
throbbing with power. Some-

thing that, from its configurations, seemed to be about as large as the
Borg. ship itself... no--larger! Something that was coming up fast!

The Borg were not concerned. There was nothing about which they could
become concerned. So confident were they, so secure in their superiority
and inevitability, that any notion that they were in any way threatened
was irrelevant.

Dantar felt the hair on his head crispen, the very air reaching his
nostrils thick and heavy with the stench of burning and death. He turned
to get into his house, because he realized that this was it, the last
moments of his life and his family's life. He wanted to clutch them to
his bosom when the end came.

He started towards his home, and then the ground churned-beneath him. He
felt his leg twist almost backwards, and he fell, a shooting pain
ripping through his left knee. He tried to stand once more and
collapsed, howling with pain and fury. He started to drag himself
towards his modest home, hand over hand, fingers digging into the dirt,
his breath rasping in his chest.

The ground trembled and rippled, like an ocean, and he saw the roof of
his home collapse with a sigh. The house crumbled in on itself, walls
cracking and beams snapping, falling heavily and crushing beyond hope
anyone who was inside.

There was the uncomprehending scream of his family, and of Dantar-the
Eighth, who had been denied the right to die with his family, and those
screams were overwhelmed by the death screams of the world itself, and
the lighttgodsmthe light that was hining down from above now,
surrounding them.

Dantar rolled back onto the front yard, his arms at

either side, as if he'd been crucified. He was no longer Dantar the
Eighth, he realized. He was Dantar the Last. A part of him told him that
he should be running to the rubble, sifting through, trying to pull it
off his family and finding if there were any survivors.

"No point," he whispered through cracked and bleeding lips. He was
staring up at the light that was accompanied by a deafening hum. "No
point."

His little piece of the world began to rise into the air.

As part of the Borg uni-mind dealt with the final section of the
Penzatti homeworld, the rest focussed on the new intruder. It was
definitely a ship approaching them. A ship... and yet, something more.
Something far, far more.

The Borg prepared scouts to board the ship for the purpose of study, and
then the plan quickly changed when the Borg realized that the intruder
was not slowing down or veering off. The intruder was heading straight
for them.

The Borg uni-mind fired off a message to the intruder. It was a simple
message: SURRENDER.

The reply from the intruder was equally succinct: GO TO HELL.

The intruder cut loose with a beam composed of pure anti-proton. It
laughed at the Borg shields and smashed into the Borg ship, ripping
apart the upper portion of the cube.

The beam vanished, and Dantar felt the world fall away beneath him as
the gravity of the planet reclaimed a piece of itself, desperately, like
a mother reaching out for an infant snatched from her breast. There was
a dizzying moment of disorientation, and then the ground beneath him
collapsed back into the
pit that had been formed by its disappearance. It was not a precise fit,
nor a smooth landing, and buildings that had not already crumbled now
collapsed from the strain. Those buildings had never been created to
take this sort of stress. Neither had the mind of Dantar, and it simply
shut down.

The Borg did not panic. Panic was irrelevant. Instead, they immediately
set their restoration mechanisms into operation, under the assumption
that they would have time to complete the repairs before they were
attacked again. In their machine-like, precise way, they were ignoring
the concept that they might be overmatched.

Instead, as the cube began to restore itself, they sent off another
message to the intruder--the intruder, which was momentarily stationary,
as if appreciating the power of its assault.

You cannot defeat us. If you attempt to assault us again, you will be
punished. There is no power that can withstand us.

And once again the intruder responded, and the Borg became aware that
the intruder also responded in the unified chorus of voices. But whereas
the Borg voice was a single tone repeated endlessly, the intruder's
voice was a glorious blending of infinite tones. Had the Borg been
capable of recognizing such a thing, they would have perceived it as
beauty. Beauty, however, was irrelevant.

You believe that because none ever has, said the intruder. You are so
accustomed to overwhelming all life forms, that you have no concept of
how it would be for you. You've never felt the terror of hopelessness
before.

Terror is irrelevant, replied the Borg! Hopelessness is irrelevant.

The intruder sighed with the voice of a million million souls. You're
irrelevant, you cosmic bastards.

The beam of the intruder lashed out before the Borg could power up their
systems enough to mount a counterattack. It smashed into the center of
the massive cube, blasting through and out the other side. The cube
trembled and shook, circuits blowing out all over. Cracks appeared all
over the surface, and the beam struck a third time, with even greater
intensity than before and with a force behind it that was more than
simply power. It was a force that seemed to be fueled by a massive
indignation, a pounding fury and anger, and infinite voices crying out
in triumph.

The Borg sent out a cry of warning to the central uni-mind, alerted the
other ships that were approaching and would be there sooner or later. A
warning that there was a new force in the galaxy that had to be
contended with. And then, with the same eerie silence that marked their
arrival, the Borg departed--in a million directions simultaneously.
Pieces of the ship and shreds of Borg spread out, some hurling off into
the depths of space, others plunging through the tattered atmosphere of
the Penzatti homeworld and burning up upon re-entry.

Pieces ricocheted off the intruder but did not inflict even the
slightest damage. The intruder merely hovered there for a long moment,
taking in the triumph, basking in the first blow struck.

And there was that sigh, that ineffable sigh of reliefi A pride in a job
well done,

The intruder moved on.

Chapter Three

IT HAD NOT RAINED in some time, and the unrelenting sun had baked the
ground dry. There was, at least, a steady wind this day, blowing in a
northerly direction. It rustled the manes of the two horses who
travelled slowly across the dry plain, and carried the incessant
clip-clop of their hooves a good distance. Had anyone else been around,
they would have been warned of the oncoming of the riders. As it was,
there was no one else around to see them or care about them. Actually,
calling the two animals "horses" was excessively kind, even inaccurate.
One of the animals was, in fact, an ass. The other was sagging and
broken down, and had it been carrying a burden much heavier than that
which it now bore, it quite probably would have simply keeled over and
refused to go any farther. The man astride the horse was dressed in
black slacks and boots, a wide-sleeved white shirt that rippled in the
breeze, and, most oddly, pieces of armor that were affixed to him front
and back in a ragtag fashion. Perched on his head was a battered

helmet which, in blocking the sun, at least served some purpose. For if
the man had launched himself into combat, the helmet would have been of
extremely questionable value. Tucked under one arm was a long, rusty,
and somewhat crooked lance; it would have been difficult to discern it
as such, but for the fact that he was holding it straight out in front
of him in a vaguely offensive manner. From his slight height advantage,
he called out to his companion, "It's a glorious day, isn't it, Sancho?
You can smell danger in the air, the scent of quests waiting to be
fulfilled." His companion was dressed less ostentatiously, in simple
peasant garments. He inhaled deeply and frowned. "I do not detect any
such fragrances in the atmosphere."

"Oh yes, it's there. You just have to know where to look. I tell you,
Sancho, our great enemy is lurking somewhere out there, waiting for us
to lower our guard so that he can destroy us with one of his cunning
masterstrokes."

"Our enemy. That would be 'The Necromancer,' I believe you called him. A
magician. An enchanter."

"That's right. The Enchanter..." His voice suddenly trailed off and he
reined up his horse. "Gods! Do you see them, Sancho?" "Sancho's"
eyebrows creased slightly in mild confusion. "What 'them' would that
be?"

"The giants!" The horseman pointed with his lance. "The giants! Right
ahead of us!" I see only a grouping of windmills."

"No! It's giants! How can you not see?" The horseman immediately spurred
his horse forward, bringing up his lance. "They mock me! They attack!
But they

"But your VISOR still shows you aspects of reality," said Data
reasonably. "You still perceive things as they are."

"Yes!" said Geordi excitedly. "And Quixote perceived things as they
might have been. In the final analysis, who's to say which is the more
accurate?"

"I can," said Data. "Yours is the more accurate. I wish to indulge you
as much as possible, Geordi, as do we. all. This rolodeck scenario,
after all, is your birthday wish. Still, it all seems rather pointless."

Geordi drew himself astride the horse. Data followed suit. "Was it
pointless for humans to dream of going to space? Or eliminating war? Or
discovering a cure for cancer?"

"Of course not. Because it led to results."

"Exactly!" said Geordi excitedly. He urged the horse to move forward,
which the beast did reluctantly. "But when the dreamers started
dreaming, they had no idea where those dreams would lead them--to the
madhouse, or to the stars. And Quixote was the entire spirit of human
imagination in one package. His perceptions led him to--"

"Compound fractures, if he continued battling windmills," said Data.

"Data," said Geordi in exasperation, gripping his lance tightly, "the
point is that every fight is worth fighting. Even the hopeless ones.
That instead of taking things at face value, you should be looking below
the surface. You should see what could be, instead of what is. Anyone
can fight a battle that's easy to win. It's fighting the battles that
are impossible to win that causes humanity to take those great leaps
forward."

"If fighting hopeless battles is good for humans, then why do humans
sometimes retreat?"

"Well.. '2' said Geordi uncomfortably, "there is a fine line between
bravery and suicide, between the good fight and the lost fight."

"But no fight is lost until it is over, and if a human retreats before
it is over, he will never know which type of fight he was fighting."

Geordi sighed. "Forget it, Data."

"Quite a few people have said that to me, about a great many things,"
Data said. "I have been assuming that that is a statement of preference
that the topic be terminated, rather than an instruction to delete the
conversation from my memory."

"That's a safe assumption," Geordi agreed.

"I must admit that I find that to be a rather defeatist attitude on the
part of most humans." Data pulled on the reins in an effort to urge his
mount forward. "If humans, as you say, strive so mightily against the
most formidable of challenges, it is a pity that the simple act of
explaining human goals would prove to be so insurmountable."

"Ah.t" said Geordi desperately. "A castle!"

Data swung his head around in the direction that Geordi was looking.
"Would you be referring to that somewhat ramshackle inn approximately
ten kilometers away?"

"You see a humble inn, faithful Sancho? But I see an extravagant palace
that might afford us lodgings!"

Data frowned, trying desperately to share in the divine madness o pounds
his friend. "I would suppose," said Data slowly, "that if one were to
build up the exterior considerably--substitute stone walls instead of a
tattered wooden barricade--and were, in addition, to supplement the
structure with towers, turrets, and a moat... taking into account all of
that, I could see where the inn could be transformed into a castle."

Geordi smiled approvingly. "Now you're getting it," he said.

"Am I?" Data considered that. "I am not saying that I perceive it as a
castle, in the manner that you saw--or claim to have seenrathe windmill
as a giant. I am merely analyzing the possibilities that the inn could
be reworked into a castle-like structure."

"The dreamers are the ones who conceive of what could happen," said
Geordi, "and the scientists are the ones who make it happen. The best of
humanity are those who combine both traits."

He urged the broken-down horse forward, with Data close behind on the
hapless ass known as Dapple.

When Geordi had worked out the holodeck scenario concerning the
adventures of Don Quixote, born Alonso Quixana, he had added in a random
factor. They were not living out the sequential life of Quixote so much
as existing in his world for a time, with the various elements jumbled
together. It made for more stimulating entertainment that way.

Moments later they had ridden their mounts into the central courtyard of
the inn. They caught odd glances from those weary travelers who were
relaxing nearby with mugs of ale. There was some guffawing and
chortling, and even a good deal of pointing. Data absorbed it all but
was incapable of taking offense, even if these had been real humans
rather than holodeck simulacrums. As for Geordi, well--Don Quixote would
not have taken offense, and therefore, Geordi would not either.

He swung a leg down off the horse, and his boot caught momentarily in
the stirrup, almost throwing him to the ground. He recovered just in
time and managed, with not much grace, to save himself from a

painful and embarrassing spill. Nevertheless, several of the men noticed
his near mishap, and got a few more chortles at his expense. Data
gracefully dismounted from his smaller jackass.

Geordi turned and took a step back, surprised by the woman who was
approaching them. "Guinan?" he said in confusion.

The hostess of the Enterprise Ten-Forward lounge, clad in flowing blue
robes and, as always, a large, flat-brimmed hat, spread her hands wide
and said graciously, "If my eyes are not deceiving me, we have

a knight here in my humble establishment."

"Your--?"

He turned toward Data in confusion, and then a slow smile spread across
his face. Data confirmed with a nod and said, "Other crew members
learned of your scenario and requested the opportunity to participate
and surprise you."

Geordi nodded briskly and unconsciously straightened his shirt and
rearranged his armor in imitation of the little motion the captain did
whenever he rose or sat--the motion which, in good-natured kidding
around the ship, had been nicknamed "The Picard Maneuver."

"A knight errant," he said briskly, "is surprised by nothing because he
expects everything. Is that not right, Sancho?"

"That is right, sir," said Data affably.

"We seek lodging," Geordi told her imperiously. "And do you have money
with which to pay for your stay?" Guinan had a proper air of skepticism
about her.

"Money!" said Geordi in outrage. "Good woman, I'll have you know that
the lodging of a knight is an obligation and a debt that all people are
expected to support. You should be flattered that I have chosen

your abode, and relieved that the sword of Don Quixote de la Mancha will
be present for a night to defend this castle!"

Guinan took all this in and then nodded her head slightly. "It would be
the height of foolishness to argue with so brave and determined a
knight. Or his squire," she added as an afterthought, with a slight nod
towards Data.

"You are most kind," said Data.

But Geordi wasn't listening anymore. Instead, his VISOR-enhanced gaze
was levelled at a woman who was bent over a well, drawing water up in a
bucket. Any other man on the ship would have had to wait until she
turned around to see who it was, but Geordi's VISOR immediately fed him
body readings, thermal readouts, and uniquely identifiable bio traces
that promptly informed him of the identity of yet another unexpected
participant in his holodeck fantasy. He wondered for a moment if
everyone on the ship was going to turn up. How many people had caught
wind of his little informal birthday party, anyway?

The woman turned, balancing the bucket on one sturdy shoulder. She was
medium build, the black ringlets of her hair falling about her
shoulders, her tattered and poor clothes hanging on her body, threadbare
in places. She looked at him with curiosity. "Sefior Quixana!" she said
in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

He took a step toward her with as much reverence and amazement as he
could muster. "She stands before me! Oh blessed lady, to come to me now
when I am on my quest! It is she, Sancho!" He grasped Data firmly by the
arm and pulled the android down next to him. "It is the lady Dulcinea!"

Data tilted his head slightly. "It is the lady Counselor Troi."

"Hush!" said Deanna Troi with an impatient stomp of her slippered foot.

"Lady Dulcinea," said Geordi dramatically, "long have I worshipped you
from afar. Now I embark on my great quests, all dedicated to the ideal
beauty of womanhood that you represent. In order that I accomplish great
deeds, I must have the ideal woman upon which to bestow their honor!"

"But Sefior Quixana, don't you recognize me?" said Troi. "I am merely
the daughter of your next-door neighbor. You have known me for many
years. Why do you now call me by this strange name?"

"I call you only by that name which you have always possessed, but none
have dared utter," said Geordi.

"But I, knight errant, on God's own quest, must--"

"Report to the conference room."

The utterly unexpected voice was, to put it mildly, a jolt. Geordi's
head snapped around, as did the others.

Captain Picard was standing there, in full uniform, arms folded across
his chest.

Geordi felt that awkwardness one always felt when someone walked into
the middle of an elaborate holodeck scenario and knocked the props out
from under one's suspension of disbelief. Not that Geordi had been
having any sort of easy time losing himself in the travails and
imaginings of la Maneha, thanks to Data's incessantly rational view of
the world of Don Quixote. Not to mention the well-meaning, but jolting,
appearances of fellow crew members from the Enterprise. And now the
captain himself had shown up, presumably to shut the whole thing down
over some emergency or other.

In a way, considering the way things were going, Geordi was almost
relieved.

Counselor Troi stepped forward. "You seem distressed, Captain."

Picard turned towards her and his mouth dropped slightly. He had not
recognized her at first and, indeed, had wondered over the overt
familiarity that a hOlodeck being was having with him. "Distressed..
Counselor," he said cautiously, as if still uncertain of whom he was
addressing, "is an understatement." He turned back to Geordi. "I am
truly sorry to interrupt this scenario, Mr. La Forge. I am aware you've
put a great deal of energy into it. But a matter of some urgency has
presented itself."

"Yes, sir," said Geordi. With a sigh and a last, quick glance around, he
called out, "Computer. End program."

The castle/hovel vanished silently around them, to be replaced by the
black, glowing grid walls of the rolodeck. "In five minutes, up in the
briefing room," said Picard. His officers went out quickly in order to
change to garb that would be more presentable. Somehow, armor or peasant
rags didn't seem suitable to whatever situation might present itself in
Starfleet life.

Guinan walked over to Picard and regarded him with bemused curiosity.
"You could have summoned Geordi, or Data, or Troi, via communicators,"
she said. "Why didn't you?"

He permitted a small smile. "Captain's prerogative," he admitted. "An
indulgence, if you will. I'm something of a Cervantes enthusiast myself.
I was intrigued to see what Mr. La Forge was going to develop." He
looked at her askance for a moment. "Guinan, are you quite all right?
You seem a tad... distracted today."

Her eyes darkened for the briefest of moments, and then she smiled,
although when she spoke, it was with her eyes half-lidded. "I just
haven't been resting well lately. It will pass."

"Well... if you have continued problems, I want you to go to sickbay and
have Dr. Crusher look you over. Understood?"

She nodded slightly. He'd never had to give her any sort of order in the
past, and this was probably the closest he would ever come to issuing
one. So she treated it with appropriate weight. "Understood, sir."

He started to turn away and then Guinan added, "Deanna was quite lovely,
wasn't she?"

"Appropriately so," said Picard. "After all, she is Dulcinea, the ideal
woman, the woman that Don Quixote strives for, and for whom he endures
hardship after hardship. Yet he derives emotional strength merely from
the knowledge of her existence."

"He performs deeds to prove himself worthy of her, yet feels he never
can be worthy of her," said Guinan. She fell into slow step next to
Picard. "Did you ever have a woman like that, Captain? A dream girl? An
unattainable woman?"

He paused and pursed his lips. "Once, many years ago. A dream girl. The
very idea of her reality vanishes into the misty haze of youthful
memory."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Guinan in bemusement.

He turned to her in all seriousness, his brow creasing. "It means that I
would prefer if you did not ask again, Guinan." He turned away from her
and strode out of the holodeck.

She inclined her head slightly in the direction he had departed.
"Message received," she said to no one.

Picard walked briskly down the corridor, paying no attention to where he
was going. He gave quick nods of acknowledgment to all those who greeted
him, but he didn't .pay the least bit of attention to whom he was

greeting. Thanks to Guinan, his thoughts werem albeit briefly was
million light-years and half a lifetime away. By the time he got to the
turbolift, however, he had neatly tucked his mind into its proper,
ordered fashion, and there it would remain, if he had anything to say
about it. Which, as things turned out, he didn't.

Chapter Four

THe captain OF TIE U.S.S. Chekov regarded the vista of space before him
and pondered about how much less hospitable a place it had seemed to
become. The endless freezing vacuum was dangerous enough without massive
cubes that could spring out of warp space without warning, filled with
soulless mechanical beings that crushed everything in their path. He
winced when he thought about the friends that he'd lost in the hopeless
fight at Wolf 359. Forty ships. Gods, forty ships. And where had he
been? Too far away. Too damned far away. And who saved the day?
"Picard," he muttered, shaking his head. From his right-hand side, his
first officer looked up from the fuel consumption report that she was
initialing. "Jean-Luc Picard?" she asked. He afforded her a glance
before allowing a rueful smile to touch his lips. "Yes, Jean-Luc
Picard."

"The finest captain in the fleet," she said firmly, and then, in quiet
awareness of the importance of politics, she began to add, "Present
company excepted, of course."

But her captain waved her off. He uncrossed his legs and stood, taking
several short steps across the bridge. His bridge, the bridge of an
Excelsior-class ship. It was a good bridge, a solid bridge--

Not an awesomely spacious bridge, however. The bridge of a Galaxy-class
ship, now that was spacious. He'd never had the opportunity to step onto
one, but he'd heard you could practically play field hockey in one of
those. But there were only a handful of those magnificent ships in the
fleet--one of which had been destroyed at Wolf 359--and, of course, the
finest of those rare ships, the most renowned, the most sought after was
commanded by none other than--

"Jean-Luc Picard," said the captain softly. "You don't have to be
deferential, Number One. I know how highly regarded he is by everyone in
the fleet--not the least of whom is yourself. I can't blame you at all.
You were there when he pulled off 'The Picard Miracle.'"

"Is that what they're calling it now?" she said in amusement. "Well, I
suppose it was, in a way. It was something to see. I thought we were
dead for sure."

The rest of the bridge crew, ostensibly going about their business, were
nevertheless slow in their duties, so that they could pay attention to
what the first officer was saying. There were so many stories of
destruction and loss surrounding the attack of the Borg, that starship
crews--what few there were left--savored any telling of the one tale
that ended with the Federation triumphant.

"It must have been a tense moment," said the captain drily. He scratched
idly at his graying side-burns and glanced around the bridge in quiet
amusement at his whole bridge crew, trying to look as if they weren't
paying any attention. He caught the eye of his helmsman, who grinned
sheepishly at being noticed.

With the air of someone who had repeated a story to the point where she
had every single beat and dramatic moment down pat, she said, "I'll
never forget the look in Commander Riker's eye when he said he was about
to give the order for us to ram the Borg ship. I'm not sure what he
hoped to accomplish --damage it, maybe for a few minutes. Buy the Earth
that much more time ....

"And there was this teenage boy at the helm, youngest ensign I'd ever
seen. I thought he'd crack when Riker ordered that a collision course be
laid in. Give the boy credit. He sucked it up, said, 'Yes, sir,' and
laid in the course command."

By now no one was making a pretense of doing anything other than
listening to her. "What were you thinking, Commander Shelby? Right then,
when it looked all over," asked the navigator. His name was Hobson, and
he was so fresh out of the Academy, he practically looked like he had a
sheen to him..

Shelby paused, scratching her thick red hair thoughtfully. Hobson had
addressed her with a sort of easy familiarity that she never would have
tolerated when she first came aboard the Enterprise. But her time on
board that ship had taught her a great deal about relating to people and
judging them. The idea that she had first assessed William Riker as
someone who was incapable of making big decisions--shortly before he'd
been forced to make nothing but big decisions--had brought into question
for her much about the way she went about things.

"When I was a kid," she said, "there was this stupid joke that the other
kids would tell endlessly at my expense. They'd always make sure I was
in earshot, and then they'd say loudly, 'Knock Knock.' And another would
reply, 'Who's there?' And they go back and forth with 'Shelby.' 'Shelby
Who?' 'Shelby--'"

"Coming 'round the mountain when she comes?" said Hobson. There was curt
laughter from another officer who quickly cut it off.

"Yes," said Shelby, slightly irked. "So there I was, and all that went
through my head was, 'Shelby coming 'round the mountain for the last
time.' Stupid. You think about stupid jokes from childhood, or a date
you won't be able to keep, or paperwork that still needs to be
done--everything except the idea that you're about to die. Riker even
started to order the collision. He got half of the word engage out, and
then the call came up from sickbay. And within seconds after that
call--had to be seconds, because that's all we had--they had ordered the
Borg to shut down via a link they'd established through Picard. Picard
masterminded it, told them what to do, even though he was still in the
power of the Borg. He put them to sleep..."

"Undoubtedly he got to read them his third-year paper on Reversal of
Hyperspace Overdrive," said the captain. "That put the entire Academy
graduating class into a coma."

Shelby looked at him with open surprise. "Captain! Really! How you could
insult Captain Picard--"

The captain slowly circled his bridge (which was feeling smaller by the
minute, truth be known), chewing on his lower lip and fighting down the
traces of envy that he so hated. He managed to force out a short--almost
avuncular--and almost convincing laugh. "Captain Picard and I go way
back, Number One. Back to when he was Cadet Jean-Luc Picard, and I was
Cadet Morgan Korsmo. So, I'm entitled. Believe me, I have nothing but
admiration for the man. I mean, let's face it, the man was almost
nothing but Borg implants, am I right?"

"That's a fairly accurate assessment," admitted Shelby.

"Well, Commander, put your mind at ease. I will be the first to admit
that Jean-Luc Picard is more of a man when he's only half a man than
most men are

when they're intact. Satisfied?"

"Yes, sir," said Shelby.

Captain Korsmo shook his head in silent wonderment. That was the kind of
man Picard was. He inspired fierce loyalty even in those individuals who
had been with him only a short time. Korsmo wondered whether he would
ever be capable of commanding that sort of devotion from his people.

There was a sharp beep from behind him and his tactical officer looked
up in response. "Captain," said the tactical officer, Peel, "I have
contact with the Enterprise, as you requested."

"Excellent," said Korsmo. To the surprise of the other bridge crew, who
were usually privy to just about any discussion that took place--the
Chekov had, by design, a very relaxed and congenial atmosphere--Korsmo
headed for the ready room. "I'll take it in the ready room. Number One,
with me, please."

Shelby nodded quickly, falling into step behind him. She knew what the
story was--Korsmo had brought her up to speed as soon as he had gotten
word from Starfleet over the incident on the homeworld of the Penzatti.
But it had been Korsmo's express wish that it not be discussed with the
rest of the crew.

As Korsmo had himself, many others on the Chekov had lost friends and
loved ones in the massacre at Wolf 359. The last thing they needed to
hear, he felt, was that the triumph which had been achieved at such
terrible cost was so temporary a measure. The last

thing they needed to hear was that the Borg were coming back--indeed,
had already returned, it seemed.

And he wasn't going to tell them until he absolutely had to. He just
hoped that it wouldn't be too soon.

Or too late.

All of Picard's officers had assembled in the briefing room, and Picard
gave a quick nod of appreciation that they had pulled themselves
together so quickly. It was, in fact, exactly what he would have
anticipated. He expected the world of them and had yet to be
disappointed in their ability to deliver it.

Riker sat opposite him, once again employing his customary trait of
having turned the chair around and straddled it. Data was to the left,
Geordi on the right, both back in Starfleet uniforms and giving no sign
that, mere minutes before, they had been gallivanting about the Spanish
countryside. Deanna Troi was just now entering, smoothing out her hair.
Picard took some measure of enjoyment in that there were certain
universal constants, one of them seemingly that it always took women
longer to make themselves presentable than it did men.

Worf sat at the edge of the conference table, a slight distance away. It
was a subtle separation, but one that Picard had noticed with
consistency. As close as he felt to this particular group of humans,
Worf still possessed an unshakable standoffishhess.

Or perhaps it was good, old-fashioned Klingon caution: Never discount
the possibility that an apparent friend might be an enemy in disguise.
Considering that the Enterprise had dealt, on a number of occasions in
her long history, with impostors, that might not be an inappropriate
attitude for the head of security to have.

Closest to Picard sat Beverly Crusher. Normally a very outgoing woman,
she had been somewhat quiet lately. Picard wasn't entirely surprised.
She had known the departure of her son, Wesley, for Starfleet Academy,
was inevitable. Inevitability, however, did not necessarily mean one
would be prepared. Picard knew that she was missing Wesley something
fierce, for when he had gone, he had taken with him the last physical
reminder of her late husband, Jack. All she had for the rest of her life
now was memories, and oftentimes memories were just not enough.

Now, though, was not the time to dwell on it. "On screen," said Picard
sharply to the air.

In response to his command, an image appeared on the conference room
communications screen. Picard's lips twitched in amusement as he saw the
now-rather-jowly face of Morgan Korsmo appear on the screen. He
remembered the Academy days, when Korsmo could eat anything and never
gain weight. Clearly those days were past. Also, his formerly jet-black
hair was now shot through with gray. Time, the great leveller.

"Korsmo," said Picard.

"Picard," replied Korsmo, with that same slightly insouciant tone that
Picard remembered all too well. "Still bald, I see."

Riker and the others looked at Picard with open amusement. Picard,
utterly nonplussed, replied, "The years and pounds have obviously caught
up with you."

"True. I'm fat and you're bald. Of course, I can always lose weight,"
pointed out Korsmo.

There was a slight chuckle from Beverly. Picard resisted glancing at
her, for a look from him might have stilled her. Frankly, it was worth a
laugh or two at his own expense just to get a smile out of her.

"Captain," said Picard, softly but firmly. "You always were one to try
to put as much of a gloss on bad news as possible. It is painfully clear
to me that you are now trying to delay the inevitablemthat being the
purpose of this communiqu& What's happened?"

Korsmo gave a brief nod in acknowledgment. "And you, Picard, always
liked to cut through the bluster and get straight to the point. How
comforting to know that neither of us changed. Unfortunately, neither
have the Borg."

"The Borg?" Picard said the words a bit too sharply, a bit too quickly.
Mentally he chided himself for it. Had any of his people noticed that
edge in his voice? His quick glance caught Deanna studying him with
those luminous and sympathetic eyes. He had a feeling he'd probably be
hearing from her before too long. He straightened his uniform top,
rather unnecessarily, and leaned forward, fingers interlaced. "When and
where? How soon can we expect their attack?"

"To the former, the target was the Penzatti homeworld. A rescue
operation is already in progress, but Starfleet wants you there as well,
and as soon as possible, in case the Borg return. We will be
rendezvousing with you there, but it's going to take us the better part
of a week. Starfleet wants the closest ship there immediately."

Wants us there as what? Cannon fodder? flitted through Picard's mind. As
quickly as that thought came to him, he dismissed it. Now was not the
time. The time would never be, actually. "Mr. Data, how longre?"

"At warp six, eighteen hours."

"Warp six-point-five, then. Make it so."

Riker leaned forward and said, "Captain Korsmo, with all due
respect--and sounding somewhat brutal --why are we being dispatched to
the Penzatti world?

If the Borg have been and gone, then Penzatti is a lost cause. We should
be moving to intercept the latest Borg incursion."

"Commander Riker is correct," agreed Picard. "We've seen the Borg's
handiwork before. Frankly, I'm amazed at the mention of a rescue
operation. I wouldn't assume there would be anyone or anything left to
rescue. What is the Borg's present heading?"

"To hell," said Korsmo. He seemed quite pleased about it.

"We can but hope, Captain," said Picard. "The question still remains--"

"No, you're not following me, Jean-Luc," Korsmo said. "The Borg who were
attacking the Penzatti were destroyed before they could finish the job.
Oh, ninety-five percent of the planet is gone. But that leaves five
percent more than has ever survived before."

Picard was still digesting the earlier sentence. "The Borg were
destroyed?"

"By a starship?" asked Geordi.

"Klingons," said Worf firmly. "Klingon warships must have come in
response to--"

"Not a starship," said Korsmo. "Not Klingons, either. We don't know what
or who, gentlemen. That is one of the things I'm hoping your people can
determine once you arrive. Early reports are that the Borg were attacked
by someone or... to be overly melodramatic--something, and were utterly
destroyed."

"A power of that magnitude," said Data thoughtfully, "would be a
devastating weapon against the Borg."

"Or," said Worf darkly, "against us."

"Exactly," Korsmo affirmed, "what Starfleet is concerned about."

"Concerned?" said Crusher, her eyebrows almost meeting the top of her
head. "This seems like a

godsend! The Borg massacred forty ships and almost made the Enterprise
number forty-one, before we defeated them by the skin of our teeth. And
someone, somewhere, comes along with the power to stop them, and all
you're concerned about is making sure they don't turn that power against
you. Lives were saved! Who knows how many more might be?"

"No one is disputing that, Doctor," Picard said, stroking his chin
thoughtfully. "The question that must be asked, though, is whether the
power--whoever or whatever it was that destroyed the Borg attackers of
Penzatti did so because they're on our side... or because the Borg were
simply the first available target."

"In other words, we might be next," said Worf. "Precisely," said Korsmo.
"We need to find out as much about this new player as we can. With the
investigation time you'll be getting, you'll doubtlessly become the
experts on them before long. We of the Chekov, of course, have the
resident expert on the Borg on our staff. When we rendezvous with you at
the Penzatti, she will be surveying the site to get as much of a line on
the Borg as she can."

On cue, Shelby stepped into the range of the communications screen and
nodded with familiar ease in the direction of the Enterprise crew.
Smiles were reflected on the latter's faces, the widest of which was
Riker's.

"We heard about your new post. Good to see you in the first officer's
position you so coveted, Commander," said Riker.

"I can't think of another officer in the fleet who's more deserving,"
affirmed Picard.

Shelby inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment and said gravely,
"Neither can I." Then she smiled in open acknowledgment of her
tongue-in-

cheek self-importance. "Actually, Starfleet tells me this is, in all
likelihood, a temporary assignment. With the Borg threat far from over,
I never know where I'll wind up next."

"Which is not to be construed," Captain Korsmo put in, "as her doing
anything other than a totally exemplary job for us."

"We certainly would have expected nothing less," Picard said'.
"Captain--what is Starfleet's position if we are to encounter the
individuals who are responsible for the destruction of the Borg ship?"

"The position is that you do your damnedest to keep yourselves in one
piece. That's the top priority. Establish communications if at all
possible, but whatever you do, don't engage them in combat in any way.
Anyone who could mow down the Borg is going to make short work of you.
Do you think," Korsmo said with exaggerated stiffness, "you'll be able
to keep all that straight, Picard? There's a lot to remember, after
all."

Picard shook his head in amusement. "Same old Korsmo."

"Same old Picard. Pity. And there was so much room for improvement. See
you at Penzatti. Chekov Out."

After the screen blinked out, Picard slowly survaled the faces of his
people. Despite all the difficulties the Borg had given them, despite
the way that the power balance seemed to have shifted yet again and put
the Enterprise on less firm footing, his crew seemed no less determined,
no less confident. He would have expected nothing less of them, nor
anything less of himself. Hopefully, he would be able to keep up under
the weight of those expectations.

"You all know your assignments," he said crisply. "I know that you'll
carry them out with the efficiency

to which I've become accustomed. That's all." He stood, as did the
others, and walked out of the conference room before anyone could say
another word.

Picard, in his ready room, looked up at the sound of the chime. "Come,"
he said, knowing already who it would be before the door even opened.
Sure enough, in strode Counselor Troi, who stood in front of him
expectantly, with folded arms. "You look as if you're waiting for the
show to start, counselor." he observed, with a hint of amusement.

She got down to it immediately. "I sensed great ambivalence on your part
concerning the Borg. More so than towards the unknown entities who are
potentially more of a threat."

"Ambivalence? In regard to beings who carved me up like a slice of
beef?." said Picard, again more sharply than he would have liked. He
closed his eyes for a moment to compose himselL When he opened them, he
was actually able to smile wanly. "I've already worked out a good deal
of my--difficulties--during my shore leave on Earth, counselor, as you
well know. Still, I wouldn't be human if the prospect of facing them
again wasn't a bit... daunting. I do not expect, however, that it will
interfere with my ability

my job."

to,,d?would never presume to believe as much," Troi

said. "I find it curious, though, that I sense no concern from you
regarding this new force we've learned of. A force much more powerful
than the Borg."

Picard drummed his fingers momentarily on his desk. "This is a big
universe, Counselor. I always assumed that somewhere out there, there
would be a more powerful entity than the Borg. And whomever

we encounter next, there will be someone stronger than them. If I were
daunted by the concept of encountering powerful beings, Counselor, I
doubt I ever would have left the comforting environs of earth. New
encounters? I thrive on them. It's what I live for. What we are looking
at, Counselor, to use the old saying, is the devil we know versus the
devil we don't. The Borg are simply devils that I know all too well."

"You feel that whatever we encounter, even if more powerful than the
Borg, won't be as great of a threat."

For a brief moment he relived the hideous feeling of the Borg implants
that had become a part of him; the unyielding and inhuman invasion of
his mind, his soul, and the raping of his knowledge and personality; how
they had managed to destroy, with no problem at all, his will to resist;
how they had put him through a very personal and very singular hell that
bore the name "Locutus."

"No one could be," he said gravely. "Captain--"

He stood, the very decisiveness of the motion silencing Troi. He walked
around to the observation bay and stared out at the stars that
telescoped away from them as the ship proceeded, at warp 6.5, to the
devastated home of the Penzatti. "I won't let them do it to me,
Counselor. I had never been the type to view every new race, no matter
how powerful, in terms of how much of a threat they pose. We're not out
here to explore new threats and new civilizations, and I will be damned
if the Borg now force me to consider every. new encounter, first and
foremost, in regard to their ability to hurt us. That's not what we're
about. That's not what I'm about. And I will not let the Borg do that to
me. I won't," he finished fiercely.

Troi nodded slowly and smiled. "I have no doubt.

And for the Borg's sake, let us hope that the next individual they
encounter is somewhat more weak-willed than you. Otherwise, I don't
think they stand a chance."

He smiled thinly. "That, Counselor, is definitely the least of my
concerns."

Chapter Five

DAIMON TOa of the Ferengi was bored out of his mind.

Even for one of the Ferengi, Turane wasn't much to look at, with his
eyes unfashionably set close together, and a piece of his left ear
missing, thanks to a business disagreement some years back. When he
spoke, it was with the heavy rasp that signalled the beginning stages of
an incurable disease that attacked the lungs. Within five years he would
doubtlessly be on some sort of artificial support, or need new lungs
entirely.

All that he could have taken, though. It was his current assignment that
threatened to drive him mad.

Turane had landed this unprofitable, dead-end assignment--an assignment
that had sent him and a crew of ten Ferengi misfits to the farthest
reaches of Federation space and beyond. Ostensibly, the reason given was
that the Ferengi were looking to expand their trade horizons. The
Ferengi were annoyed with constantly butting heads with the Federation,
and expansion was mandatory if they were to survive as a merchant race.
His superiors even had the temerity to
tell Turane that this was a plum assignment and that if he were
successful in finding new markets, he would be covering himself in glory
and profit in the name of the Ferengi. This he knew to be unadulterated
nonsense. The reason he was here was simple. It was his appearance, his
coarse manners (coarse even for the Ferengi), his deportment. In fact,
in his general, overall being, he was an embarrassment to his brother,
who just happened to hold a high rank in the Ferengi command. And his
dear, beloved brother had made damned sure, at his earliest opportunity,
that Turane be shuffled off to somewhere where he couldn't do any damage
to his brother's precious career. So here he was, he and the rest of his
crew aboard the marauder ship, in the heart of the Beta Quadrant, at the
outer fringes of known space. Within a couple of days they would travel
beyond anything that had been explored and exploited by the Ferengi.
Just one ship, with no backup, no support, no interest from the central
council--no nothing. Turane's first officer, Martok, glanced around from
his station in response to the low growling that was coming from his
commander. "Is something amiss, Daimon?" he asked deferentially. Turane
turned on him with a snarl. "Wrong, Martok? What could possibly be
wrong?" He slowly rose from his command chair. "Out in the middle of
nowhere, on this profitless voyage--we are a waste, Martok! We have no
purpose! We make no profit! There is no life out here. There is no new
market. There is no purpose to any of it, other than that my damned
brother doesn't want me around." All of this Martok knew, and he wasn't
any happier about it than was Daimon Turane. In fact, he was even less
happy about it. With Turane it was a personal

dispute that had led him to this unhappy situation. Martok was
blameless--he was simply first officer to the wrong Ferengi, at the
wrong time. There had been discussion amongMartok and the crew that,
sooner or later--later, in all likelihood--the time would come to
dispose of Daimon Turane and put someone else in charge. Martok,
probably. Turane knew this. The Ferengi command knew this too. Everyone
was expecting it, really, and the only reason that Martok had not
engineered the change sooner was that--despite his overall unpleasant
personality--Turane had headed up some profitable missions in the past.
Martok had been his first officer during those escapades, and Martok had
something that most Ferengi did not possess--a rudimentary sense of
loyalty. This had inclined him to give Daimon Turane as much slack as
possible. Perhaps even find a way of salvaging something valuable from
this dross of an assignment. Enough was rapidly becoming enough,
however. The crew was growing impatient, and Daimon Turane was slipping
further and further into melancholy with every passing day. Martok was
going to have to do something because, if he didn't, officers beneath
him were going to take matters into their own hands. He was quite
determined that, if some unpleasant fate were to befall the Daimon, he
would rather be the engineer of it than a victim. He started to speak,
but before any words got out, the status board lit up. Martok's head
snapped around in surprise, as did Daimon Turane's. The rest of the
bridge crew, which had been lost in their private imaginings of a life
without the luckless Daimon Turane, immediately snapped to their
assigned duties when encountering something new and unexpected. "What
have we got?" demanded Daimon Turane.

For a moment, at least, his.lethargy had slipped away. It had been
replaced by some of that old excitement, that heart-pounding thrill at
possibly discovering something new to be exploited.

Martok was shaking his head in confusion. "They're so big that at first
I thought they were small moons that had somehow broken away from
orbit," he said. "Now I see, though. They're ships. Incredibly huge
ships." -

"On screen," said Turane, turning in his chair to face the front
monitor.

The screen wavered for a split second and then cleared. On it hung three
huge cube shapes. They were completely stationary.

"What is it?" whispered Turane, daunted by the immensity of them. "What
are they?"

Martok immediately accessed his ship's computer, scanning all the known
ship types. Much of the information had been cobbled, through means fair
and foul, from the Federation archives. When the answer to his search
came up, he felt all the blood drain from his face. His throat dosed up,
and he desperately tried to control the impulse to scream in panic.
"It's the Borg," he said in a voice that was just above a whisper.

Daimon Turane, for his part, seemed utterly non-plussed. "The Borg," he
said thoughtfully, studying the screen. The Borg ships, already huge,
were becoming larger as the Ferengi marauder vessel drew closer. "How
intriguing."

"I'll order full retreat," said Martok. Across the way, the navigator
was already laying in a course to take them back in the other direction.

"You'll do no such thing," said Daimon Turane calmly. "Bring us in oward
them." There was a collective gasp from the bridge crew at

Turane's order. They were regarding their Daimon with outright horror,
with as much incredulity as if he'd ordered them to open every accessway
and blow the atmosphere out of the ship.

"Toward them?" gasped the navigator in horror. "Daimon Turane," said
Martok, "this is the Borg. Are you unaware of what they did to the
Federation? I heard that fifty ships were destroyed in combat against
them at Wolf 359."

"Seventy-nine," the navigator said firmly, 'i heard seventy-nine, but
Starfleet wants to cover it up so the Romulans don't find out."

"I also heard about the cover-up," said the helmsman, now speaking up,
"but my sources say eighty-three ships."

"I don't care," snarled Turane, turning on his men, "if the Borg
destroyed every ship in the Starfleet. Bring us in there and bring us in
there now. Is that clear?"

There was a pause as the bridge crew looked at each other. Everyone was
waiting for someone else to make a move.

"Now/" thundered Daimon Turane.

"We'll be killed," said Martok quietly.

With slow, deliberate steps, Turane got up from his chair and walked
slowly towards Martok. The only sounds heard on the bridge were the soft
footfalls of his boots and the steady beeping from the tacticals
informing them of the presence of that of which they were already aware.
Turane's lips drew back in the Ferengi approximation of a smile,
displaying his double row of sharp, filed teeth.

"We," said Daimon Turane, "will make more profit than anyone ever
imagined possible. That is what we will do. Are you saying you don't
wish to be a part of that?"

"No, butmprofit?" said Martok, not understanding.

Daimon Turane nodded slowly. "This is a dead-end ship with a dead-end
assignment, Martok. You know it." He turned to face his bridge crew, his
voice rising. "You all know it. There is only one way to live the sort
of life respectable for a Ferengi. But to achieve itmto achieve
greatness--we must dare greatness. One cannot come without the other.
The Borg have power beyond imagining, technology that is decades--even
centuries ahead of us. If we can establish a market with them, trade
with them, draw them in as allies with the Ferengi--think of the regard
in which we would be held. Think of the respect!" What he did not add
was, Think of the putrid expression on my brother's face.

"But the Federation--"

"Pfaw!" snorted Turane disdainfully. "The Federation does not even know
how to deal with us. What in the world makes you think that they could
possibly know how to deal with beings such as that," and he pointed at
the Borg ships, which were now a few hundred kilometers away.

"But if we retreat and inform our council of the Borg presence, wouldn't
that be good enough to--" began the navigator.

Turane cut him off with a quick hand gesture. "'Good enough' never is,"
he said archly. "Now, we go in as a crew and share in the profit, or I
go in alone and hoard it all for myself. Which one of you is cowardly
enough to turn away from the potential for the greatest, grandest, more
incredible payoff in the history of our race?"

The bridge crew looked at each other in silence.

Daimon Turane drew himself up, and when he spoke it was with quiet
authority and an apparently

unshakable conviction that he would be obeyed. "Take us in," he said.

The marauder ship moved towards its destination as the three great
vessels of the Ferengi hung motionlessly in space.

"The Nanites have lawyers?"

In the Ten-Forward lounge of the Enterprise, Geordi, Riker, and Data
were seated around a table, drinks in front of them. Geordi was looking
at Riker with open-mouthed disbelief and, having just voiced his
incredulity, felt constrained to repeat it. "The Nan-ites went out and
got lawyers? You can't be serious!"

"They didn't 'go out and get lawyers,' Geordi," Riker told him. Although
he could understand the chief engineer's annoyance and ire, he hated to
admit that he found it mildly amusing at the same time. "The lawyers
were assigned to them by the Federation council."

Geordi's hands dropped to the armrests of his chair, and he shook his
head. "This is nuts. This is just crazy."

"Geordi, I don't see whereto"

"I'm sorry, Commander, but with all due respect, this stinks," Geordi
said in frustration. "Wesley and I worked our tails off to get together
all the research material on the Nanites that Starfleet had requested.
Everyone said this was it--the key to defeating the Borg. Just breed
them, introduce them into the Borg systems, and the Nanites would do the
rest. It's something so plain that--"

"Even a blind man could see it?" said Riker ruefully.

Geordi nodded slowly. "Yeah. That simple. So here I thought that by now,
certainly they would have bred more than enough Nanites to stop the
entire Borg race

if they showed up. Instead, you're telling me that Step One hasn't been
taken because it's tied up in some sort of debate in the council!"

"But if what Commander Riker is saying is correct, Geordi--and I assume
it to be," Data added affably, "there are many in the Federation council
who feel strongly about Nanite rights."

Before Geordi could start again, Riker stepped in quickly. "The argument
has been," he said, "that breeding a race of sentient beings, such as
the Nanites} for the express purpose of war and destruction is contrary
to all the Federation principles and beliefs. The goal of the Federation
is to promote galactic harmony. Creating a 'warrior race'--even a highly
specialized warrior race such as the Nanites--would undercut everything
that the Federation purports to be about."

"But--"

"There is also the view that it eliminates the free will of the Nanites,
if they are being created specifically to fight the Borg. Not to
mention, what if the Borg actually managed to absorb the Nanites
somehow? Overwhelm them? It's not impossible. We don't know what the
full capability of the Borg is. If they did eliminate them somehow, then
we will have created a race specifically to die en masse. What does that
make US?"

"People trying to survive," said Geordi. "Has the council considered the
fact that if the Federation is wiped out by the Borg, then all our
high-minded principles won't matter a bit? I'd like to see how quickly
some of those council members would change their minds if they'd been
aboard the Enterprise, staring down the sights of Borg weaponry."

"For what it's worth, some members of the council

agree with you, Mr. La Forge," Said Riker. "Enough to cause some fairly
lively debates, from my understanding. But until the council gets it
sorted out and comes to an agreement one way or the other, there's a
hold on developing Nanites for protection against the Borg." He leaned
forward and said, "Look, Geordi--if the Nanites rights argument rubs you
the wrong way, try this..."

Riker paused to take a sip of his drink, but Geordi was so frustrated
that he didn't trust himself to speak. Riker continued, "There's also
the concern that it's too much like germ warfare. Once released, there's
no guarantee that the Nanites might not turn on us. We might wind up
with something just as dangerous as the Borg. Would you be willing to
take that risk?"

"Risk the Nanites versus risking the Borg? Yeah. In a minute." Geordi
shook his head. "I still think it stinks, Commander. If the Borg could
be put out of commission by the Nanites, then we should do it."

"Geordi," said Data thoughtfully, "there was discussion given to the
notion of replicating me. The purpose was exploration. But what if
Starfleet advocated the idea of creating a race of beings--beings who
thought and felt, and seemed indistinguishable from me--for the sole
purpose of sending those beings off to fight a war? Would that be
acceptable to you?"

Geordi frowned. "Well... no."

"Why not?"

Geordi called into his mind's eye the image of Data--or how he perceived
Data--numbering in the thousands, armed with heavy-duty weaponry,
slogging through some marsh somewhere in some godforsaken world. Or a
shipload of Datas flying into

combat, secure in the knowledge that if the ship were destroyed and all
hands died, it wouldn't... matter.

"Because you deserve better than that," said Geordi softly.

"And are the Nanites any less deserving?" asked Data.

Geordi sighed heavily. "I suppose not. But still... it's frustrating to
have the ability to solve your problems right there, in your hand, and
you--"

"Can't make the fist?" offered Riker.

"Yeah. You can't make the fist," said Geordi. Riker held his glass up
and, in an overt effort to change the topic and tone of the
conversation, announced in stentorian tones,, "What see I before me but
an empty glass. That; gentlemen, is an abysmal state of affairs that
cannot be tolerated." He turned toward the bar behind which Guinan
customarily stood ....

Except the Ten-Forward hostess wasn't there. Riker glanced around to see
where she might be, and then he

spotted her on the far side of the room.

She was sitting by herself.

For some reason this looked odd to Riker, and he tried to figure out
why. Then it came to him--he'd never seen her sitting by herself.
Usually she stood behind the bar, and on those occasions when she was
sitting, it was always across a table from someone else. She would be
there listening in that way she had, taking in what was being said and
dispensing advice in that calm, matter-of-fact manner that always made
it seem absurd that you hadn't solved your dilemma yourself.

Not this time, though. She was seated in a corner, staring out a viewing
bay at the passing stars. There was something wrong with her. If Riker
had been

possessed of psychic powers, he might have said that something was
dampening her aura.

He stood and said, "Excuse me a moment," without even looking at Geordi
and Data. He toyed for a moment with the notion of mentioning his
concern about Guinan to Deanna, or perhaps to Picard, who had such a
long-standing relationship with Guinan--a relationship murky in its
origins.

No. He was here. She was here. And a friendly chat was no more than a
friendly chat. Perhaps even Guinan had the right to be just a little
down in the mouth for once. But she'd been there for him enough times,
and he felt it incumbent upon him to return the favor.

He walked across Ten-Forward and stood next to Guinan. She didn't appear
to notice him at all. That immediately turned the alarm level up a notch
for Riker. Guinan noticed everything. "Guinan?" he said.

She glanced up at him wanly. "Hello, Commander."

"Do you mind if I--" He gestured to the empty seat opposite her. She
inclined her head slightly and he sat. "Is there a problem?" he asked.

She smiled, but the smile didn't touch her eyes. "Isn't that usually my
line?" she asked.

"Times change," said Riker. "People change."

"Some do," Guinan replied, and then paused. "Others stay the same." She
stood and it was with some visible effort, leaning on the table for
support.

Her clearly enervated condition now brought Riker to his feet, and he
promptly dispensed with the pleasant demeanor of concerned friend. That
he most certainly was, but now, first and foremost, he was an

officer of the Enterprise, and he knew an ill crewman when'he saw one.
"Guinan, what is going on with you? You look weak as a kitten."

"I haven't been... resting well," she said. "That's all. Nothing to
concern yourself about. I've had a lot on my mind."

"I think you should consider sharing it with someone. If not me', then
Captain Picard, or Counselor Troi."

"It's..." She took a deep breath, as if incapable of finishing the
sentence with the air she had in her lungs. "It's nothing that can't
be..."

Her eyes seemed to glaze over, her voice trailing off in mid-sentence.
"Guinan!" Riker said sharply.

She turned towards him, acting as if his voice had come from a long
distance, and then she pitched forward into his arms. Her arm swung
loosely down and knocked a stray glass off a table.

Immediately everyone in Ten-Forward was on their feet. Guinan had been
the rock of the Ten-Forward lounge. To see this happen to her was
absolutely 'staggering

Riker caught her with one arm and with his free hand tapped his
communicator. "Riker to sickbay!" he said rapidly and, without waiting
for the acknowledgment, said, "Guinan's passed out. I'm bringing her
down. Have a team ready."

"Guinan?" came the incredulous voice of Bey crUsher. The sense that she
had of Guinan was the same as everyone else's, namely that she was
somehow immune from whatever frailties might plague humans. "Guinan
passed out?" Clearly, she wasn't sure she'd heard correctly.

"We're on our way. Riker out."

Riker swept her up in both arms and was amazed at

the total lack of weight. It was like lifting paper or the wind. Guinan
was muttering under her breath now, as if her mind were far away. A
couple of syllables, over and over, not making any sense ....

He didn't have time to stand around and try to decipher it. Instead, he
turned and ran with her to the door, Geordi and Data right behind him.
Several concerned crewmen started to follow, but Geordi stopped them
with a sharp, "We don't need a mob! Stay put."

The crewmen did as they had been ordered, and as the doors hissed shut,
they started talking excitedly amongst themselves. They were all
tremendously concerned, because everyone was extremely fond of Guinan,
and none of them wanted to think that she had come down with anything
serious. But so little was really known about her that no one could
really be certain just how serious "serious" was.

The Ferengi ship approached the three massive objects that lay before
them with extreme caution. They waited for some acknowledgment--verbal
communication, an assault--something. But there was nothing. It was as
if the Borg didn't know they were there, or simply didn't care.

Turane studied the surface of the ships carefully. They were solid,
unknowable, and yet they seemed to pulse with a life all their own.
"Keep us steady, helm," he said softly.

The helmsman muttered a brief acknowledgment, but he was also mentally
cataloguing the wives (most of them his) he would never see again, the
various properties and holdings that he would never enjoy, and the
various rivals that he would never have the opportunity to kill.

"There seems to be no way in," said Martok, studying the schematics that
the sensors were feeding him.

Daimon Turane stroked his chin thoughtfully and ran a finger absently
across his sharp teeth. "Something that huge? And it has no shuttle
bay?" he said

thoughtfully. "No loading dock? Nothing?"

"Nothing, sir."

Turane nodded briefly and then said, "Hailing frequencies."

"Hailing frequencies open, sir."

Turane raised his voice slightly as he announced, "This is Daimon Turane
of the Ferengi. Am I correct in assuming that you are the entities known
as," and he paused thoughtfully, as if straining to remember their name.
Always better, when commencing business dealings, to let the opposition
know that they were barely worth your time. "Known as the Borg?" he
finished after a suitable amount of hesitation. He was rather pleased
with himselfi He had spoken with just the right amount of nonchalance
and casual boredom.

There was no reply.

He frowned and a Ferengi frowning was no prettier than a Ferengi
smiling. "Are you the Borg?" he demanded again.

The three massive ships remained in stony silence, uncommunicative,
unknownhie. For all that they seemed interested in the Ferengi craft,
the Borg might as well have been great chunks of floating, lifeless
rock.

Turane sensed the cold disdain that was radiating from his crew.
"Martok," he said with barely concealed anger, "ready a landing party of
myself, medical officer Darr, and two security men."

"Are you sure that's wise, Daimon?" asked Martok.

Turane spun and faced him, his anger at the eerily silent Borg, at his
brother, at his entire situation in this godforsaken nowhere area of
space--all of that spilling out at his first officer. "I don't give a
damn whether it's wise or not! It's what I'm going to do! Do you have a
problem with that?"

In contrast to the fury of his commander, Martok was surprisingly quiet.
"No, Daimon."

"Good." His anger still barely in check, he said, "The cube in the
middle. Scan it. Find the source of

peak energy emissions and prepare to beam us over."

"Yes, Daimon."

Daimon Turane started for the door and paused only to say, with triumph
lacing his voice, "This is the dawning of a new age for the Ferengi!"

"As you say, Daimon," said Martok. He sat quietly thoughtfully, as
Daimon Turane walked off the bridge, shoulders squared, confident in his
ability to pull off one of the greatest deals of their time.

The moment he was gone, Martok looked around at the rest of the crew.
There was unspoken sentiment in their eyes. Indeed, the sentiment did
not have to be spoken. They all knew what was what, and they all knew
how long they would be stuck out there if Daimon Turane were in charge.

"He's insane," said the helmsman finally. "The reports we've heard of
the Borg... it's like trying to reason with a black hole. He's risking
all of us. We should be getting out of here. This is not profit. This is
suicide."

Martok nodded slowly. "Trust me, my friends," he said with a hiss, "I am
watching out for all of our safety. And if I see that safety
jeopardized... I will take appropriate steps. I will take them... very,
very

soon."

Guinan had been whisked into a back examination room the moment that
she'd been brought down to sickbay. Riker, Data, and Gordi started to
follow automatically out of concern, but Crusher put up a firm hand.
"She's my patient," she said in no uncertain terms. "i don't need an
audience."

"Will she be all right?" asked Geordi.

"i'm a doctor," said Crusher primly, "not a psychic. Which reminds me,"
and she tapped her communicator. "Crusher to Troi. I've got Guinan down
here in sickbay and i'd like you on hand."

"On my way," came Deanna Troi's concerned response.

"Why Deanna?" asked Riker in surprise.

Crusher raised an eyebrow. "Doctor/patient confidentiality, Commander.
Or to put it in a slightly more earthy context: None of your damned
business." With that she turned and entered the examination room, the
door sliding shut behind her.

Seoonds later the sickbay doors opened, admitting Deanna Troi and, right
behind her, Jean-Luc Picard. Deanna glanced around, and before Riker
could get a word out, she headed straight for the side examination room,
as if guided by a beacon. Without a word, she entered and then was cut
off from view as the doors hissed shut once more.

"What happened, Number One?" said Picard with urgency. "Did she give any
warning--?"

"Nothing," Riker told him. "She seemed very distracted, and then she was
in the middle of a sentence and just keeled over. I picked her up and
brought her straight down here."

Picard looked understandably concerned. He and Guinan had some sort of
history together. Guinan had hinted at it but not gone into it, and
Picard had

remained resolutely tight-lipped, as he did about almost everything. The
depth of that history, and of his feelings for her, was as much a
mystery as was Guinan herself.

"Did she say anything?" asked Picard. "Anything at all?"

Riker ran through his mind the mutterings that Guinan had uttered while
he had cradled her in his muscular arms. "It was something like...
'vendor.' Over and over again."

"Vendor?" and Picard frowned. He paced briskly,

his hands behind his back. "Vendor? Are you sure?"

"As I said, Captain, it was difficult to make out."

"But why would she be talking about a salesman of some sort?" Picard
shook his head. "It makes no sense."

"It obviously made sense to Guinan. She was very insistent about it."

"Then we'll simply have to wait here until she's recovered enough to
tell us what she meant," said Picard. He glanced around at his senior
officers. "I see no need for all four of us to be waiting here."

Data inquired politely, "Will you be leaving, sir?" Picard gave him an
icy look, and Riker stepped in quickly.'"I think we should be minding
the bridge, Mr. Data. Come along."

Obediently, if uncomprehendingly, Data and Geordi followed Riker out,
leaving Picard alone in the sickbay. In the corridor Geordi said,
"Whatever there is between the captain and Guinan, he obviously wants to
keep it private."

"And we'll respect that, Mr. La Forge."

"No question."

"If the captain has anything to tell us, he will."

"No question." And then, after a moment of

thought, Geordi added, "Of course, until such time that the captain
chooses to tell us, we're all going to speculate one hell of a lot."

"No question," said Riker.

Picard, in the meantime, remained in sickbay. He gave up pacing after a
short time, because it brought to mind the clich image of the expectant
father waiting for some sort of word about his wife in labor.

After what seemed an interminable time, Bey Crusher emerged from the
examining room. If she was surprised to see Picard there, she didn't say
so. Instead, she simply folded her arms and announced, "She's fine."

Picard had finally seated himself but now he stood, shoulders squared,
posture correct as always, ramrod-perfect. He smoothed his jacket and
said, "What was wrong with her?"

"You don't understand, Captain. When I say she's fine, I mean she's
fine. I mean I can't find anything wrong with her. I have absolutely no
idea why she passed out, and Deanna's empathic scan doesn't pick up
anything."

"Does Guinan know what happened?"

"If she does, she's not telling me."

"She'll tell me," Picard said firmly, and healed for the examining room.

He entered and saw Guinan standing next to the table, looking calm and
self-contained. She was just adjusting her headgear. Nearby sat Deanna
Troi, looking quite distracted, and Picard noticed it immediately. But
first he turned his attention to his Ten-Forward hostess as he said,
"How are you feeling?"

'Fit," she said. There was something in her voicema hint of that
distractedness that Riker had indicated typified her mood before she had
passed

out. But it didn't seem especially drastic. "Fit and well. I'm probably
just overworked."

"You do seem to spend every waking hour in Ten-Forward, Guinan," allowed
Picard. "Even for one of your... special gifts... that seems a bit
extreme. Still... do you have any other explanation for your sudden
faintness?"

"Nothing comes to mind," she said.

For the briefest of moments he thought Guinan was keeping something from
him. But that would mean she was lying, and there was no way in this
cosmos that he was going to accept the notion that Guinan would lie to
him. He would just as readily believe that the Federation was actually a
front set up by the Romulans. Or that all of space travel was actually a
huge case of collective mass hysteria on the part of the human race, and
mankind was still mucking around

on the planet Earth.

Still...

"Does the word Vendor mean anything to you?" She appeared to give it
some thought, and then she shook her head. "No special significance
other than the obvious."

He regarded her with a feeling that was alien when it came to
Guinan--suspicion. Not suspicion that she was keeping something from
him, but that--bizarre as it sounded--she was keeping something from
herself.

Picard was far from satisfied. "Guinan, do you have any idea at all what
could have caused that sudden weakness? It's so unlike you."

She frowned. "The only thing I can think of," and she slid off the
examining table as she spoke, "is that it has something to do with
others of my race. We are sensitive to each others' moods. If there was
something happening, something that affected us..."

"I thought your people had been scattered after the Borg attack," said
Troi.

Guinan afforded her a brief glance. "Scattered, Counselor. Never
separated." She turned back to Picard. "An overwhelming feeling,
Captain. I can't be more specific than that, if that's what it is, in
fact. As soon as I know more, you will too."

She started for the door, and then Picard stopped her with a simple
question: '!Is it the Borg?"

She looked back at him over her shoulder, and Picard might have been
imagining it, but he thought a brief shudder passed through her.

"Bet on it," she said.

The four Ferengi materialized in the main corridor of the center Borg
ship. There had been nothing really to distinguish one ship from the
other. Just an arbitrary decision on Turane's part.

The landing party was puzzled by what they saw. Corridors that seemed to
go on forever, an incredible labyrinth that didn't seem to have been
designed so much as having organically grown somehow, in all directions
and yet with a ruthless, systematic efficiency. Whereas Ferengi ships
had aspects to their layout that contributed, in a variety of ways, to
add personality to their surroundings, the Borg ship was quite the
opposite. The Ferengi began to explore, and wherever they looked,
wherever they searched, they found that the Borg personality seemed
defined by their utter absence of personality.

Dart was studying the readings from his medical instruments. "I'm not
detecting any individual life readings, Daimon," he said after a long
moment.

"Then what do you call those?" said Turane immediately, having taken a
step back in forcefully controlled alarm. He had his blaster out
immediately. Coming his way, with slow, measured, ominous tread, was a
Borg soldier.

"Halt!" shouted Turane, for the Borg was bearing down on him, his gaze
unwavering, his right arm encased in an ominous sheath of metal.
"Guards! Stop him! He's going to attack me!"

The guards were standing directly in between the oncoming Borg and the
alarmed Daimon. And then a clanking alerted them to the approach of a
second Borg soldier from behind. They spun and faced him, the face on
the second one as deadpan as the first.

"Stop them, you idiots!" shouted Daimon Turane. "What are you waiting
for?!"

The guards looked at each other, an unspoken decision passing between
them. Then, as one, they lowered their weapons and stepped back, flat
against the wall, leaving a clear path to their commanding officer.

The blood drained from Daimon Turane's face, and his heart raced. He
looked in front of and behind him, the Borg soldiers closing in, and a
fearful curse emerged from his thick lips. "This is treason? he howled.
"This is mutiny! Darr, do something!"

But Darr was an old man, and he merely cowered behind the nearest
security officer.

Daimon Turane brought his blaster up, aimed at the

nearest Borg, and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing.

He howled in fury. The energy indicator read a full charge, but
obviously someone had tampered with it. Perhaps one of these guards.
Perhaps someone else back on the ship. Perhaps even Martok himself. In
the final analysis, it made no difference. He was dead, that was all.
Dead and gone.

The Borg were upon him, their heavy clanging echoing around them. They
passed in front of each other, in front of him...

And kept on going in opposite directions. Daimon Turane watched in utter
confusion as the Borg totally ignored him and went off about their
business as if his presence didn't matter at all. Within moments they
were gone, the only thing left behind them being that inexorable
clanging. Shortly thereafter, that was gone too. What remained was the
steady humming and throbbing and pulsing of electronic life that seemed
to fill the walls, the floors, the very air around them.

Turane, however, did not have the time or the inclination to dwell on
it. Instead, his fury was focussed on his guards as he turned on them
with the full measure of it and said, icily, "What was the meaning of
that outrageous behavior?"

"This was the meaning," said the guard, and he swung his heavy blaster
up and fired.

Turane would have been dead right there, had not medical officer Darr
hurled himself right into the path of the assault. Darr hadn't even
known he was going to do it, until he did. If he'd given it a moment's
thought, or even had it to do over again, he probably would have stayed
rooted to the spot. As it happened, he didn't have to the chance to do
anything ever again, because he died before he could even get out a
single word to reprimand the guards for their attack.

Turane stood paralyzed for a moment, staring at the smoldering body of
his medical officer. Then his gaze returned to the guards, who were
standing there with singularly stupid expressions on their faces.

"Oh hell," muttered the nearest of them, staring down at their
handiwork.

Turane realized at that point that he had two choices: To stay and try
and regain control of the situation by asserting his authority over the
security guards who were clearly out to murder him, or to get the hell
out of there.

Daimon Turane was nothing, if not a realist. Without a second's further
consideration, he spun on his heel and bolted.

The movement snapped the two Ferengi guards from their momentary
paralysis. They immediately started firing, but by that time the
fleet-looted Daimon had rounded a corner and vanished, their blaster
bolts exploding harmlessly behind him. The guards cursed loudly and
started off after him.

Turane tore through the Borg ship, his arms pumping furiously, his blood
pounding in his temples. Turane wasn't in bad shape for a Ferengi, but
he was far from fit. Fear for his life, though, lent him some extra
strength and endurance. His legs churned up distance quickly, and he ran
with no heed to direction other than simply away from his lursuers. His
pursuers didn't make it difficult to keep track of them, for they raised
a hellish racket behind them as they followed.

The frantic Daimon turned another corner and ran headlong into a Borg
soldier. They went down in a tumble of arms and legs, Turane shrieking,
the soldier eerily silent. Turane grabbed the Borg soldier by' the front
of his clothing and practically screamed in his face, "Help me! They're
trying to kill me! Help me and I'll help you!"

The Borg said nothing. The Borg didn't even appear to notice that Turane
was there. Instead he sat up, brushing Turane aside in an offhand
manner. It wasn't even a gesture acknowledging Turane's presence as a

living being so much as it was just pushing aside an obstacle, as one
would a gnat. The soldier got to its feet and kept on walking.

"You call yourselves soldiers." bellowed Turane in frustration. "You
won't even fight! I have to do everything!"

The guards suddenly appeared at the far end of the corridor. "There!"
shouted the nearer one, and they opened fire.

Turane leaped frantically to the left, and the blaster bolts exploded
over his head. They blew out some sort of glowing power units, blasting
them into fragments, and Turane tripped, knocked off his feet by the
concussion. He hit the floor hard, landing wrong, and it tore up his
knees and elbows. He skidded and smashed into a nearby wall, and then
rolled onto his back, crabwalking and shoving himself backwards. His
back slammed up against a corner, his arms up over his head, protecting
himself as best he could. Daimon Turane stamped his feet in childlike
frustration, howling his fury. "I am the Daimon, damn you!" he shouted.
"I order you to stop!"

The guards paused, and for one brief glorious moment, the Daimon thought
they were about to obey him. Then he realized that they were merely
stopping to chortle, to enjoy the pathetic state that he had been
brought down to.

"Please," whispered Turane, staring down the barrel of their weapons.
"Please..."

It was at that moment that three Borg soldiers converged on the area.

They ignored Turane, for he was lying inoffensively on the floor. For
that matter, the guards simply assumed that the semi-mechanical beings
were just going to bypass them as well. So it caught them completely
flatfooted when the foremost Borg soldier

reached out and grabbed the nearest of the guards with the clawed
grabbing end of its mechanical appendage.

The Ferengi guard tried to bring his blaster up to defend himself but he
was too slow. A bolt of blue electricity ripped from the Borg's arm,
lancing through the Ferengi's, causing him to quiver and shake in the
creature's grasp. His skin charred and he opened his mouth, but no
scream managed to escape from him. His eyes widened, and the corridor
filled with the unpleasant odor of burning flesh.

With perfect precision the Borg dropped the Ferengi the moment the guard
had become a lifeless sack of flesh instead of a living being, and
turned towards the second guard, trapping him between the other two
oncoming Borg. The Ferengi whirled and fired, and his blast caught one
of the other two Borg square in the chest. The Borg went down without a
sound and, hopes momentarily buoyed, the Ferengi fired on the second
one. This time, though, the blaster bolt cascaded harmlessly off a
personal shield.

The Ferengi tried to readjust, kicking the power level up, but was too
slow. One of the Borg swung its metal arm with incredible force and,
with one blow, crushed the delicate cartilage of the Ferengi skull. The
guard went down, blood trickling from his nose and large ears, moaning
softly for a moment before his voice became a rattle in his throat.

Daimon Turane looked from one dead guard to the other and wondered
bleakly how long it would be before he followed them into oblivion. The
standing Borg soldiers turned and Turane braced himself, waiting for
some sort of attack, for those awful metal

appendages to reach out and destroy him]

And the Borg ignored him.

For one insane moment he wasn't sure whether to

be relieved or insulted. After all, they'd spent time and energy
dispatching lowly guards. Was he, the Daimon, worthy of less
consideration than that? Then he realized that such thinking might
indeed be indicative of someone who had lost his mind.

The Borg, for their part, set about their work, and Daimon Turane
realized that they were repairing the shattered power units that the
guards had destroyed. It was then that he realized what had happened.
The Borg hadn't shown up for the purpose of protecting him, or even just
attacking potential threats. Instead, they had eliminated the aggressive
guards for .the simple reason that they were disrupting the smooth
functioning of the Borg ship. Once the disruption was gone, there was no
need--as far as they were concerned--to pursue any further action.

"Listen to me," said Turane quickly, trying not to stumble over the
words. "Listen. I am Daimon Turane of the Ferengi. I want to speak to
your leader. I... I believe that we can do some business together."

One of the Borg soldiers had picked up the fallen one and walked over to
some sort of horizontal wall receptacle. The insensate Borg soldier was
placed into the receptacle, which slid noiselessly shut. The Borg
soldier then paused, its clawed appendage clicking for a moment, the
servos on its head swivelling, as if in thought.

"I have a great deal to offer you," said Turane. By now he had pulled
himself to his feet, trying to assemble some measure of his shattered
confidence. He was aware that he was in an extremely bad bargaining
position, which was never a good way for a Ferengi to begin a deal. He
couldn't very well return to his ship, considering the reception that he
would probably get. The last thing that one ever wanted to admit to a
potential customer, though, was that the

customer had the upper hand in any way. "A great deal," he said again.
He cleared his throat and said, rather pompously, "I am a Daimon, you
know. Daimon Turane of the Ferengi. In addition to my own rank and
station, I have a brother who is on the council itselfi That, I tend to
think, gives. you an idea of my importance."

He stood there with arms folded, waiting for a response. He got nothing.
One of the Borg soldiers simply turned and walked away. The other
remained in its place, relays still clicking, as if receiving a
transmission from somewhere.

"I said," repeated Turane a bit more impatiently, "that I have a great
deal to offer you."

There was a long, awkward silence, and Turane wasn't sure what he was
going to do if the Borg just left the way-the previous one had. Would he
simply wander the ship for the rest of his life, ignored, frustrated?
Relegated to some sort of non-person status? Unable to get a response
other than to be destroyed when interfering with some sort of ship
function? What sort of destiny was this? He, Daimon Turane, was intended
for greater things.

"Answer me, damn you!" shouted Turane. "I am a Daimon of the Ferengi,
and live or die, I will not be ignored! Do you hear me? I will not!"

And for the first time, the Borg soldier actually fixed him with a
glassy stare. There was no sound of acknowledgment, no verbal greeting,
but it was clear that, for the first time, the Borg was actually aware
of his presence as an individual. All of a sudden he wasn't sure that
that awareness was necessarily a good thing.

The Borg turned and started to walk away. Turane remained where he was,
uncertain of how best to proceed. Then the Borg stopped in its tracks,
turned,

and faced Turane once more. This time the message was unmistakable. The
Ferengi was to follow.

"All right," said Turane, with some measure of satisfaction. "This is
the sort of cooperation that can only be profitable for all of us."

He followed the Borg soldier, who preceded him with a stiff-limbed walk.
Turane looked around him as they went farther and farther into the heart
of the Borg ship. The place was a complete maze. If he needed to lind
his way back, he never would be able to. And he sensed that every square
inch of the ship was being used for some specific purpose. Absolutely
nothing was being left to waste. There was no need for pictures or
sculptures to break up the decor, or for differently colored walls, or
for anything other than total machine-precision. There was a certain...
inevitability about it all. As if anything caught up in the great gears
of the Borg mentality would be unceasingly, irrevocably ground up and
pulped into its essence.

There was a steady humming in front of him that was getting louder and
louder as he approached it. A power source, perhaps? Or something more?
He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything, really, except that matters
were spiralling out beyond his ability to control them.

First officer Martok drummed his fingers impatiently on the arms of the
command chair. The rest of the bridge crew waited for some sort of move
on his part, some indication of his intentions.

"Raise them," he said finally. "They've been silent for too long."

"No response, sir," said the tactical officer after a moment. "Not from
Daimon Turane, nor Darr, nor any of the guards."

Martok nodded slowly.

"I was afraid of that," he said. "It may be that Daimon Turane has met
with a... mishap."

It seemed to stretch out forever.

Turane stood on a ledge that overlooked what appeared to be some sort of
massive power core. The angles were confusing, the depth difficult to
register, but he was certain that he was perceiving something that was
miles wide and miles deep. There were Ferengi legends of a great pit
that led to a netherworld, down to which all Ferengi would be hurled at
the end of their lives. Waiting in that pit was a great entity which
would study the amount of business conducted in the recently deceased's
lifetime, and whether that life had ended on the profit or debit side.
The fate for all eternity would then be determined. Turane had the
hideous feeling that he was facing that judgment prematurely... or
perhaps it wasn't premature. Maybe he was dead and just hadn't
acknowledged it yet.

Borg soldiers now stood on either side of him, facing the great
presence. Yes, definitely, there was some sort of presence there.

And when it spoke to him, it seemed to echo not only in his ears, but in
his mind.

"We are the Borg," it announced. It wasn't one-voice. It was the voice
of thousands combined. And it seemed to speak, not just from within the
ship, but from somewhere beyond that, as if the ship were channeling
only some sort of greater intelligence.

Turane nodded slowly. In this, the most incredible situation he'd ever
been in, he found his thoughts spinning back to the most elementary
lessons he'd ever had in business dealings. Never let them see you're
uncertain. Never act as if you've been caught

unawares. Always act as if you're two steps ahead of the proceedings,
even if you're three steps behind. Confidence is everything. Arrogance
is everything. Any deal can be consummated if you act as if any deal can
be walked away from.

"And 'we'," said Turane, drawing himself up, "are Daimon Turane of the
Ferengi. If you want expertise on the science of the deal, and are
interested in chatting with one of the most accomplished negotiators in
the Ferengi empire, then I can be of use to you. If you are interested
in discussing some sort of deal--"

"Deal is irrelevant," boomed the voice of the Borg.

Turane tilted his head slightly. "I hardly think that the science of the
deal--"

"Deal is irrelevant," came the implacable voice. "Science is irrelevant.
What you think is irrelevant. We will use you."

"Use me?" said Turane.

"We had a voice," said the Borg. "A link to humans. That link was
severed. We will use another link. A voice to speak for the Borg. The
previous link was too strong-willed. We will use someone more easily
controlled."

"Who was your link?" asked Turane. Somehow he wasn't really expecting an
answer.

To his surprise, he got one. "The link was Locutus. Before he was
Locutus, he was Picard."

"Picard?" gasped Turane. "Jean-Luc Picard... of the Enterprise? And he
was your spokesman?"

"He malfunctioned. He will now be replaced."

"Spokesman," said Turane thoughtfully. "Yes, I rather like the sound of
that. To return to the Ferengi, with your might behind me... yes. Yes, I
think we can do business together." A slow smile spread across his face
as he contemplated the reaction of his accursed brother when he, the
despised Turane returned, backed up by the power of the all-powerful

Borg. "Of course, we have to discuss terms..."

"Terms are irrelevant;" "Now wait

"Discussion is irrelevant. You will be our voice. You will 'sell,' as
you phrased it. You will tell humanoids that they must bow to the Borg.
That they must surrender to the Borg. That the way of the Borg is the
only way."

"That's all fine," said Daimon Turane. "But there has to be something in
it for me. As long as we come to an understanding about--"

"Understanding is irrelevant."

"But I have needs--"

"Needs are irrelevant."

With mounting fury driven by rapidly spiralling fear, Turane said, "All
you've discussed is what you want. What about me?"

The response was not altogether unexpected; however, that made it no
less chilling.

"You are irrelevant."

Chapter Six

"MY GOD," .whispered Deanna. "Look at it."

They had seen examples of the Borg's handiwork before, but it never
failed to be an impressive and totally horrifying sight. There, in front
of them, was a planet that once had been home to a sprawling
civilization. Now it sat there, looking lifeless, gutted and pitted as
if a giant ice cream scoop had come down and served out huge dollops of
the planet.

"The rescue ship Curie is in orbit around Penzatti, sir," Worf said.
"Receiving an incoming transmission

from Dr. Terman."

"On screen."

Picard was familiar with Terman's work, and with Terman himself.
Although Terman carried the flag rank of Commodore, he rarely used the
rank (except when forced to pull it) himself and always preferred to be
addressed as "Doctor."

"The rank was given me," Picard had heard him quoted as saying once,
"but I had to work for the damned doctoring degree."

Whenever there was immediate need for rescue

services, Terman and his people seem to appear with almost preternatural
timing. Some said Terman had a low-grade telepathic ability that
unconsciously tipped him to trouble spots. He simply called it dumb
luck.

The screen flickered a moment, wiping away the hideous spectacle of the
Penzatti and replacing it with the lined, graying face of Doctor Terman.
Picard knew immediately what was going through the man's mind. Terman
was too much the veteran to allow any outward display of emotion, but
the haunted expression in his eyes upon coming face to face with the
horrific power of the Borg...

Picard knew that haunted look. It was in the eyes of the image that
stared at him every morning from the mirror when he shaved.

He forced himself into his full business mode. "Doctor, what is your
review of the situation?"

Terman nodded his head in the general direction of the planet below.
"Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Twice," said Picard. "Two more times than I would have liked."

"This planet has had it," said Terman. "I've had my people run a
projection." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if to physically shove
his brain into operational mode. Picard suspected the man hadn't slept
in days. "The amount of mass removed from the planet has irrevocably
altered the orbit, not to mention the fact that chunks of its atmosphere
were ripped away. This place is going to go from vacation spot to frozen
snowball."

"Shall we commence emergency evacuation procedures?" asked Picard.
Numerically it would not be a problem. The Enterprise, in a pinch, could
handle as many as nine thousand evacuees.

"If you recommend it."

Picard gave it a moment's thought. "How long before the orbital changes
impact on the climate?"

"Oh," Terman gave a dismissive wave, "months yet. Their years are 579
solar days long. I'd give it at least six solar months before this place
really begins to freeze over."

"Then I would be inclined to wait awhile," said Picard. He saw from the
corner of his eye Riker giving him a surprised look, but he continued
calmly, "If the Borg are in the area, or return shortly, we will
doubtlessly be engaging them."

"Yes, I've heard they're most engaging fellows," said Terman dryly. It
was the sort of gallows humor tossed around when people were faced with
situations too hideous to contemplate. An understandable defensive
device, if somewhat inappropriate, and Picard let the comment pass
unremarked.

"If that occurs, then being on the Enterprise may well be the equivalent
of stepping from the frying pan into the fire," continued Picard.
"However, if your medical facilities are--"

"Crammed," said Dr. Terman. "We're small and wiry on the Curie, but
we've got our limits, and this is exceeding them. I'll tell you,
Captain, before this we helped patch things together on Tri Epsilon
Delta, after a Tholian raid. That was a cakewalk, compared to this."

"We'll be more than happy to pitch in. In the meantime, the Chekov is on
her way as well. Within a few days you'll have more help than you can
handle."

"Ain't no such animal," said Terman. "I can use all the help I can get.
Look, Captain, I can't tell you how much I'd rather be chatting here
with you than overseeing this sweep-up operation, but--"

"Understood, Doctor. We'll be down presently to assist. Enterprise out."

The frowning image of Terman vanished to be replaced by, once again, the
cratered surface of Penzatti. Picard stared at it a moment more and then
said, "Number One, prepare an away team. Full medical personnel
complement, all shifts. We don't have a moment to lose."

"You want to accomplish as much as possible in the event the Borg
return?" said Riker.

Picard gave him a signifibant glance. "That is in the back of my mind."

"And moving up fast."

"Warp speed," affirmed Picard. "Mr. Chafin," he addressed the lieutenant
at conn. "Standard orbit."

"Aye, sir," said Chafin, and within moments the Enterprise was in a
graceful synchronous orbit, 35,000 kilometers above the scarred surface
of the planet. "Standard orbit, sir."

From the tactical display, Worf was scanning the area. "Sir," he said,
"sensors are detecting high traces of the types of weapons that were
discharged."

"Borg weaponry?" asked Picard. It seemed self-evident somehow. The
Romulans didn't exactly go around gutting planets. Who the hell else
could it be?

"Some trace of Borg, sir... but something else. I am also detecting some
debris that is definitely from the Borg ship."

"Debris," said Riker. "Then, it's {rue."

"The Borg have apparently met their match," agreed Picard. "Spectral
analysis of the debris, Mr. Worf. Cause of destruction?"

Worf looked up with a look of disbelief on his face, his eyes wide. If
there was one thing Worf understood,

even worshipped, it was power. Yet here was something that gave even the
Klingon pause. "A beam composed of pure anti-proton."

"Pure?" said Riker in astonishment. "A weapon of that magnitude could
destroy--"

"Anything," said Data. There was something even more chilling about the
way he said it--with that detached, calm, faintly mechanical air.
"Absolutely anything. It would sever castrodinium at the molecular
level. An anti-proton beam, at full strength, would not be slowed by our
shields at all."

That analysis hung in the air for a moment. Then Picard said, very
quietly, "It would definitely appear we have a new player on the ball
field. And he is wielding a considerably formidable bat."

The landing party, composed of Riker, Geordi, Data, Crusher, Doctor
Selar, and ten medtechs, each fully loaded with gear, materialized on
the one section of the planet that had remained intact after the Borg
attack. It'was a section roughly eight hundred miles in diameter,
although a good portion of that consisted of woodlands and undisturbed
nature. The Penzatti, as technically advanced as they were, still had
an appreciation for the beauty that only nature could provide. It only
added to the tragedy of their world's fate that the Borg had no such
considerations.

All around them the rescue teams from the Curie were hard at work.
Buildings had tumbled over, bodies lay strewn about, and death still
hung in the air, an uninvited and unwelcome guest at the proceedings.
The valiant Curie teams were doing everything they could to reduce the
number of individuals forced to shake hands with that dreaded and final
visitor.

Riker was a long-time, seasoned professional. He remembered the first
time he had beamed down into

the middle of a disaster area. Orion raiders had attacked a Federation
outpost. He was fresh out of the Academy, confident in his training and
certain that he could handle whatever he was confronted with. When he
had materialized on the surface of the outpost, he came to the immediate
realization that he was standing in something warm, with an overwhelming
smell. He looked down and saw his left boot astride some sort of pink
tubing. Suddenly, he realized that it was, in fact, the lower intestines
of a disembowled victim of the raiders, the rest of the victim lying
nearby with a bleak expression on his dead face.

It was Riker's first direct experience with the brutality that sentient
beings could inflict on each other. It was also his first direct
experience with completely losing control, as he doubled over and
vomited up his lunch in front of fellow crewmembers. He still remembered
being bent over, his back trembling, staring in humiliation at the mute
testament to his inexperience. And then he felt the reassuring and yet
firm pat on the shoulders of his commanding officer. "We've all been
there," said his CO, and Riker felt a little better, but not much.

Since then Riker had developed a veneer of detachment. That part of him
that was horrified by what he witnessed was buried far, far within him,
where it could not possibly interfere with his ability to function as a
Starfleet officer. In a way the thought that he could just take his
emotions and put them on hold, and not be affected by what he saw, was a
frightening one. How easy was it to take that one step further and
detach oneself 'from the concerns of humanity altogether? Were the Borg
an inhuman race apart, or were they the logical and inevitable destiny
of humanity?

Riker promptly decided that he would make himself nuts if he allowed his
thoughts to continue in that

direction. "Spread out," he said. "Lend aid where you can. All medical
personnel are to stay in constant touch with Doctor Crusher and, Doctor,
I want updates from you every half hour." She nodded in quick agreement
and moved off. Geordi, Riker, and Data headed off in another direction,
accompanied by Selar.

As they moved through the devastation, they were surrounded by cries of
"Help me," and moans, and words of encouragement and support from the
Curie teams. Every so often Riker spotted one of the Enterprise
personnel as well. He nodded in approval. Crusher had displayed her
customary efficiency in deploying her people.

Geordi was scanning the ground, the buildings, the very air around him
with his VISOR. Data was studying his tricorder readings and then paused
a moment over one patch of ground. "A Borg soldier died here," he
announced.

"Died, or whatever the hell it is they do," said Riker. He had witnessed
the phenomenon himself enough times: A downed Borg soldier lies
insensate, and then another Borg comes along, removes some pieces of his
circuitry, and the fallen Borg self-destructs into ash.

Geordi, sensing trace readings through his VISOR, commented, "And over
there too," and he pointed. "These people didn't go down without a
struggle."

"I'm detecting life readings from that direction," said Selar, studying
her medical tricorder. The Vulcan medical officer pointed just off to
the west. "One individual. Vital signs are low, and fluctuating."

The away team moved off in the direction that she had indicated. Within
moments they were walking

a street that was filled with the same sorts of crumbled buildings and
debris as all the others they had passed.

Geordi's VISOR and Selar's tricorder detected him at roughly the same
time, and together they pointed and said, "There."

There was a mound of dirt that had been obscuring the body and when they
got there they found out why. It seemed as if someone had been in the
process of burying this particular member of the Penzatti. A very
shallow grave, not more than a few inches deep, and a couple feet
around, had been dug. The Penzatti was a male and was lying on his
stomach, halfway in, face to the side. Jammed into the back of his belt
were two Penzatti blasters. The Penzatti's antenna was twitching ever so
slightly as Selar ran her trioorder over him.

"Alive. Just barely." She pulled a hypo from her medkit and injected it
into his upper arm. "That should stabilize him. He has a broken leg,
multiple contusions and abrasions."

Riker started to reach for him to turn him over, and Selar said sharply,
"Moving him in any way would be most unadvisable, Commander."

Immediately the first officer withdrew, chagrined that he had forgotten
that most elementary of first aid procedures. At that moment, however,
the Penzatti

moaned softly and half lifted his head himself. The first person he saw
was Data.

He gasped and tried to reach around for his blasters, but he had no
strength. When he realized he had no defense, his
head dropped back down into the dirt and he moaned softly.

"I am not here to harm you, sir," said Data calmly. "I am with
Starfleet."

"You're safe now," affirmed Riker.

The Penzatti did not lift his head. Instead, he said softly, "Safe," and
then he started to laugh. It was a low and ugly sound, a sound of
bitterness and derision that grew louder and louder, practically a
demented cackle.

"Sir," began Riker, "we're from the Enterprise..." He wasn't heard. The
Penzatti was laughing even more loudly, gasping out, "Safe! Safe!" as if
it were the funniest thing he'd ever heard. And then his laughter began
to subside, replaced by choking sobs, and he skidded from giddiness to
misery and hopelessness, all within a few seconds.

Selar was monitoring his vitals, waiting for them to stabilize, and
ministering to his leg as she did so. She was a cautious medical
practitioner, and she disliked having to move a patient whose lifesigns
were fluctuating, if she didn't have to. The transporter had an effect
on the bodily system, that much was certain. For a healthy individual,
that effect was negligible. But for someone in bad shape, it could be a
shock that could send a patient into critical condition. She was certain
that with a couple of minute's work, she could
stabilize the patient to ensure a safe trip.

"What's your name?" asked Riker.

"I am..." He seemed to pause to try and remember. "I am Dantar. I was
Dantar the Eighth. Now I am Dantar the Last. All I am and will ever be,
in that one, useless name."

"It looked like someone tried to bury you," Geordi said.

"Dantar the most useless," said Dantar. His voice was eerily singsong.
"Dantar whose family died, a few yards away, and he couldn't help them.
Couldn't help them."

"He did that himself," said Selar, in response to
Geordi's comment. "His fingernails are encrusted with dirt and sludge. He
tried to bury himself."

"You tried to dig your own grave?" asked Riker, horrified and curious at
the same time.

"There is no point in my continuing to live," said Dantar. "I have
nothing. It's simply time for me to crawl into my grave and rot there.
There's nothing. Nothing."

"What did you see?" asked Riker. "Who attacked?"

"Commander, now may not be the best time," began Selar.

But Riker cut her off sharply. "When it comes to the Borg, Doctor, we
never have any idea just how much time we have."

"The Borg," said Dantar distantly. "Is that what they're called? Those
pale creatures with machines for souls. One went into my house. It
killed my little girl. It killed my family. Borg."

"Someone stopped them," said Riker urgently. "Someone fought them and
stopped them and destroyed their ship. Did they send down any ground
troops? Did you see anyone besides the Borg?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Who?" asked Riker.

"I saw Death," said Dantar, as distractedly as ever. "She was standing
right over there, sweeping through my family. Holding the glowing orbs
of their souls in her hand and then smothering them. Then she glided
across the street... she seemed to walk, but you couldn't hear her
footfall. And she went from one person to the next." Tears began to roll
down his face. "I tried to persuade her to take me. Tried to put myself
into a grave so that she would know. But she ignored
me."

"Dantar," began Riker.

But Dantar wasn't listening. "You know... our culture has always
depicted Death as a grim, fearful figure. Dark. Hideous, with a skull
face. Skeletal."

"As has ours, frequently," said Geordi.

"But she wasn't. I was very surprised," said Dantar. His voice seemed to
be fading, exhaustion paralyzing his ability to think. As if from far
away, he said, "She was a very young girl. With a white dress, skipping.
And she was smiling. You know why that is, I think?"

"Why?" said Selar. She was preparing to order Dantar beamed up to the
Enterprise. She was satisfied that his lifesigns were stable enough now
that he could handle the transporter with no danger. "Why is that?"

He looked thoughtful. "I suppose she simply likes her work. In such
dangerous times, that's nice to see. Don't you think?"

After Dantar and Selar had returned to the Enterprise, Riker said
thoughtfully, "He said a Borg soldier went into his house over there.
Let's check it out. Perhaps someone even survived." He took a step in
that direction and then paused and removed his phaser. He looked
significantly at the others. "Just in case there's a Borg in there."

"Couldn't be," said Geordi. "Their ship was destroyed. If their ship
goes, they go. Their link is severed."

"If there's one thing we shouldn't be doing, it's underestimating the
Borg," Riker warned him. "That's a good way to achieve early and
terminal unemployment."

"I catch your drift, sir," said Geordi, pulling out his own phaser. Data
did likewise.

Slowly they approached the house, noting that the roof had caved in, and
the chances of anyone surviving were nil. There was also an unpleasant
smell, that same smell that brought back to Riker memories of that awful
first time he had seen death on a large scale. Now he shoved it away,
determined to ignore it. He was far more than he had been that day. And in
some ways, he thought, far less.

Geordi peered in through the darkened doorway, taking in the carnage. It
was times like this that made-him glad that--despite the dazzling
abilities of his VISOR-augmented sight--he could not really "see." He
shook his head and said, "There's a lot of dead people in here,
Commander."

Riker was checking his tricorder. "Not picking up any life." In a way,
he was relieved. He didn't really want to have to look at them. It
wasn't going to do the deceased any good, and it sure wasn't going to
help his peace of mind. "Let's go."

But Geordi put up a hand. "Wait. I'm getting something. Not a life form,
but... something."

Double-checking his tricorder, Riker said, "Whatever you're seeing, it's
still not picking up. Are you sure your VISOR isn't malfunctioning?"

Without glancing back, La Forge said calmly, "Are you sure your eyes
aren't malfunctioning?"

"Just a suggestion, Mr. La Forge," said Riker. Privately he thought it
interesting that, even after all this time, Geordi La Forge could still
be a bit sensitive about his eyesight.

With a sly imitation of Picard's accent, Geordi said, "Noted and
logged." Then, all business, he said firmly, "It's over there."

He was pointing toward a pile of rubble in a corner of the room. The
three men immediately went over to it, trying not to think about the
bodies they were stepping over. Riker had to force himself to look away
from the horrific sight of a small girl, her skull clearly crushed, in
the arms of her mother who had died mere

identified something that could be hostile, and Worf wanted to make sure
that he knew what to shoot, should there be a problem. Indeed, some
might say that the Klingon had a terminal case of itchy trigger
finger--terminal for whomever the phaser was pointed at.

"That's him," said Riker. "Although it seems at the moment we have
everything in hand."

"Then I shall be here in case they get out of hand," said Worf firmly,
and that was clearly that.

Riker moved around to where Geordi was standing, having heard Geordi's
muttering of discovery. "What have you got, Mr. La Forge?"

"Take a look at this," said Geordi, and he pointed to the Borg's upper
arm.

Riker leaned forward and frownedi "What is that... ? A kitchen knife or
something?"

"That's right," agreed La Forge. "See here? Somebody jammed it into the
components right here," and his finger traced the area in the air just
above. "It didn't stop the Borg. Didn't kill him. But it scrambled
him real good. And I think it saved his life."

"I'm not following," admitted Riker.

Worf was frowning, which was not unusual, but this was deeper than the
norm. "I do not understand, either. How could an attempt to kill it, in
fact, save it?"

Rather than answer Worf's question directly, Data said, "I believe that
Geordi is correct. This component here, just above the trapezius, isw"

"Hold it," said Riker, and again he tapped his communicator. Under
ordinary circumstances, and even extraordinary ones, Riker felt no
compunction in handling everything himself. But the Borg, and anything
having to do with them, was a special case, and Riker wanted to keep his
commanding officer absolutely current with every development, as it was
happening. "Rikerto Captain."

"Yes, Number One," came Picard's voice.

"We found a Borg soldier. Alive."

"Alive?" Picard was clearly astonished. Small wonder. No living being
had as much personal experience with the Borg as Picard did, and he knew
the unlikelihood of such a discovery. "How is that possible?"

"If you'll keep this line open, I believe Mr. La Forge and Mr. Data were
about to inform us of that." He then nodded his head in the direction of
his two officers.

"There is a kitchen knife," said Data, for benefit of Picard, who
couldn't see it, "protruding from one of the parts that is removed from
Borg soldiers when they are disabled. We have theorized that this
component--situated on the upper arm, just above the trapeziuswwas what
kept the Borg soldiers in touch with their central mind. This particular
component would send a steady relay message to the central mind, and the
central mind would, in turn, relay a message back. It was a continuous
loop, and when the component was removed... either from the Borg
soldier, or by means of destruction of the origin point .... the loop
would be severed and the soldier would be destroyed."

"A very Alexandrian solution to a Gordian problem," commented Picard.

"This technology, as advanced as it is, apparently didn't take into
account something as primitive as a kitchen knife," Geordi now
continued. "It's a total fluke. One-in-a-million shot. I think what
happened is that the knife jammed into the circuits, scrambled them, and
created a continuous feed loop right within the Borg soldier himself.
Basically, he sends out a steady message for instructions and then
answers himself. But he can't give himself instructions, so essentially he's a
blank slate. He's sitting and waiting for some sort of acknowledgment
that just isn't coming, because he's the beginning and the end of his
own little world."

"He has no idea that their ship was destroyed," said Riker.

"Not a clue. He's a circuit to nowhere," Geordi told him.

"And if we remove the knife? Or the component?"

Geordi waved his hands like a magician's. "Then
pfoof Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

"Amen," said Riker.

"I want him brought up here," said Picard.

"I would not advise that, sir," Worf said sternly. "If he
self-destructs, he could pose a threat to whoever is near."

"No, he won't," said Picard sharply. Perhaps a little too sharply,
becauSe he sounded slightly calmer as he continued, "We know what
happens when they destroy themselves. They've done it in our presence
any number of times. The Borg waste nothing, including the energy for
some pyrotechnically impressive explosion.. I want him up here and, if
possible, salvaged."

"Yes sir," said Riker. "We'll be right up. Riker out." Geordi was
staring at the Borg's face. It was one of the oddest things he had ever
seen. Alive, yet dead. He started to reach out to touch the warrior's
face, and Worf immediately grabbed Geordi's Wrist. La Forge looked up in
surprise.

"I would not advise it," Worf said with a firmness that indicated this
was far more than advice.

Yet Geordi couldn't help but look down. '?I think the captain's right. I
think there might be something salvageable here. There's something
that... I don't know, I can't put my finger on it."

"i'm sure the captain will be relieved to know you agree with him, Mr.
La Forge," said Riker as he tapped his communicator. "Riker to
transporter room. Seven to beam up."

"Another survivor?" came O'Brien's voice. These days, no matter how
difficult the situation, he sounded inordinately cheerful. Marriage was
wearing well on him.

Geordi stared thoughtfully at the Borg soldier. The soldier stared back
up at him with unseeing eyes. And even if those eyes could see him,
Geordi wouldn't be able to tell. He could see thermal readings to the
precise centigrade, but he couldn't see a person's expression.

"Not another survivor," said Geordi thoughtfully. "Another victim."

Picard sat on the bridge, staring at the savaged planet below them, and
yet only part of his mind was on it. The rest was dwelling on Guinan's
mishap earlier. And the word she had supposedly been muttering in
Riker's arms. The word that she could not remember having said.

Vendor.

It made no sense. And yet, somehow, it nagged at him.

He felt as if he should know it or understand it. He felt as if it
should have some sort of significance to him.

It tickled and probed at his subconscious. He leaned back in his chair
for a moment, then stood. The bridge crew watched him, waiting patiently
for some new order, but none was forthcoming.

Vendor.

That wasn't it. He knew without knowing why that wasn't it. And he
also knew, without knowing why, that the truth was buried somewhere in his
mind. There was something he had long forgotten, something that he should be
remembering but couldn't, or wouldn't. It nagged at him, poked and
prodded him, frustrated and infuriated him. Vendor. Ven...

"Damn," he said in'quiet frustration.

Chapter Seven

THE STARSHIP Repulse slowed to impulse when the sensors detected
something entering the outskirts of the Kalish star system. The Repulse
had simply been passing through, on their way to Howell 320 with a
couple of Federation ambassadors aboard, hot to defuse a potential civil
war on that strife-worn planet. The war was on the verge of breaking out
because of a cure to a plague that was being withheld by the government,
in hopes that the unfriendly factions would do them the service of
dropping dead from it. The unfriendly factions were getting unfriendlier
by the day, even the hour.

Now, however, concerns over a civil war were quite secondary. Especially
when Captain Ariel Taggert saw the readings that were coming through on
the preliminary sensors.

"I don't assume," she said grimly, "that we might have, say, a large
spider crawling across the sensor dish somehow. Or perhaps something
equally innocuous to explain this away," she added, brushing her thick
red hair out of her face.

"Captain," affirmed the ops officer, "I wish I could.
This thing we're picking up... it's hundreds of miles long. And heading
our way."

Just to make matters all the more irritating, Taggert's communicator
beeped. She touched it and said, not especially patiently, "Yes?"

"We've stopped," came the annoyed voice of a woman.

Taggert sighed. "No, Doctor, we have not stopped. We've gone to impulse
drive,"

"That's as good as stopping."

"Doctor, instead of wasting time chatting with me, I think it'd be in
your best interest to get sickbay prepared. We may have a problem on our
hands."

"Problem? A larger problem than helping those people on Howell 320?"

"Yes, Doctor Pulaski, a considerably larger problem. Shall we say--to
give you an idea--a problem a few thousand times larger than the ship
you were serving on before you returned to us?"

There was dead silence for a moment. "The Enterprise is over two
thousand feet in length. Something thousands of times bigger..  that's
monstrous."

"Very good, Doctor," said Taggert. Damn. Pulaski was a superb doctor,
and Taggert had been thrilled when she'd been reassigned to the Repulse,
the ship she'd left to join the Enterprise crew. But blast, she could be
difficult to deal with sometimes. "Now, you get ready to do your job,
because if that thing is hostile, we're going to have more casualties
than you know what to do with." She didn't bother to add that chances
were, the entire ship would be a casualty, if push came to shove.

She didn't have to say it, and Pulaski didn't have to ask about it.
Instead, she said simply, "I read you. Sickbay out."

Taggert turned back to face the screen, although her eyes had never
fully strayed from it. "Sensors and viewscreen on maximum," she said slowly.
"Go to yellow alert."

The shields came up, and the Repulse proceeded cautiously forward.

The Enterprise sickbay doors hissed open and Pi-card entered. He slowed
enough to give quick, understanding, and sympathetic nods to those
members of the Penzatti race that had been brought to the Enterprise for
treatment. As Dr. Terman had mentioned, the Curie abilities were already
overtaxed.

He walked past one Penzat[i who reached up and grabbed his arm as he
went by. "Are you the captain?" he asked urgently.

Picard gently disengaged the strong grasp from his forearm. "I am
Captain Picard, yes. If you'll excuse me for a--"

"I am called Dantar," he said. Although he had been mended and was
resting comfortably, the damage done to his body and to his spirit was
clearly evident. "I am afraid that I did not conduct myself especially
well when dealing with your men. They were exceptionally patient with me
while I was in my... delirium. I appreciate that, and wanted to commend
them."

"I will relay that to them," said Picard, trying to hide his impatience.
For all his skills, no one had ever accused him of having a superb
bedside manner.

"Are we still in orbit around Penzatti?"

"For the time being."

"Good." Dantar let his head fall back. "There's nothing there for me,
and yet I can't bring myself to want to leave it just yet." He looked
back up at Picard. "My blasters. My twin Keldin blasters. Your man Worf
removed them from my person as soon as I was brought onto the ship.
Where are they?"

"Doubtlessly, they're in the armory. They'll be there for safekeeping."

"They'll be safest with me. We Penzatti value our weapons very highly,"
said Dantar. "Those Keldin blasters were passed on through my family,
father to son. They are extremely powerful. They could punch a hole
through the side of your ship."

"Then they are definitely staying locked up," said Picard firmly. "I'm
sorry, Dantar, but that's the way it will be. There will be no risk of
puncturing of my ship."

"But Captain--"

"Excuse me," said Picard, and he turned and walked into a private examining
room.

There he saw a formidable sight.

For a moment his heart leaped into his throat and took a choke hold
there. It was the first time he'd been confronted by a Borg since his
hideous encounter in which he'd been transformed into a mechanized
puppet of his former self. He had dreaded this moment, but now that it
was here, he realized that the worry had been larger than the actual
encounter. Now, when he was finally facing the creature that haunted his
dreams, and had caused him to wake up screaming three times in the past
months, he saw no threat. He saw only an object to be pitied.

At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

The Borg soldier was strapped to a vertical biobed, the one that, mere
months ago, Locutus of Borg had been on. The biobed was lowered into
place, and the soldier was staring straight ahead. Staring might not
have even been the right word, for staring implied that some action was
being taken. The Borg's eyes simply happened to be pointing in that
direction.

Unlike the more limited medical tricorders, the biobed was capable of
giving a full medical readout,

even on the hard-to-scan Borg. Beverly Crusher was studying them
carefully. Nearby were Geordi, Data, and Riker.

The side of Data's head was open, exposing a complex array of circuitry.

"I don't know if this neural link is going to work, Data," Crusher was
saying. "The microcircuitry integrated into the skin of this soldier is
far more extensive than what we dealt with in the case of... Captain,"
she said, seeing him for the first time.

He said nothing, merely nodded his head slightly, and then slowly
circled the unmoving Borg warrior. The others stood respectfully silent,
aware of the thoughts running through the captain's mind. Aware of the
private horror that he was, to some degree, reliving.

"So the interactive circuits are interacting with them,selves, eh?" the
captain said after a time.

"Looks that way, sir," said Geordi. "Data was hoping to get around it
the way he did with youruby severing the link on a neural level."

"It won't work," repeated Crusher firmly. "This soldier is too far gone.
At least with the captain, there was still some Jean-Luc Picard helping
us, fighting to come back to us. There's nothing here, though."

"I don't agree," said Geordi. He could not understand the feeling of
curiosity that was overwhelming him every time he looked at the Borg
soldier. Of course, he remembered what curiosity did to the proverbial
cat, but he didn't care. He was determined to figure out just what it
was he found so fascinating about this individual. "I think it's worth
the risk."

"The risk," said Crusher, "is that if we make a wrong move or we don't
figure out a way to deal with this built-in self-destruct
mechanism--we're going to wind up with one dead Borg."

"There's someone trapped in there, Doctor," said Picard fervently. "I
concur with Mr. La Forge. We cannot stand idly by while some poor devil
is being held prisoner to microcircuitry and implanted hardware." He
stared straight into the glassy, unblinking eyes. "There is a man in
there who is screaming to get OUt."

"I seriously doubt that," said Crusher, her arms folded.

Picard's eyes narrowed as he said, "It's most unusual, Doctor, for you
to be poorly stocked in the compassion department."

"It has nothing to do with being. stocked," she said. "There's no man in
there screaming to get out."

"You cannot say that for certain," Picard told her. "Yes, I can."

"How?"

"Because," said Crusher, pointing at the Borg soldier, "that's a woman."

Captain Ariel Taggert, with her keen eyesight and unparalleled abilities
of concentration, saw it first. She pointed and said, "Thar she blows.
Magnification six, ops."

The screen shimmered briefly and then reformed.

The entity was now on their screen. It was huge. And it was hungry.

And it was eating.

, There was a dead silence on the bridge, and the man at corm said
finally, "Holy shit." Then, suddenly aware that his captain did not
approve of such language, especially on the bridge, he added quickly,
"Sorry, Captain."

But Taggert just shook her head slowly. "No, it's okay, Mr. Seth.
Frankly, I can't think of a better way to describe it." She leaned
forward, trying not to

remind herself that its immensity was frightening, considering the
distance they still were from it. Part of her--the intelligent part, no
doubtmdeafiy would have loved to increase that distance a hundredfold.
"What in the blazes is it doing? It's..."

"'Carving up that planet," said Seth slowly. "And ... and eating it. And
it looks like it's got a .big appetite."

"Is it... is it the Borg?" asked the tactical officer. Taggert studied
them for a moment. "This thing," she said, finally, "makes the Borg look
like tribbles."

"A woman?" said Geordi in confusion. "But there

are no Borg women! At least, no one's ever seen one."

"When we first encountered the Borg, we found where they were... grown,"
said Data. "Their nursery, so to speak, where Borgs are grown and
affixed, almost immediately, with machine parts. There were no females."

"Are you sure there's no mistake, Doctor?" asked Picard.

"No mistake," said Crusher firmly. "They may have made hash of her DNA
structure, but I can still see two x chromosomes with the best of them.
I'm telling you, this Borg is female."

"The point is," said Picard, "what do we do about it?"

"I believe," said Data, "that I can restructure her neural motorways in
a way that will reduce her interactive circuit to a simple, single
pulse, generated on a steady basis. As it is, she keeps awaiting
instructions that will not be forthcoming. It renders her immobile. By
creating a continuous loop within her interactive circuitry, I would be
providing her with the illusion that she is receiving a response from
the

because it knew that the planet was lifeless... or if the planet was
simply the first one that it encountered. Slow to half impulse. Give me
information, people."

"We've been scanning it, Captain," said Seth. "The hull is neutronium,
making detailed sensor readings impossible."

"Best guess?"

"Mechanical device of some sort. Perhaps some ' sort of artificial
intelligence, although for all we know, there's life forms aboard.
Difficult to be certain."

"Open a hailing frequency."

"A hailing frequency," said the tactical officer, Goodman. "To that
thing?"

"If there's a humanoid mind or minds behind it, I want to talk to it,"
said Taggert firmly. She could understand her officer's surprise! This
thing didn't look like a ship. This thing looked like nothing she had
ever seen before. Foremost was a Wide circular opening in the front,
like a huge, gaping mouth. It was miles wide, like an entrance way to a
tunnel that led straight down to hell. From within there were
flickerings of some ungodly light, like unseen demons dancing around a
towering pyre. The thing then immediately angled straight down, the
mouth projecting forward while the rest of the body spiralled down at a
ninety-degree angle to it. It twisted and turned all the way to the
bottom, looking for all the world like some sort of spacegoing cyclone.
The most noticeable feature, however, was the huge series of projections
that extended from all over the exterior. They were longest and most
densely packed around the maw, huge pointed towers miles high that came
to points, packed so densely that they overlapped. Yet there was a
symmetry to them, a sense of deadly beauty and purpose. With the
combination of VENDETTA the flickering within the maw itself, and the
dazzling projections so thickly set around the mouth, it gave the
impression of a massive, moving, highly stylized starburst. A mobile
sun, consuming whatever was in its path. Scattered along the rest of the
cyclonic image were more of the huge, spike-like projections. They stuck
out at odd angles, in all directions. Any one of them looked capable of
skewering a planet through to the core, or smashing through starships
with no trouble< It meant that an attacking ship couldn't even get in
close. "Sir, having trouble getting through," reported Goodman. "We're
getting some sort of subspace interference. It'll take me a minute to
punch through."

"Can you inform Starfleet of what's going on?"

"Negative, sir. We have local communication, but there's too much
interference to go beyond the solar system." Taggert sat back in the
command chair, steepling her fingers. A planet-devouring ship.
Neutronlure hull. SUbspace interference. Damn, it all sounded familiar
somehow. "Mr. Seth," she began, "check Starfleet logs for--"

"Captain, we're getting a response!" The surprise in Goodman's voice was
clear. "On visual."

"No visual transmission."

"Audio; then." There was a pause, and then them was a voice... a
combination of voices. A symphony of voices. "Yes?" it said. Insanely,
it sounded almost polite, as if going about Consuming planets was simply
standard operating procedure. . Taggert licked her suddenly dry lips and
said, "This

is Captain Taggert of the starship Repulse." She paused, waiting for
some response, some replying identification.

Instead, the huge planet-destroyer simply hung there. Chunks of rubble
were being hungrily scooped up by means of what appeared to be a tractor
beam.

?And?" said the voice finally. It seemed even vaguely amused somehow.

"Identify yourself," said Taggert.

'/Why?"

"Because," Taggert said, using annoyance to cover her deep-seated
conviction that they were in way over their heads, "I wish to know the
name of the individual, or individuals, who believe that they can just
go about the galaxy, destroying planets with impunity."

There was a silence. And then the voice spoke again. "You describe the
Borg," it said.

"You are not one of the Borg," said Taggert.'

"No. But they are the destroyers. They operate with impunity. We will
stop them, though. I will stop them."

"You just destroyed a planet!" said Taggert. "What makes you any
better?"

"There was no life. We needed the fuel. I needed the fuel. We are
hungry. Hungry for fuel. Vengeance fuels

our hatred, but the body needs fuel of a different sort."

"And if there had been life?"

"There was none."

''But if there were?" Taggert said, this time with increased urgency.

"Then they would die. It does not matter. Nothing matters except
stopping the Borg. The soulless ones. For if they are not stopped, then
truly nothing will matter."

"I must ask you," said Taggert firmly, "as a duly authorized
representative of Starfleet, to remain

where you are. We cannot permit you to continu on your present course."

"You cannot stop me." -

"We will do what we have to."

"If what you have to do is die, then that is what you will do. We would
regret that. But if it is necessary, then it is necessary. Nothing must
stop me from destroying the Borg."

"Captain, communications have been cut off," said Goodman.

"It's finished consuming the planet," said Seth. "It's... it's heading
for the next one." He looked up in alarm. "Captain... there's a small
colony on Kalish VIII--three hundred people."

Taggert bolted to her feet. "Hard about, Mr. Seth. Alert all transporter
rooms. Emergency evacuation about to commence. Raise the 'colonists."

"They hailed us, Captain. They're coming on now." On the screen appeared
the panicked face of a colonist. His skin had turned as white as the
thin hair on his head. "Repulse, come in!" he was saying urgently. They
could see, behind him, people running about frantically, screaming,
waving their arms. "This is Astra colony on Kalish VIII. Come in!"

"We're reading you, Astra," said Taggert, the voice and picture of calm.

"Our planetary sensors are reading--"

"We know," she said. "We'll be there in no time. Get your people
together--transportation will go faster if we can do you in large
masses. And pray," she added, "that what's coming toward you is full
from its most recent meaL"

The Borg soldier lay in the biobec[, the implants glistening metal all
over her skin and, insanely, the

knife still sticking out of her arm. Dr. Crusher was
studying the implants carefully, shaking her head.

"Machine parts, attached to people against their
will," she was muttering. "Tapping into your body
and soul. It's like cybernetic rape."

Data had finished putting the connectors from his
own positronic mind to the appropriate connections on the Borg.

Geordi stood nearby, making some last-minute adjustments.

"Data, you sure about this." he asked.

Data looked at him with as close to puzzlement as
he could muster. "Of course not, Geordi," he said.

"One can only be sure if there is no possibility of
error,-and all factors are known. With the Borg,
neither condition is met." .

"You sure know how to instill a sense of security, mumbled Geordi, going
back to his work.

Deanna Troi stood nearby, feeling helpless and useless. She was reaching
out as much as she could to the helpless woman in the biobed, but there
was simply nothing there Troi was perceiving no sense of awareness, no
sense of self, no nothing. It was as if the
biobed were empty.

I am ready to proceed, said Data quietly.

Crusher stepped aside to keep a close eye on the life
signs. "Ready on this end," she said.

"Proceeding," said Data, and he lapsed into silence.

No one spoke, and there was no sound except for a
soft, gentle humming of circuitry. All the normal
sounds of sickbay abruptly seem magnified beyond all
roportion. Troi looked at Crusher, who glanced at
her and then looked at Geordi. La Forge, for his part,
kept a steady watch on all the important circuitry.

have located the neural path that maintains
contact with the Borg central mind," Data said finally. "It appears to
be generating a steady [low of electrons which, due to the disruption in
the circuitry, are being
rerouted and returned to the programming. It will be necessary to
continue this loop, or else the immediate destruction of the soldier will
result." He suddenly paused and then said, "She is aware of my
presence."

"Vitals are fluctuating," said Beverly.

"I still sense nothing," Troi commented.

"She is aware," said Data. "On a rudimentary level, She senses that I am
within her frame of reference."

"Does she know she's severed from the Borg?" said Geordi.

"No, and she must not find out. Not at this point in the procedure,"
Data said. "Otherwise, it would trigger her self-destruct mechanism...
as would any attempt by you, Geordi, to remove her self-destruct
mechanism. There are enough redundant fail-safes within her that you
could never disarm her without causing her to disintegrate. Only by
integrating override commands directly into her directives--while
simultaneously preventing her from taking self-destruction action--can
she be safely recovered." Data lapsed back into silence.

"Her vital signs are all over the place," said Beverly, and then warning
tones began to sound from the life scanners. She started to prepare a
hypo, and as she did so, Deanna looked at her with concern.

"Is that wise?" said Troi.

"I don't honestly know," said Crusher, "but I have to do something. We
can lose the body while he's working with the mind."

"I am processing through preliminary stages of setting up a
self-ansWering signal," said Data.

"Pulse is racing," said Crusher. "Heart rate is racing."

"Data..." Geordi began.

"Body temperature increasing," Beverly noted. Then her voice went up
with alarm as she said,

"increasing dramatically. Data, she's starting to heat up!"

"It's a fail-safe, Data," said Geordi. "She's going to combust! Her
anti-tampering imperative is kicking in!"

"There are primary alert systems built in," said Data calmly. "I am
proceeding to override them."

"Body temperature still increasing," reported Crusher. "I'm going to try
and slow down her metabolism," and she started to press the hypo
against the Borg's arm.

"That is not advisable," Data said.

Geordi could see the air around the Borg woman, through his VISOR,
changing from blue to orange. "Data, she's going to go up! And she's
going to take you with her! Her surface temperature is rising. The air

Data was no longer listening.

Instead, all the impulses of his brain were racing through the Borg
soldier, with literally the speed of thought.

He was being pulled down, down a long, spiralling stairway. A maze of
cross-circuiting and pure, unaffected, undiluted order. Humans were a
tangle of emotions, all intertwined and all endlessly trying to sort
each other out and never coming close to succeeding. It was an existence
that Data envied, a consummation to be desired. Yet here, here was an
alternative that almost seemed to be calling to him and summoning him.
Icy tendrils seemed to lick at his positronic brain, savor his impulses,
and salivate hungrily over his thoughts. You are primitive, they seemed
to say, but you can be used. You can be part of us. You can join with
us...

And Data realized that he was encountering some
vestigial memory of the great Borg mind. The overwhelming uniformity of
purpose, the purity of the concept, so engrained into the deepest
engrams of the mind that even a brain that was a virtual tabula rasa
could not completely divest itself.

He did not reply. He could not reply. And yet, to save the life of this
Borg soldier, he had to reply. He had to insinuate himself within.

His positronic brain reached down and through, into the depths of the
Borg imperative. It swept over him--a black tide, and the sounds of
gears turning 'and a steady, implacable thudding. A thudding like a
pendulum swinging steadily, or the sounds of a million boots marching in
perfect precision, tromping across the galaxy, leaving their great
heeled prints behind them in the form of scooped-out planets and ravaged
lives.

He submerged himself in it, hiding the integrity of his own programming
while, at the same time, fighting to maintain it. He played a dangerous
game. So many ways to fail: If the Borg soldier destroyed herself, his
mind might go with it. Or if he lost his grip on the integrated
individual that was Data, his matrix could be overwhelmed and replaced
with that of the Borg.

It filled him up: the Borg mentality, the Borg identity, the Borg
mission and the pure, undying, unwavering conviction that they would
triumph; that they were the future. There was, quite simply, no doubt in
their collective mind. No room for error. No chance of concern or
questioning, of failure. There would be no failure. The Borg would
triumph.

The Borg reached into every aspect of Data. They. were inescapable and
had spread themselves throughout the soldier's body and soul like a
malignant cancer that could never be excised.

Human life is chaos. Machine life is order. Order is preferable to
chaos. To make humans one with the Borg is to give them order. The Borg
will provide order. The Borg will remove the human chaos. The Borg are
inevitable.

And it made sense. If Data were capable of being frightened, he would
have been. It made such perfect sense. Humans were chaos. Humans
wallowed in theirchaos. They enjoyed it... enjoyed it.
Of course.

No enjoyment, said Data, and his own programming began to reassert
itself. There would be no enjoyment. Humans revel in their humanity.

Enjoyment is irrelevant. Humanity is irrelevant.

No, said Data. A light of pure truth seemed to shine before him. That is
the only relevant thing.

The light widened, beginning to fill the darkness. The Borg voice railed
against him, saying You are demonstrating your imperfection. You are
displaying your obsolescence. You will be irrelevant.

Data's brain, programmed with respect and admiration for the
accomplishments and wonder of humanity, stabbed out. He sensed the
world/mind of the woman running out of time around him. The Borg
imperatives hidden deep in her mind were about to order her to
self-destruct. He could virtually sense the impulse command about to be
sent, for the preparations had been made in response to his initial
probings.

The call for destruction went out.

And Data snared it.

He fashioned a net from his own neurons, tackling the synaptic leap that
would trigger the final command. The Borg imperative almost seemed to
howl in frustration, although Data wasn't certain whether that
was really happening, or whether it was his imagination. He knew he had
imagination, or something approximating it. He had realized it the first
time he'd found himself wondering what it would have been like if Tasha
Yar had lived.

The destruct command writhed deep within her subconscious, and Data
pushed it farther and farther away. For one brief instant the Borg
almost fought back, but Data shoved it down once more and then sealed it
off. Then he suddenly realized that in so doing, he had halted the
continuous loop that was preventing the Borg soldier from launching the
destruct sequence and turning to ash.

He realized this in less than a millisecond and, because of the state
that he was in, his thinking the action was performing the action. He
sent a command winging directly into the conscious, operational brain of
the Borg soldier, and the' command was, quite simply, You are
functional. There was, after all, no reason she couldn't be. She just
needed someone to tell her that was the case.

He waited for a response. Some sort of reply that would say, he
expected, What are your orders? What should I do? Something like that.

But nothing came. For a moment he thought that he had failed, but he ran
a complete diagnostic along the neural systems. No, he had succeeded. He
sensed that the command was now firmly in place. Implanted in her brain
was the command telling her to function. In its most basic concept, he
had ordered her to live. That's all. Just live. And he had done so with
such force that it had overridden the Borg self-destruct imperative. He
had imprinted his own determination for continued existence upon her
brain engrams. But he had not been able to do more than that.

If he could have felt frustration, he would have. If he could have felt
anger, or helplessness, or even pity, then all those would have flooded
through him as well. Instead, all he could do was decide that he had
accomplished as much as possible, and with that, he withdrew.

"--getting hotter," said Geordi La Forge, finishing the sentence that,
to him, had taken a mere second. Yet to Data, it was almost as if Geordi
had begun the sentence a lifetime ago. Then La Forge saw through his
VISOR that the intense heat being generated had abruptly begun to
subside. "Son of a--"

Crusher, for her part, was studying her medical monitors. "Life signs
stabilizing," she said with great relief, and she laid down the hypo.
"Pulse, respiration, both beginning to attain human norms."

"Data, are you okay?" asked Geordi. "Data?" Data was still taking a
moment to collect his thoughts, and finally he turned to La Forge. "I am
functioning quite well, thank you, Geordi."

"What happened? What did you do?"

"I planted a command to continue functioning within her brain," said
Data. He stood and reached over and, before Crusher could stop him,
pulled out the knife that was protruding from the Borg's arm. She did
not so much as flinch. Instead, she continued to stare straight ahead.
"I overrode the Borg command to self-destruct. It was actually quite
close in terms of timing. She is now functional."

"Can I remove the Borg implants?" asked Beverly. "I do not see why not,"
said Data. He was reaching up to his head and disconnecting the complex
wiring. "There should be no danger now. I have essentially defused the
bomb within her."

"Can she talk?" asked La Forge. Confident that
Data had matters firmly in hand, Geordi walked around the table from his
instruments and stared into the face of the Borg woman. "Can you
understand me? Can you hear me? Counselor, is she in there?"

"I sense nothing," Deanna Troi admitted. "Her mind is still clear."

"We can reeducate her," said Geordi excitedly. "We can--"

"It will be virtually impossible, Geordi," Troi said. "Whoever or
whatever this woman is we are talking about something far beyond a
simple erasure of memory. This woman's entire... soul, if you will ...
has been expunged. Her only claim to being alive is the fact that her
body is functioning. Otherwise--"

"Counselor Troi is correct," said Data. "Recreating knowledge is well
within our technology. It has been, for decades. But recreating an
entire individual..."

"We've done it in the holodeck. I've done it," said Geordi firmly.

"What is created in the holodeck is not alive," Data said. "What you are
discussing does not seem feasible."

"But if--"

"She's looking at you," said Crusher. There was wonder and amazement in
her voice. "She focussed. She hadn't done that before. Geordi, she
focussed on you. She's doing it right now."

Geordi turned and stared at the Borg woman. He couldn't see her eyes, of
course. But her head was definitely pointed in his direction, and she
seemed to be concentrating on him.

Then the moment passed, and her head slumped back. She returned to
staring off into space.

Geordi looked from one of his comrades to the
other and then said firmly, "I don't care if it's feasible or not. We're
going to make it feasible." .

On board the Repulse, Mr. Seth turned in his chair and said,
"Transporter room reports all planetside colonists are now aboard.
Emergency evacuation is complete."

"Just in time," said Taggert grimly.

The planet-eater descended towards Kalish VIII, and a force beam leaped
out from the maw of the machine. It sliced through the planet, bisecting
it with surgical precision.

"Hailing frequencies," bellowed Taggert in a thunderous rage, and then,
without even waiting for acknowledgment, she said, "Intruder, this is
Taggert of the Repulse. You are destroying the homes of the Astra
colonists!"

"We are still hungry."

"Back away. That's an order."

There was a dead silence, and for one brief moment Taggert deluded
herself into thinking that the massive

destroyer was actually going to obey.

"I am tired of you," the ship said.

A force beam lashed out from the destroyer, carving a swathe across the
primary hull of the Repulse. Some shields actually held as systems all
over the ship went into overload. In engineering, power couldn't be
rerouted fast enough, and circuit boards blew out. The ship shook
violently under the unexpected pounding. A radiation containment unit
cracked open, and massive doors immediately slid into place to seal off
the damage before the entire ship could be contaminated.

"Warp drive is out!" shouted Seth. "Deflector shields at thirty percent!
Hull damage on decks 33 through 39!"

Taggert was gripping the arms of her chair as the red-alert klaxon
seemed even louder. In her head she could hear the screams of her
people. "What in hell did they hit us with?"

"Force beam of pure anti-proton."

Taggert's eyes widened momentarily, and then, with as much conviction as
if she were holding the upper hand, she rapped out, "Combination array
of photon torpedos and phasers. Fire!"

The full armament of the Repulse was unleashed at the planet-killer. For
all the good it did, they might as well have been hurling rocks. The
photon torpedos exploded prematurely against the towering spikes, and
the phasers ricocheted harmlessly off-the neutronium skin.

The force beam of the planet-killer struck again. This time the shields
were totally unable to withstand it. They crumbled like tissue paper,
and the aft hull buckled inward, stopping just short of actual breach.
The entire ship shook, like a toy caught in the hand of a massive baby.

"Shields down!" shouted Seth over the din and the barrage of damage
reports that were coming in from all Over the ship. "Weapons systems
out!"

Suddenly the ship was jolted again, but this time there was no force
beam. Instead, a tractor beam had taken hold of them and was starting to
drag them downward.

The Repulse hurtled downward, toward one of the looming spikes. Taggert
could see that it came to a point, miles above the surface of the
machine, that was almost needle-sharp. And her ship was being dragged
right towards it.

"Full reverse!" snapped Taggert. She didn't have to shout; she was
always able to make herself heard at her normal tone, no matter how loud
her surroundings. In

happier times, she claimed it was because she came from a large family.

"Warp drive is out, switching to impulse," called out Seth. The ship
lurched slightly, and then the tractor beam reaffirmed its superiority
and continued to drag them downward. The spike loomed closer and closer.
Taggert couldalmost see a small array of lights against it, flickering
on and off like a deadly Christmas tree.

The ship was about to be skewered. That was all there was to it. The
spike would penetrate either the primary or secondary hull, or maybe
both warp nacelles. Whatever, it didn't matter. They were about to be
gouged, ripped apart, left for dead.

,Intruder!" shouted Taggert. "There's nothing to be gained by killing
us!"

The spikes came ever closer.

"Let's discuss this," she continued. "You and I. Just the two of us. Let
my ship go, and we can--"

And suddenly the Repulse snapped free. Taggert stumbled backwards,
landing heavily in her chair. The starship spiralled away, like a stone
caught in the flow of a brook. "Stabilize us!" said Taggert, somewhat
unnecessarily since Seth was already doing it.

Within moments they had restored their equilibrium, but that was all.
All systems were still out, and the Repulse hung there in space,
helpless.

"I'm not interested in you," came the voice of the machine with such
force and unexpectedness that Taggert actually jumped slightly. "I'm not
interested in your starship. All I want is the Borg. When I fired on
you, I used my force beam at a fraction of its strength. If I'd used
full strength, you'd be dead. Remember that. You would be dead."

With that comment ringing in their ears, they watched impotently as the
planet-destroyer swallowed

the large pieces of Kalish VIII. Then, having eaten its fill, it turned
without a word and headed off across the Beta Quadrant.

Unknowingly, towards the Enterprise.

But knowingly--all too knowingly--toward the heart of the unknown space
wherein lived... the Borg.

Chapter Eight

... A dazzling array of images and voices, and then there was the
maddening glimpse of something, something huge and ancient and capable
of great destruction. And that word... Vendetta, it whispered in her
mind. Vendetta, it seared into her soul. And an image, an image of a
woman with hair the color of space and eyes that were ancient and
suffering. Vendetta, and it was a warning, and it was a prayer, and it
was .... Deanna Troi sat up in bed, her body covered in sweat, and she
was gasping and disoriented. She had that odd feeling that one gets when
awakening in a strange place, except she was in her own cabin. But that
was not where she had expected to be. Her heart was pounding, her pulse
racing. She fought to obtain some degree of equilibrium and, after a few
minutes, did so. Her breathing returned to normal, her thoughts, to the
quiet, orderly pattern that she forced them into. An empath, surrounded
by beings who had no control over their emotions mentally, never had an

VENDET'ILA

easy time of it. She constantly had to practice mental disciplines in
order to screen out the steady cacophony of emotional baggage that every
human carried. It was as if someone with very, very acute hearing had to
stuff cotton balls in their ears or otherwise go deaf from the barrage
of sounds that they would be subjected to. Such shields as Deanna used
were an effort, but it had become almost a casual effort: No one even
knew she was doing it, for it had become second nature. But somelhing
was trying to break through those barriers now. She had a feeling that,
whatever it was, it wasn't doing so intentionally. But somewhere,
somehow, there was someone with such a forceful .power of will that they
were virtually leaking telepathic mpressons that Were being discerned
by... Guinan? Could that have somehow been what caused her to pass out?
But what was it? What was trying to get through? What in the world was
out there? Deanna lay back in her bed, pulling the bed covers closer'up
so that they were just under her chin. Just the way she'd liked it when
she was a little girl and her mother had tucked her in at night. Somehow
the covers seemed to provide a shield against the monsters that lurked
in the shadowsrathe monsters that defied empathic detection, but were
there nevertheless, ready to consume unwary little girls. She stared up
at the ceiling, trying to figure out what was happening. But the more
she thought about it, the harder it became for her to think, the more
leaden her thoughts. Her eyelids seemed utterly unwilling to stay up,
and the darkness became even darker. Darker still... Darker still... and
there was the darkness of space.

One .by one, pinpoint lights seemed to come ont one by one, as if
someone were snapping them on with a switch somewhere. And each of those
lights became a glowing star.

A ship cut across her field of vision. It moved through space with eerie
silence, and Deanna felt a distant tickle of confusion and fear. The
ship was of a design that she had never seen before, a design that
seemed ancient. It was oval, with a single, abbreviated warp nacelle
extending from the top. It glided through space with a singularity of
purpose... but how could she divine that from a ship? A ship couldn't
have a purpose; only the individual who was piloting it.

The events in the dream flowed forward. Troi could
neither stop nor control it or do anything except hold
on for the ride.

And then, suddenly, she was inside the ship. She looked around at the
tall, glistening banks of controls. They were primitive-looking in
comparison to the glistening, seamless padds of the Enterprise. One had
a tendency to take things for granted, and certainly the modern
technology of the Enterprise was one of those things.

Slowly she circled the interior of the ship, and then she realized that
she had no body, that she was exploring with her mind. It was an
incredible feeling of liberation, and she was almost giddy. She was
undetectable, invisible. She could go anywhere, do anything ....

Then she saw her.

The woman was seated in the middle of what appeared to be the main
cabin. She was wearing a starkly functional jumpsuit, and she was
watching the main viewing screen with an obsessive determination. She
was watching for something, and Deanna had no idea what.

The entire thing had an air of total unreality about it. All of it was
being played out in eerie silence, except there was some sort of music
in the back of Deanna's head, a nameless tune that wandered through her
brain from time to time, vaguely classical, with lots of strings
playing.

Lights were flickering across the woman's face.

Lights.

Where were they coming from?

The lights became brighter and brighter, filling the entire ship,
filling her entire being. The woman never took her eyes off the
viewscreen. The woman ....

She was a vision of beauty. Deanna wondered why she hadn't noticed it
before. She had very long, black hair, and a narrow face, and dark eyes
set far apart...

And in those eyes...

Those eyes...

Mourning. Anger. Obsession. All of it and more overwhelmed Deanna as her
mind brushed against the woman's. And a name.

Dele... something... she couldn't quite hear. And a word. Vendetta.

The woman did not react outwardly, but Deanna sensed herself being
pushed away somehow. She withdrew and hovered nearby, and the colors
were just overwhelming...

She turned and looked at the viewscreen.

It was the barrier, the barrier at the galactic rim. It swirled and
crackled in front of them, electrical displays dancing across it. An
undulating miasma of pure force and power, in the olden days the barrier
had been virtually uncrossable. Technology had improved, though.
Shielding had been improved. So much more was possible now, and yet, no
one had really explored much beyond the edge of the galaxy.

There was no point. The distance to the nearest galaxy was uncrossable
in anything less than centuries, and the Federation had simply shown no
interest in creating and staffing the generational ship that would be
required to make such a voyage. There had been talk of stocking such a
ship with androids similar to Data, but the plans for duplicating the
Enterprise officer had died ^aborning, at a hearing over Data's humanity.

The woman was approaching the galactic barrier. There was that
frightening determination in her face, the certainty that she had to get
through. But what was driving her? What had possessed a lone woman to
acquire a small, private vessel for the purpose of challenging the rim
barrier? It didn't seem to make any sense.

The ship hurried toward the barrier, and then it began to shake. She
handled the controls with practiced skill and determination. If Deanna
had been in her situation--alone, so utterly, utterly alone and facing
something of such incredible power--she wondered whether she would have
been able to handle it.

She hurried into the barrier, and the powerful forces of the barrier
grabbed her ship up and began to toss it about, as if it were a stone
skipping across a lake. The powerful engines of the woman's small ship
strained against the onslaught, and the display across the viewscreen
was almost blinding. Deanna felt the ship throb and shake beneath her
and she tried to reach out to grab something for support, but she had no
hands, she had nothing, and the universe was whirling.

The woman screamed, and it was a scream of defiance and fury, a scream
designed to drag up her emotions and create from them a shield against
fear. She let the fury overwhelm her, and a burning desire for...
vengeance.

Vengeance for what?

Vengeance for whom?

Her ship was pounded, and she kept on going. Her mind was assailed, and
she kept on going. Incredible forces pressed against her shielding, and
her head was pounding, and alternately she felt as if she were going to
freeze to death or have the blood in her veins boil, but she pressed on,
fighting to keep the ship on course. She was in pursuit of something, or
perhaps running from something, or perhaps some of both.

The ship trembled around her, but the fury of her will was
insurmountable. It seemed as if the woman were keeping the vessel moving
forward by sheer determination.

The roar was deafening. It was as if the galaxy itself had literally
sprung to life, to try and prevent her from attaining her goal. But
nothing would stop her. Nothing could stop her.

It seemed as if days passed. Deanna lost all sense of time, all
comprehension of how long she was a prisoner here.

And then the forces began to subside. The perimeter of the galaxy
thinned out, the incredible powers that had been fighting her relenting
and admitting that they had been met, they had been bested. Her ship
shot through and out, into the void.

Deanna--a silent, invisible spectator--gasped, placing a nonexistent
hand against her nonexistent chest. She stared at the woman in the
command chair.

She was slumped back, exhausted. But then she pulled herself up and
looked out at the void that faced her, the vast, vast nothingness that
lay beyond the galaxy.

She went to her navigational instruments. She was definitely going to
need them, for there were no stars to guide her. But no... she was using
no coordinates,

Deanna could see now. Yet she was guiding the ship, straight and true,
clearly hell-bent on some destination. But Troi had no idea what it
could be.

And then Deanna began to sense it. Sense them. Sense someone calling,
beckoning, like the ancient sirens of myth. And with the same
determination as ancient sailors had known when they devotedly smashed
their ships onto the rocks in trying to get to 'the unreachable women,
so, too, was this mystery woman now sending her ship hurtling forward
toward voices that only she could hear. Except Deanna heard them too.

Help us, they whispered. Avenge us. We have been waiting such a very
long time... we thought no one could hear us.

And the woman responded to the voices in Deanna's head. "Anyone could
have heard you," she whispered, "but they had to listen. And they had to
know where to look."

Where are we going? Deanna whispered. Who are you? Why am I seeing all
this? How?

Time seemed to stop, and then the woman gasped. Deanna turned and saw
what was on the screen, and she couldn't believe it.

It was huge, immense beyond all reckoning. Some sort of device, with
great spikes, and a maw, and... And it was crying.

At last, it said over and over again, at last. You've come to us. And we
can destroy our destroyers.

What's happening/Deanna screamed soundlessly. I don't understand/This is
madness-I have to stop this/ Stop this now/

And the woman alowly turned and looked at herin looked right at her.

"You can't stop it," she said. "It's already happened. This will be the
culmination of something that was started centuries before your birth. I
am a link in the chain. The final link. I will be the pilot. The
instrument. And you will bear witness."

Deanna shook her nonexistent head. Witness to what? she demanded.

"To the destruction of the soulless ones." She pointed at the great
machine that hung before them. "It begins here. It ends when the last of
the soulless ones are as dead as the last of my kind."

But why am I here? How am I here?

"You heard the songs of the minds," she said. "We have engaged the
soulless ones for the first time and destroyed them. We have engaged
those who would stop us from destroying the soulless ones, and they were
helpless against us. The minds and souls of the lost are rejoicing, and
their song was," she paused, "quite loud. It is difficult for me to
quiet them sometimes. Do not worry, though. You will have the sense of
us, but 'not the knowing. Not yet. Not until he knows. He deserves to be
the first to know. I shall endeavor to quiet them in the future, so they
will not disturb you further."

Wait/Deanna cried out... And then they were gone. And she was gone. And
she sat up.

She stumbled out of bed, her mind awhirl with images, and grabbed a robe
around herself. Names and concepts were smashing against each other in
her head, coalescing, and she cried out into the darkness, "Personal
log!"

"Working," came the serenely calm voice of the computer. "Personal log
of Counselor Deanna Troi now operating. Awaiting entry."

"A dream," she said urgently, "and it was.. 2' Lights. And energy.

Flashes.

"There was a woman, and she was..."

A shouting in her head, a feeling of rejoicing. "Ven... "She put her
hands over her ears, trying to narrow her thoughts, to Call it up. An
image of huge towers, like spikes, and no stars, and, "Ven..."

"Awaiting a complete sentence," the computer prompted. It was programmed
with grammar from every known language and would occasionally help out
when a speaker was apparently having difficulty.

Troi rubbed her temples as if she could somehow physically push her
brain into working. "I had a dream," she said slowly, "and... and..."

Ven . . .

"I can't remember," she said softly.

INTERMISSION

"TRY TO RAISE THEM AGAIN," said Martok impatiently.

They had lost contact with the Daimon, and with the two guards, and with
Darr, and it had been hours since any of them had checked in. Martok
knew what the guards intended and dismissed the notion that Darr could
have posed any impediment to the plan. But enough was definitely enough,
and as much as he disliked the notion that he might have to send another
landing party in after them, that's what he would do if absolutely
necessary.

The other Ferengi on the bridge were looking to him for guidance and
leadership, and he would be damned if he would let them down. If for no
other reason than that he knew, firsthand, what could happen to a leader
when the crew had lost confidence in his ability to lead.

The three Borg ships hung there, unmoving. The sight of them filling the
screen, hour after hour, was starting to prey heavily on Martok's
nerves. He prayed for some relief from it. Any sort of relief.

"We are receiving an incoming transmission!" There was great surprise in
his officer's voice, as if he, too, thought that they were going to be
stuck there ad infinitum.

"From the Borg?"

"Yes, sir."

"On screen."

The screen wavered for a moment, and then an image appeared that stunned
Martok into silence before he could even begin a swaggering, "This is

Martok in command of the Ferengi marauder ship." It was Daimon Turane.

Or, at least, what was left of Daimon Turane.

His head had been encompassed in some sort of gear composed of metalsand
black leather. One eye was gone, replaced by a glowing red lens. His
face was deathly white. The perpetual, calculating sneer that was
practically ingrained into all Ferengi was gone, replaced by a cold,
passionless, thin-lipped look of arrogant confidence.

When Martok managed to get out anything, it was a harsh and stunned
whisper. "Daimon Turane?" he said.

"We are no longer the one you call Daimon Turane," said the individual
on the screen. There was an edge to his voice that hadn't been there
before, an ominous darkness. "We are Vastator. Vastator of Borg."

"I don't understand," said Martok. "Vastator?

What is... what have they done to you, Daimon?"

"I speak for the Borg."

"Daimon, this is incomprehensible. What are you--"

"I speak," he said again, slowly, as if addressing a child, "for the
Borg."

Martok's mouth moved for a few seconds, and then his face was set. "Very
well," he said icily. "You speak for the Borg. And what do the Borg have
to say? Are the Borg interested in negotiating a basis for striking a
business arrangement with the Ferengi?"

"Negotiating is irrelevant. Business is irrelevant."

"What?" The words that the Daimon were uttering were literally
blasphemy, and were far more convincing than any mere physical change
that something was definitely wrong with his former commanding officer.
"Daimon Turane, this is unacceptable. I don't know what they've done to
you, but--"

"I have been... enlightened," said the one who called himself Vastator.
"I have been educated. I have been made one with the Borg. Profit does
not matter. Profit is irrelevant. The Ferengi are irrelevant. Only the
Borg matter."

"Are you saying you're staying with the Borg?" The concept was so
difficult for Martok to gasp. For ages now, all he had ever seen was the
Daimon obsessed with returning to the heart of the Ferengi empire--after
establishing himself within as someone to be reckoned with. The concept
that he might not return ....

And then he began to realize. He began to understand that Turane's
staying with the Borg did not mean that he would not be returning. He
might indeed be planning to return... backed up by the full strength and
power of the Borg. That, indeed, would be a threat to contend with.

"These Borg ships remain here," said Turane, a.k.a. Vastator. "A Borg
ship has been destroyed by an unknown force. Another has been dispatched
to investigate. We await word and further information. Once we know
more, we will proceed."

"And what do you expect us to do?" demanded Martok.

Vastator stared at him with--if it could be said of a
Borg--satisfaction. "We expect' you to die."

Martok laughed harshly. "You're bluffing."

"Bluffing," said Vastator, "is irrelevant."

That simple pronouncement, made with such calm and confidence, chilled
Martok to the bone. There was suddenly no doubt in his mind whatsoever
that the Borg could do exactly what they said. He also had the distinct
impressiOn--though he couldn't have said why--that Daimon Turane, or
whatever was left of him, would enjoy their destruction. -

"Sever ommumeaton, Martok sad suddenly and rapidly, the edge becoming
evident in his voice. "Helm, hard about. Get us the hell out of here.
Shields up."

"But Martok..."

"Do it!"

The helmsman immediately tried to respond, but suddenly the ship shook.
The Ferengi were hurled about like poker chips, and Martok cracked his
head on the arm of the chair. "What the hell... ?!"

"A tractor beam!" shouted his tactical officer.

"They have us! They're pulling us toward them!"

"Full power to engines. Break us free!"

The marauder channeled every bit of energy, every reserve, into their
engines. The ship shuddered and strained against the force of the Borg
tractor beam. Dampeners were overridden, systems began to overload, and
the howling of the engines became louder and louder, a continual revving
that was not getting them anywhere.

"Systems malfunction!" came the shout from ops. "We're losing forward
drive!"

"All power to weapons!" snarled Martok. "Fire!" The Ferengi ship fired
upon the Borg ship which shook slightly when it hit. Suddenly the
tractor beam vanished.

"Now!" shouted Martok. "Get us out! Now!"

The marauder leaped forward, desperately trying to compensate for its
ravaged control systems. Another few seconds, and they might actually
have gotten away.

A force beam lanced out from the middle Borg ship--the one which was the
new home of the Borg known as Vastator. The beam was directed by him. It
was requested by him. Although revenge was now irrelevant, there was
something deep within him that took immense pleasure. Just as there was
something even deeper within him that cringed and cried out and
screamed. Screamed, though there was no one to hear.

The beam slashed through the marauder, dissecting it, cutting the
nacelles off it the way one would pluck the wings off a fly. The ship
hurtled end over end for a moment, and then ruptured. It blew completely
apart, the vacuum of space swallowing the sound and impact of the
explosion, and the abortive screams of the entire crew. Within moments
the fireball that had been the marauder was snuffed, and except for some
free-floating rubble and shreds f bodies, there was no evidence that
there had ever been a Ferengi ship there at all.

Vastator observed the explosion from the safety of the Borg ship. There
had been nothing to gain from taking the ship apart and assimilating it.
Any knowledge of the Ferengi that the Borg deemed necessary had already
been garnered from what he carried in his mind. So the concept of
keeping the shipful of Ferengi around was a useless one. Nor did the
Borg have any

ACT TWO

Chapter Nine

"HER NAME IS Reannon Bonaventure, and she was officially declared
missing, presumed dead, thirteen years ago."

The senior officers were grouped around the conference room table,
listening to the pronouncement from Data, who had just finished his
computer studies. They were also staring at the computer screen and the
image that had been called up on it. Outside the viewing port hung the
now-familiar image of the Penzatti homeworld. The concept of playing
guard for a planet in the event that the Borg should show up was a
strenuous one, for it meant having to be constantly on alert, never
knowing when battle was going to suddenly present itself. It was an
extremely unpleasant situation to be in.

Troi shuddered, for the young woman whose face appeared on the screen
bore a striking resemblance to Troi herself: large, luminous eyes,
classic features. Her hair was a few shades lighter than Troi'g, and
there was something else unusual about her. The officers had seen many
pictures that had been taken, as in the

case of this one, for the purpose of obtaining a freighter pilot's
license. But it was the only one in which the subject was impishly
sticking her tongue out at the camera. -

"Quite an... interesting young woman," Picard said. "And certainly a
unique picture."

"I think I remember hearing about her," Riker said after a moment's
thought. "Yeah, I do. Oh, I remember her now!" and he snapped his
fingers. "How could I have forgotten? She was quite a character."

"This picture would seem to indicate that," observed Crusher.

"That picture doesn't begin to tell the half of it. They called her the
'Brass Lass,'" said Riker. "She would transport any freight, anywhere.
She would deal in anything, legal or illegal. No matter how deadly or
hazardous the area, she would cross it, if that's what it took to get
her cargo through."

"I remember as well." said Picard. "The 'Brass Lass.' My God. There was
quite an uproar about her. Starfleet wanted to shut down her operation
because of all the treaties she was ignoring, but there were too many
members of the Federation who were using her for their own various
purposes. Raised quite a ruckus."

"She had a cloaking device, a ship that she called the Phantom Cruiser,
and as much guts as anyone ever had," said Riker admiringly. "Once, to
get medical supplies to a plague-ravaged colony, she determined that the
shortest distance was straight through Romulan space. She went right in.
We had no direct line into the Romulans at the time, but word was that
there were all sorts of skirmishes and that that entire sector of
Romulan space was on full alert. And she dodged them all and came out
the other side. Saved the colony."

"And this woman," said Bev Crusher in wonder, "this woman is now sitting
in one of my examining rooms."

"She disappeared one day," said Riker. "Reportedly she had royally
infuriated the Tholians over something... you know how touchy they are,
especially when it comes to intrusion in their space. They put a price
on her head and were hunting her pretty hard. Rumor had it that she took
off for deep space to lie low for a while until things blew over."

"Is it possible she went far enough to have wound up within Borg space?
It would have taken her years to get there."

"Anything is possible where the 'Brass Lass' is concerned," said Riker,
with a touch of admiration. "If she felt the only way to keep her head
on her shoulders was to explore entirely new territories, she would have
done it in a second. She was utterly fearless."

"She may well have been the first human being that the Borg
encountered," said Picard slowly. "And they found her intriguing enough
to assimilate her into themselves. Dr. Crusher... what is her present
condition?"

"I've removed all of the prosthetics and appliances," Crusher said, "and
reopened her neural pathways in order to re-establish normal brain
functions. Skin grafts should take a day or so to completely heal,

and will probably itch like hell for a while."

"Brain activity?"

She shrugged. "As near as I can tell, she's functioning normally. But
Captain, she's still not right."

"Not right?"

"What the doctor is saying, Captain," Troi now spoke up for the first
time, still not taking her eyes off the image on the screen, "is that
her sense ofselfmall

that she is, and was--has atrophied, probably beyond recovery. For a
decade or more she has had Borg implants telling her what to do, when to
do it, how to do it. She hasn't thought. She hasn't assimilated
experiences or done anything for herself. She hasn't expressed her
personality, or even had it. It's as if she had been locked in a sensory
deprivation sphere for ten years. I examined her barely an hour ago, and
I sensed nothing of Reannon Bonaventure within her. Nothing of anything,
really. Her heart beats, her body functions, she has all basic motor
commands. But there's nothing in her. She's a shell of a human. Nothing
more."

"Or, in the vernacular, 'her lights are on, but there's nobody home,'"
said Riker.

"I don't accept that," said Geordi firmly.

They looked at him with curiosity. "Are you saying,. Counselor Troi's
empathic abilities are in error?' asked Picard.

"I'm saying, sir, that if there was once a vital, living person in
there," and he tapped the image on the screen, "then there can be again.
We can't just write her off."

"No one is suggesting writing her off, Geordi," said Riker.

"That's what it sounds like to me," said Geordi. "What this woman has is
a handicap. Her mind is damaged. But there's probably something trapped
deep within her, crying to be let out."

"I think that unlikely," said Troi quietly. "Well, I don't."

"Geordi--"

"Look atme, Counselor," he said with unexpected vehemence. "I'm
handicapped, remember? Without this VISOR, I can't see. But I live with
it, and I'm satisfied with the way I am, because I've received aid and
support every step of the way. And every night,

when I lie there in my bed with my VISOR on the nightstand next to me,
and there's nothing but blackness, I always wonder what my life would
have been like if I hadn't had the opportunities that I did. Same mind.
Same abilities. But no VISOR-enhanced vision. I think of a world that's
defined by counting the number of steps it would take me to get to the
bathroom or kitchen or wherever, and I give thanks every night that next
morning I'll be able to cheat what nature did to my eyes and rejoin the
real world. And that woman down therewthat handicapped woman--deserves
the same chances that I had. The exact same ones."

There was dead silence.

"And she will have them, Mr. La Forge;" said Picard finally, with
surprising softness. "I tend to trust Counselor Troi's assessment of the
situation. However... I have been in the samewshall we say,
predicament--as Miss Bonaventure. I owe my presence here to the fact,"
and he surveyed the room slowly, "that my crew risked their lives to
save me, that they did not give up. We would be hypocritical to say that
Miss Bonaventure did not deserve the same consideration and effort."

"I'll start her on a re-education program immediately," said Crusher.

"You'll need more than that," said Troi briskly: "That's only effective
when rudimentary learning abilities are present. I'm not convinced she
even has that."

"She needs sensory exposure," said Geordi. "Someone talking to her.
Someone working with her."

"Are you volunteering your off-duty hours, Mr. La Forge?" asked Picard.

"I'm willing to put my time where my mouth is," said Geordi.

"Very well. Make it so. You'll work in tandem with

Dr. Crusher to set up a schedule amenable to both of you. That's all."

As the others left, Picard stood and said softly, "Counselor, a moment,
please." They waited until the conference room doors hissed shut, and
then the captain turned and faced her, arms folded. "If I might observe,
Counselor, you seem rather tense."

She shrugged. "It's probably that picture, Captain."

"She does bear a passing resemblance to you," admitted Picard.

"It just makes me imagine being in her situation," she said, "wondering
what would happen if the Borg captured me, the way theym"

"The way they did me?" he said gently. "You know what I went through.
The scars it left."

"Hideous. Just hideous." Her fingers brushed across the screen. "They're
anti-life, Captain. They have no heart. They have no soul. They just
exist to take and take and take. I'm someone whose entire existence is
hinged on experiencing the emotions of others. An entire race that lives
to eradicate the souls

of others... it's just horrifying."

"Yes, it's..."

And his voice trailed off.

His eyes narrowed in thought, and Deanna turned

and stared at him in curiosity. "Captain... ?"

"Soulless ones," he whispered. "Captain, what are your?"

"Soulless ones. Oh, my God," he said, and then louder, "Oh my dear God.
How could I not have

realized? How could I have been so stupid? How?? "Captain, I sense
you're very upset..."

"I'm not upset!" said Picard, turning toward her, his every movement
suddenly galvanized with emotion. "I'm furious at my own stupidity! I'm
as blind as

Geordi! Someone tried to hand me a VISOR to see, and I brushed it away.
But it was so long ago, so many years ago..."

"Captain, you're not making any sense."

He leaned against a table, shaking his head. "It had taken on the
quality of a dream. I'd always wondered whether overwork had made me
delusional for a brief time. But there it was, plain as the nose on my
face, and I didn't see it. And they're coming, and now she's coming.
She's connected somehow. I know it. I feel it."

"Who?"

"I don't know," he said fiercely, and with unexpected fury he slammed
his fist against the viewing port. "I don't know her name. I don't know
who she is, or what she is. Guinan!" On the last word, on tlat name, his
mood shifted again, bordering on shock.

"Guinan?" Troi was beginning to feel completely hopeless.

"Not 'vendor.' That's not what she said. That's not what she was
muttering. That's not it! It's the prooF. It has to be her!"

"Captain, you're not making any sense at all!"

"Vendetta!"

Troi's breath caught in her throat. "What?" she managed to whisper.

He sank into a chair, as if uttering the word had taken his strength
from him. For a long moment he was silent, lost in another time, another
world, another person... the person that he had been so many years ago.

"I was in the Academy," he said slowly. "And there was a woman who came
to me one night... except maybe she was not a woman. I don't know what
she was. An apparition, perhaps, or that's what I thought.

It was the day that we discussed a device that the original Enterprise
fought. A robot, called the planet-killer. The doomsday machine. It was
disabled by Matthew Decker. And I had put forward a hypothesis that, for
various reasons, the doomsday machine could not have come from very far
outside our own galaxy. And she came to me that night, and she said
things... things I don't even remember, because I was in such a fog.
Everything was confused. But she said one thing, over and over. I never
knew whether it was her name or her purpose, or both. And what she said
was, Vendetta."

"Vendetta." Troi took a breath. "Captain... last night... I had a dream.
And I don't remember what it was. I don't remember anything that
happened in it, which is infuriating, because usually I remember my
dreams as clearly as I remember my waking hours.

But there was one thing I do remember, a word..."

"Vendetta."

She nodded her head.

Picard stood.

"I think we'd better talk to Guinan."

Geordi entered the small room off to the side of the main sickbay area,
the room where Reannon Bonaventure was being sequestered. Bev Crusher
was already there. And seated on the edge of a chair, as if she were an
errant schoolgirl, was Reannon.

She seemed much smaller without the Borg implements affixed to her. She
was still bald, nor did she have so much as eyebrows. She was wearing a
simple gray jumpsuit, similar to the one Wesley had frequently sported
before his field promotion.

She was staring forward at nothing in particular. Geordi crouched in
front of her and waited for some sign of acknowledgment, some flicker
of...

anything. "Reannon?" he said. "Reannon Bonaventure?"

There was nothing. He might as well have been speaking in a vacuum.

"Hi," he continued gamely, "I'm Geordi La Forge." He stuck a hand out,
hoping that some sort of

automatic response would take over.

Again, nothing.

He looked up at Crusher. "Has she said anything at all since you removed
the implants?"

"Not a syllable," said Crusher. "Not even a grunt. I even started
preliminary teaching structures, but nothing's taking. It's as if she
simply refuses to acknowledge our existence."

Geordi got down on one knee and took her hand. The coldness of it was
jolting to him, even though his VISOR told him her body temperature was
low. It was like talking to a statue. "Reannon," he said slowly, "listen
to me. You are Reannon Bonaventure. You are aboard the starship
Enterprise. My name is Geordi La Forge. I'm the chief engineer. We have
rescued You from the Borg influence. You're free to live a normal life.
You just have to let us know you're in there. Give

us some sign, some indication. Something." Nothing.

He stood and said to her, "Come on. Let's go for a walk."

"I wouldn't advise that," said Crusher quickly.

He looked at her with curiosity. "Is there a medical reason why she
can't?"

"No," admitted Beverly. "No, not really. I just want to be cautious.
Doctor's prerogative."

"I'd like a little leeway, Doe, if that's okay," Geordi said after a
moment. "She has to experience the world. She's not going to be able to
do it here."

"All right," Crusher said, once she'd given it some

thought. "But I want you to stay in constant contact with me. If there's
any problem whatsoever, you let

me know immediately. Get it?"

"Got it," he said. "Good."

"All right, Reannon," he said. "Let's go."

She continued to sit there, as if he had not even spoken.

He took her by the arm, wrapping his forearm around hers, and gently
pulled her to her feet. She did nothing to resist and nothing to help,
but Geordi had her standing. He wrapped his fingers around he.r. They
were cold and limp as the rest of her.

"Come on," he said. "Left foot, right foot, that's it."

She walked next to him with steady steps, stiff as the rest of her.
Clearly her motor functions were in perfectly good shape. The only thing
was, she couldn't tell them to do anything. She needed a guide if she
was going to move at all. It was that inability to think for herself
that Geordi was going to have to overcome somehow.

For some reason the phrase the blind leading the blind came into
Geordi's mind. The door of the exam room hissed open and they stepped
out into the main area.

The Penzatti that they were treating did not glance up at first, as
Geordi and the woman who was once Reannon Bonaventure stepped out of the
side examining room. And then one woman, who was covered from head to
toe in a healing bio-wrap, saw what the Enterprise officer was walking
alongside. She saw .the telltale skin that was the color of chalk, and
the fixed, inhuman stare. She saw, and even though the armor was gone,
she understood.

And she began to scream.

The others saw as well, their antennae twitching furiously, and then
they came to cry out or scream or howl in mourning once more. The
medtechs looked around in confusion. Mere seconds ago there had been
quiet, punctuated only by low moaning and the occasional sob. Now,
though, the entire ward had gone berserk.

Geordi froze, looking around in confusion, not realizing at first what
was happening and what had triggered them. Then suddenly there was
someone standing in front of him, and he recognized him instantly as
Dantar, the Penzatti they'd rescued from the rubble. '

Beverly Crusher bolted out from the adjoining room and started shouting
for quiet, but her voice was drowned out by the howling.

The Penzatti man was shoving his face directly into Reannon's, and there
was a low snarl ripped from his throat as he said, "This is the one! I
know that face! I know it! It's the one who killed my family!"

Reannon gave no indication that she heard, and Geordi tried to push
Dantar away. "She wasn't in control then. She's better now. We've healed
her."

"You healed her?!" shrieked Dantar. "It murdered my family! My children!
Its kind destroyed my people!"

"She's a woman, not an it, and she's not responsible."

"It's a monster from the pits, and I'll not suffer it to live!" And with
that, Dantar lunged forward and grabbed Reannon by the neck.

"No!" yelled Geordi, and he grabbed at the Penzatti's arms. All around
the Penzatti were yelling and shouting and encouraging Dantar. Some were
trying to rise from their beds and help him, but they were too severely
injured.

With remarkable strength, Dantar shoved Geordi aside, sending him
smashing against a bed. Then the hand returned to Reannon's neck and he
continued to squeeze, shaking her furiously.

Her face remained impassive. She made no defense whatsoever. Her breath
was being forced from her, but she did nothing to stop the attack.

"Leave her alone!" yelled Geordi, and he came up on one side and Crusher
approached from the other, a hypo in her hand, ready to sedate him.
Dantar suddenly hurled Reannon to the ground, turned and grabbed the
charging engineer by the forearm, spun and hurled Geordi directly into
Doctor Crusher.

Geordi felt something press against him and heard a faint hiss of air.
"Oh hell," he said, and was asleep before he hit the ground.

Fortunately for him, Doctor Crusher broke his fall. But she lay pinned
under the engineer's body and tried to shove him off. He was small, but
solidly muscled.

Dantar dropped down and started to throttle Reannon once again. And now
others of the Penzatti were forcing their way out of their beds,
obstructing the medtechs. Within seconds Beverly Crusher's orderly
sickbay was being turned into a madhouse.

Crusher shoved Geordi's insensate body off herself and hit her
communicator. "Security!" she shouted. "Security to sickbay!"

Dantar's fingers worked deep into the folds of Reannon's neck. His
antennae were fully extended, and she was putting up absolutely no fight
at all ....

And a steely hand clamped onto Dantar's shoulder. His head snapped
around, but it was purely a reflex action, because he was unconscious
even as it did so. His body sagged, and he slumped to the floor, hitting
it heavily..

Another Penzatti now charged, still limping furiously, and Doctor Selar
stood from where she had just dropped Dantar. It was a Penzatti woman,
and she was even more physically imposing than Dantar as she aimed a
punch at the Vulcan physician. It didn't slow Selar down at all. With
her left hand she brushed aside the blow, and her right hand snagged the
Penzatti's shoulder. The Vulcan nerve pinch immediately claimed another
victim.

Upon seeing what had just happened, the other patients who had managed
to get to their feet froze. Selar turned and fixed them with a steady
stare.

"Further violence," she said in measured tones, "would be illogical."

At that moment Worf, with the ever-present Meyer and Boyajian, burst
into sickbay. He entered just in time to hear the last of what Selar had
said, and immediately discerned what had occurred. He exchanged glances
with the Vulcan doctor and gave a quick nod of approval. In general, he
was not especially wild about Vulcans. A race as hot-blooded as Klingons
generally had little understanding of, or patience for, a people whose
raison d'Otre was practicing non-emotionalism. But there was something
about Selar--something he could not quite put his finger ontothat made
her far more tolerable to him than the typical Vulcan.

His voice all business, he rumbled in no uncertain terms, "All of you,
back to your beds. Now."

The Penzatti did as they were told, none of them having any desire to
cross swords either with the Klingon or the formidable Vulcan once more.

Selar had gone straight over to Crusher and helped her to her feet. "You
appear uninjured, Doctor."

"I think my authority is a bit damaged, but that's about all.
Lieutenant," she addressed Worf, with a

voice a bit more loud than she needed, "! appreciate your quick
response. Our patients seem to be under the impression this is a
gymnasium, or perhaps the Roman Coliseum, rather than a sickbay."

"Shall I have them all secured to their beds... with heavy chains?" Worf
said gravely.*

Crusher tossed a quick gtance at her patients and saw their petrified
expressions. "I don't think that will be necessary, for the moment. But
if I should change my mind..." ar "

"I will have them prepared,. said Worf, and with each word dripping
menace, he added, "just... in case."

The mealtechs were hauling the unconscious Dantar back up onto a bed and
securing him. Beverly Crusher stood over the unmoving form of Reannon.
She was still blank-faced, staring up at the ceiling now. She gave no
indication that she was remotely aware of what had happened to her, or
where she was, or who she was. Then Beverly looked back at the
unconscious form of Geordi La Forge.

"Not one of the more auspicious starts to a project," she said to no one
in particular.

"Vendetta." Guinan nodded slowly, stroking her chin. "

Picard, Troi, and Guinan had gone into Guinan's small, functional office
just off to the side of Ten-Forward. Guinan was standing, looking
thoughtful and circling the room. "Vendetta. Yes. Yes, that could have
been what I was saying."

"And the significance of it?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

Picard looked at her with raised eyebrows. "No idea?"

She spread her hands wide. "Guesses About a

dozen, any of which might be accurate, or might be even more confusing.
I wish I knew."

"And what I told you just now, about the experience I had when I was in
the Academy?"

"I'm as mystified as you, Captain," said Guinan. She looked from Troi to
Picard and then back again. "It may very well be that whoever, or
whatever, was in your vision back in the Academy is somehow connected to
my collapse, but I can't say for certain."

"Can you say anything for certain?"

"Yes." She frowned. "Whatever is behind all this, sooner or later, is
going to show itself. And then we can all stop guessing."

Picard nodded slowly and then stood. "All right. Thank you for your
time, Guinan. If..."

"Captain." Guinan's voice, her whole demeanor, had suddenly changed.
"Captain; wait, there's something I'm not telling you."

He was stunned, as if slapped in the face. "Guinan," and the shock in
his voice was evident. "In all the time I've known you, our relationship
has been based on honesty. I can't believe there's anything you wouldn't
share with me. Especially if it's important. And most especially if
lives are at stake."

"It's not something I discuss lightly, Captain," she said. For the first
time that he could recall, she turned her back to him as if she couldn't
bear to look at him. Her arms were folded, and she was staring down at
her feet, as if trying to determine the best way to proceed. "I don't
know for sure," she said. "That's the absolute truth. And I didn't want
to bring it up unless I did know. It's a rather... painful topic, and
personal--one that I didn't really want to share if it could be
avoided." She turned to face Picard. "But I owe it to you, out of
respect for our relationship and our friendship, to tell you anything
that could be of help."

She sat down behind her desk, interlacing her fingers. She paused a long
moment, appearing to gaze long and hard into herself. She almost seemed
to be casting her mind back. Picard and Troi stood respectfully silent.

"I think," she said slowly, "that the woman who is causing all this, the
woman whom you faced that night in your dorm room, Captain, is named
Delcara."

"Delcara." The name meant nothing to Picard. Odd. He'd always thought,
in the back of his mind, that if he'd ever met her, ever learned her
name, there would be a dazzling flash of understanding, or something.
But there was nothing. It was just a name, three syllables. "Delcara.
And she has reason to hate the Borg?"

"Ooooohh yes," said Guinan. "Some very good reasons."

"And you know her," said Troi. .

"You could say that," Guinan said dryly. "You see, Delcara is my
sister."

Chapter Ten

CAPTAIN MORGAN KORSMO was awakened by the alarm of the red-alert siren
that came in tandem with the urgent call on his communicator. Korsmo was
one of those people who took no time at all to awaken, and fully alert,
he tapped his communicator and said, "Korsmo here."

"Captain, you'd better get up here," came Shelby's voice, very
controlled, almost passionless, and yet projecting a clear undercurrent
of alarm. "Long-range

sensors have detected--"

"The Borg?"

"Yes, sir."

For one moment unwanted thoughts flashed through his head. Thoughts of,
At last I'll get to show what I can do against those monstrosities.
I'll show that Picard isn't the only one who can hold his own against
those mechanized bastards. But these musings were immediately replaced
by concern over his ship and his crew. They had to come first, no matter
what. "Alert Starfleet Command immediately. I'll be right up."

In record time Korsmo was striding out onto the bridge, his practiced
gaze taking in all tactical readouts. Shelby rose from the command chair and
took her usual stationas Korsmo dropped into place. "Sensors on maximum.
Status report."

"Shields on full," reported Peel from tactical. "Weapons batteries fully
charged. All stations report ready."

"What've we got?" asked Korsmo, studying the screen. The stars shimmered
ahead, racing past, whatever their sensors had detected not yet in
visual range.

"One ship," said Peel, "matching exactly the configurations of the Borg
ship that attacked several months ago. Moving at warp seven. Present
course and heading will take

"Toward Penzatti," said Shelby. Korsmo shot her a curious look.

"No, ma'am," said Peel, after a moment. "It seems bound in the direction
of the Kalish system."

"That's in the general direction of Penzatti, but still..." Korsmo's
voice trailed off. "Helm,. bring us around in an intercept course at
warp seven."

"Course plotted and laid in," said the helmsman. "Lay on," said Korsmo,
and the ship immediately angled directly into the path of the oncoming
Borg ship. "Give me a direct line to the Borg ship. I'm going to warn
them off."

"We're going to warn them?"

He glanced at Shelby. "Problem with that, Number One?"

"Captain," said Shelby firmly, "with all due respect, we don't have the
firepower to back up that warning. Our weapons won't even slow them
down."

"If you don't mind, Number One, I'd like to test that for myself."

"Here they come," said Peel.

Sure enough, sailing toward them on the screen at

warp seven was the familiar cube of the Borg ship. It seemed like
nothing so much as an unstoppable juggernaut, ready to run over anything
in its path.

"No response on any hailing frequency," reported Peel.

"We will intercept in thirty-five seconds, sir," came the report from
Hobson at conn.

"Repeat warning," said Korsmo firmly, "that they have already
established themselves as a hostile force .. that if they do not break
off from their present course and return our communications, we will
have no choice but to regard this as an act of aggression and take
appropriate measures."

Shelby forced herself not to shake her head in disbelief. Korsmo talked
a good game, she'd give him that. But he was still acting as if this
were a normal foe that he was up against. He tad no real comprehension,
despite everything, of just how powerful the Borg were. Perhaps no one
could, unless they'd experienced it firsthand. She just hoped they'd
live to

remember the experience.

"Still no response."

"Mr. Peel," said Korsmo after a moment, "fire a warning shot directly in
their path. Let them know we mean business."

"Firing phasers," said Peel.

The phasers' beams lanced out across space, cutting right in the way of
the Borg ship. To all intents and purposes, a line had been drawn,
warning the Borg to proceed no further.

The Borg crossed it with no hesitation, and shot straight towards the
Chekov.

"Collision course!" shouted Hobson.

And on top of Hobson's warning came Korsmo's order of "Hard about,
maximum warp!"

The Chekov responded immediately, angling down and away, and the Borg
ship hurtled past without slowing down.

"Bring us around," ordered Korsmo, his hands gripping the arms of his
chair so hard that his knuckles were white. His voice was laced with
fury. To be beaten, or outwitted, or outmuscled, those he could handle.
But no one, not Borg nor Romulfin nor anybody, simply ignored him.
"Catch up with her, Mr. Hobson."

The mighty engines of the Chekov shot the ship forward as if from a
slingshot. On their screen the Borg ship was still barreling forward,
unaware or uncaring of their presence.

"Wherever they're going, they're in one hell of a hurry," observed
Shelby.

"They're at warp eight," confirmed Peel. "They're pulling away from us."

"Take us to warp eight," ordered Korsmo. "Peel, target their primary
energy emission--fire/"

The Chekov fired, phasers fully armed, and struck the Borg ship, playing
across the surface and scoring it severely.

"Any effect?" asked Korsmo.

"Nothing appreciable," said Peel. "And the damage that they did sustain
is being repairedBalmost instantaneously."

Korsmo turned towards Shelby. "You're the expert on these things,
Shelby. Do they have a weak point?"

For a fleeting moment Shelby was reminded of the old story about the
baseball playerBthe one who came up to bat three times and hit a double,
a triple, and a home run. When he came up to bat for the fourth time the
pitcher was pulled in favor of a new, fresh pitcher. As they passed each
other, the new

pitcher asked the departing one, "This guy got any weaknesses?" And the
losing pitcher said dourly, "Yeah, he can't hit singles."

"The only weaknesses," she said, "are within their own mental structure.
In terms of outside attack, they are virtually impervious."

"How do we get inside that structure?"

She did not smile. "Willing to have yourself 'borged,' Captain?"

"They're at warp eight-point-five," said Peel.

"They've fully repaired damage."

"Match their speed."

The Chekov roared into warp eight-point-five, and that brought an
immediate call from the engine room. "Captain," warned Engineering Chief
Polly Parke, "any speculation as to how much speed you'll need?"

"Stoke the furnace, Mister Parke," Korsmo warned her, "because we may
need everything you have. Bridge out. Peel, arm full torpedo and phaser
array. We're going to get their attention if..."

"It kills us?" offered Shelby. "Captain, respectfully

state that this is not the proper course."

"Suggestion noted. Mr. Peel, fire."

Once again the phasers played across the surface of the Borg ship,
accompanied by an array of photon torpedoes. The attack lit up the
darkness of space, a dazzling display of firepower.

The Borg slowed long enough to fire back one shot, just one,

It struck the Chekov with furious power, and the ship was rocked by the
force of it.

"Damage reports coming in from all over the ship!" shouted Hobson.
"Shields at fifty percent!"

"The Borg ship is pulling away," reported Peel. "Pursue it."

"Captain..." began Shelby.

But he cut her off with a curt, "Not now! Hobson, divert all power to
engines. Don't lose that ship!"

' "They're back at warp eight and increasing."

"Pace hem."

"Engineering to bridge. Captain, we're leaking--"

"Plug it!" he told her fiercely. "Whatever it is, Parke, fix it, and
keep warp speed coming. We're not going to lose those bastards!"

Shelby looked at Korsmo as if seeing him for the first time. The fury
radiating from him was filling the bridge, poisoning the atmosphere.
"Captain," she said with as much calm as she could muster, "the upward
limits of Borg speed have not been measured."

"We'll measure them now. Helm, overtake them. Warp nine."

Moving at speed that could take the ship across the Terran solar system
in twenty-six seconds, the Chekov started to close the gap.

"The Borg have effected repairs," Peel said once again. "They are
increasing speed to warp nine-point- tWO."

"Warp nine-point-two, helm. Bridge to engineering."

"Engineering," came Parke's voice. She was clearly annoyed, but that
wasn't going to deter her from following business. "Captain, we're
presently at nine-point-two. That's maximum speed."

"That's normally maximum speed, Mister Parke," replied Korsmo, putting
on an air of coolness that he did not feel. We may need more. Depends on
our friends out there."

"I haven't got much more to give, Captain," she warned. "Systems are on
overload now. Under normal circumstances--"

"These are far from normal. Transporter room, get ready to receive a
landing party."

Landing party? ' stud Shelby.

He turned towards her. "I've read all your reports, Commander," he said.
u ce we get aboard that ship, the Borg will tend to ignore anyone
there."

"Have ignored in the past, Captain, yes," affirmed Shelby, "but that
doesn't mean they'll continue to do SO."

"We're going to overtake. Get in transporter range

board them," said Korsmo firmly.

"I would not advise that."

"Did I ask for your advice, Commander?"

There was dead silence on the bridge, the stinging

question hanging in the air. "No, sir, you did not,"

Shelby said after a moment, "but I thought it

best..."

"I'll remember that."

"Sir, they're at warp nine-point-six," reported Peel.'

"We're still not within transporter range."

"And we've got all available energy siphoned to the

warp engines," added Hobson. "Captain..."

"Go to warp nine-point-six."

Shelby closed her eyes, imagining she could feel the

shuddering protest of the starship as the ship upped

her .speed to 1,909 times the speed of light. The

maximum rated speed, the ship could handle warp

nine-point-six, theoretically, for twelve hours. In

terms of practicality, the Chekov would probably tear

herself to shreds long before that happened.

"Structural stress increasing by a factor of two,"

said Hobson, as if reading a death sentence.

"What effect is this speed having on the Borg ship"

demanded Korsmo.

"No visible or detectable effect on the Borg," Peel informed him after a
moment. And then, knowing the

effect it would have on Korsmo, he said quietly, "Borg have gone to warp
nine-point-nine."

Again there was a deathly silence on the bridge. When Korsmo spoke, it
was a whisper. "Warp nine-point-nine."

This is insane! Shelby thought, but she said nothing.

"Warp nine-point-nine," Hobson said slowly, every syllable hanging in
the air.

"Engineering to bridge."

"I was expecting your call, Mister Parke," said Korsmo mirthlessly.

"Sir, this is beyond my control," she said. "At warp nine-point-nine,
the engines will shut down automatically after ten minutes. Whatever
you're going to do, do it now, or do it in the afterlife."

"Captain, they're pulling away from us," said Hobson, his voice filled
with utter disbelief.

"What?!" Korsmo was completely incredulous. "How the hell fast can they
go, anyway?"

"I believe I said that Borg upward speed has not been determined," said
Shelby. Although she knew it was her imagination, she felt as if
tremendous forces were pressing against her body. Warp speed increased
exponentially. They were now moving at 3,053 times the speed of light.
It was incredible. Mankind couldn't go faster than this, she, thought,
and perhaps wasn't meant to.

"Borg at warp nine-point-nine-nine," said Hobson, and, indeed, the Borg
ship was now pulling away, its speed virtually double that of the
Chekov.

"I don't believe it," exclaimed Peel. "That requires nearly infinite
power."

"The Borg have a knack for acquiring what they need," Shelby said. "If
they never have such power themselves, then they acquire it from some
race they conquered. They're very efficient that way."

With every passing second the Borg ship became smaller and smaller.
"Full magnification," ordered Korsmo, and for a brief moment the
departing Borg ship loomed larger, but then it began to recede once
more.

"We're losing speed," said Hobson hollowly. "Bridge to engineering--!"

Anticipating what the captain was about to say, Parke cut him off. "The
Borg attack damaged us,

Captain. I can't give you the full ten minutes."

"What can you give me?"

There was a pause, and then, with true understanding of her commanding
officer's frustration, she said simply, "My apologies."

He looked at the screen and watched the Borg ship grow smaller and
smaller, hurtling on its way. And he considered his actions of the past
few minutes. "Mine to you, also, Chief," he said after a moment. "Power
us down to safe cruising speed, helm."

"Reducing to warp six," said Hobson, unable to totally hide the relief
in his voice.

Korsmo stood, hands behind his back, and watched the Borg ship become as
small as any of the stars that hung in space before them. He sighed.
"They ignored

US."

"To all intents and purposes, yes, sir," agreed Shelby.

"Send word to the Enterprise at Penzatti," he said. "Tell him the Borg
have been sighted, and feed them the coordinates." He paused and then
added, with a trace of satisfaction, "Maybe those bastards can move at
warp nine-point-nine-nine, but subspace radio moves at thirty times
that. Let's see them move faster than that."

"Do you think," said Hobson after a moment, "that they can do warp ten?"

They all looked at him. "Basic physics, Mr. Hobson," said Korsmo, with a
touch of the dry humor that usually accompanied him. Shelby couldn't
help but notice that he was sounding more like himself, and was grateful
for it. He continued, "Warp ten can't be reached. It's infinite speed."

"But if anyone could, the Borg could," Shelby said. Korsmo stared at
her. "No one could."

"Captain," she said, "I hope you're right. The Borg have already put
enough uncertainty into the universe. I'd hate to think that the
absolute speed limit of the universe is just another rule for the Borg
to destroy."

"Oh, don't worry, Commander," said Korsmo. "I've generally found that
the preeminent rule of the universe is that!,Jean-Luc Picard can handle
anything. As long as that's intact, I imagine the laws of physics have
very little to be concerned about."

Chapter Eleven

"Your SISTER?" Picard sat back in his chair, amazed. "Your sister?" he
repeated.

She shrugged slightly. "Well, not sister of blood, which is the main way
that humans accept sibling relationships. But we were bonded as sisters
until--"

Guinan put up a hand. "I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me try and
explain..."

"Yes, I think you'd better," said Picard firmly. Troi, for her part, was
amazed. She had never seen Guinan appear any way other than at peace
with herself and utterly in control of a situation. Everything from the
appearance of Q to the disappearance of the captain when the Borg
attacked had been taken in stride by the unflappable Ten-Forward
hostess. Now, though, for the first time, Guinan actually seemed
discomfited.

"I told you once," she began, "that my people were attacked by the Borg,
that many of us died, and we were scattered by them. What I did not
mention to you was our first awareness of the Borg. It came when we
found Delcara."

"How old is Delcara?" asked Troi.

"About as old as I am," replied Guinan. Then she smiled, although there
was little humor to it. "You're not going to ask a lady her age now, are
you?"

Picard leaned forward intensely. "When did you find her? Tell me about
her."

There was something in Picard's voice that indicated far more than
normal interest in the response. Troi could not help but notice the
anxiety from her captain, his curiosity about this Delcara far beyond
the normal interest that this situation would elicit.

"She was beautiful," she began. "A luminous presence. I've never met
anyone like her since; only those who were, at best, faint copies. She
radiated peace and harmony, at least at first, and that was reflected in
her outer beauty: hair as black as the depths of space, skin that seemed
to shimmer. And she was a powerful telepath. Hers was a mind attuned to
the wonders of the galaxy, and the ebb and flow of destiny, All that
was-reflected in her eyes. Eyes that..."

"Eyes that gazed directly into the back of your head," said Picard.
"Eyes that spoke volumes, even when they were silent."

"Yes," agreed Guinan. "Hers was an ancient soul, with an ancient sadness
that followed her always. She was part of a race called the Shgin," she
said. "The Shgin lived in deep at the far rim of what you call the Delta
Quadrant of the galaxy."

"Where the Borg are," said Picard.

She nodded. "Where the Borg are," she confirmed. "Now, the Shgin were a
warlike race, so when they first encountered the Borg, they loved the
challenge. They welcomed the foe." She pursed her lips. "They lived to
regret it. Or rather, they didn't live to regret it. The Borg massacred
them as thoroughly as they did anything and anyone else. Delcara had a
mate and two children. All were
lost. Delcara and a handful of others escaped the Borg destruction, and
over the years, the rest of the Shgin died until only Delcara was left.
She wandered the galaxy, alone, lost. Either she found planets that were
uninhabited, or else once-populated worlds that had been 'visited' by
the Borg. By the time we found her, she had been alone for many years.
The solitude, the horror of that aloneness, weighs heavily on one. It
took us a long time to draw her out of the emotional cocoon that she had
created around herself. I had a hand in that--a considerable hand,
really. Delcara and I became close friends--close enough to be bonded in
a relationship approximating what you would call 'sisterhood.' During
that time Delcara learned our ways. The ways of peace and attention to
emotions and to listening. She even fell in love with one of my people,
and they married. And then.."

She paused, and it was obvious. "The Borg at-. tacked," Picard provided.

Guinan nodded. "The Borg attacked," she affirmed. "They slaughtered so
many of my people, including Delcara's new mate. When I found Delcara
afterwards, I had to drag her away from the broken body of her lover.
The screams," and she touched her fingers to her temples, "the screams
live on to this day."

"The poor woman," whispered Troi. "To lose all her loved ones...
twice... to the Borg..."

"It consumed her," said Guinan. "Totally. I tried to get her to stay
with me, but she wasn't the woman I'd known. She's become dark,
forboding, and all the beauty of her was blackened and blasted by the
horror and the loss and the helplessness. She disappeared, years ago,
and I never had any idea where she went."

"I think," Picard said slowly, "that I'm starting to get a damned good
idea."

At that moment his communicator beeped and he tapped it. "Yes."

"Sir," came the deep voice of Worf, "we have received a number of
communiqus relating battles and encounters--both with the Borg, and
apparently with the entity which Captain Korsmo and Commander Shelby
credited with the Borg destruction here at Penzatti. Shall

"Tell Mr. Data," Picard said abruptly, "that I wish to meet with him
immediately. Then in fifteen minutes I want all senior officers in the
conference room. Guinan, you too."

"Captain, the messages--"

"We'll hear them then, Mr. Worf."

"Yes, sir."

Picard turned towards Guinan and Troi the moment the communication was
cut. "I'm fairly certain I can sum them up without hearing them. And
that summation is that a war that is hundreds of years old may be coming
to a head--and we'll all be caught in the middle."

Once again the senior officers were grouped around the conference table,
except the tension level in the room had increased substantially.

They had just spent the past several minutes hearing report after
report, message after message. A huge, planet-devouring ship. A
mysterious woman from Guinan's past. An attacking Borg ship. Picard's
heart had jumped when he'd heard about the individual battles that the
Chekov and the Repulse had faced. How many more were going to die until
this business was finished? he wondered bleakly. How many comrades dead?
How many bodies buried, ships lost. How
much was it going to take to stop the madness once and for all?

The same thoughts were going through Riker's mind, particularly when
he'd heard about Shelby's vessel locked in combat. He'd grown to like
her, even become fond of her... at least, as fond as one could become of
a woman whom he'd wanted to belt at one time.

"You seem distracted, Number One," Picard said suddenly.

Riker looked up, feeling momentarily embarrassed, as if he'd been caught
flatfooted at school. "I was just thinking, Captain," he admitted, "of
when I had the power of Q. I gave it back to him, secure and confident
that I didn't want or need it. When I think that I had the power, at my
fingertips, to stop a race like the Borg with a passing thought .....
"He shook his head. "The lives I could have saved. The good I could have
done. To be able to eliminate the Borg..."

"Or the Romulans," observed Troi, pointing out the
danger of such thinking. "Or the Tholians."

"Or the Klingons," added Worf darkly.

Riker looked from one to the other. Then he allowed a small smile. "Hard
to tell where to draw the line, isn't it."

"Sometimes the best way to deal with drawing a line," said Picard, "is
refusing to take the marker when someone offers it to you for the
purpose of drawing." He shook his head. "There's no point dwelling on
the past, Number One, except in those instances in which it can be of
service to you. Like now."

He stood, his fingertips resting lightly on the conference room table.
"I believe I know how all of this relates to one another. It's part
speculation, part theory, with a dash of guesswork, but I'm reasonably

certain we have a workable hypothesis here. Mr. Data was kind enough to
work out some of the schematics for me as well, based on historical
records."

He walked over to the computer screen, and a chart of the galaxy
materialized on it, divided into quadrants. The Alpha and Beta
quadrants, comprising the lower half of the circle, glowed in dark blue.
The Gamma quadrant, entirely unexplored space, was deep black. The Delta
quadrant was also black, since the majority' of it was unexplored, but a
U-shaped red curve delineated that area known to be Borg space. The
territory of the UFP, the Klingon Empire, Romulan space, and approximate
limits of explored space, were likewise demarcated in red.

"An uncertain amount of time ago," began Picard, "the Borg first began
their rise to power in the Delta Quadrant. Whether they originated from
outside the galaxy, or somehow evolved from machines, or were a sentient
race that embraced machines, all of this is uncertain. But they
encountered resistance from a great and mighty race, name unknown.
Possibly the race that was known as the Preservers, who seem to have
'seeded' countless planets with humanoid life and then disappeared."

"Certainly being wiped out by the Borg would explain that
disappearance," said Riker.

Picard nodded and then continued, "For argument's sake, we'll call them
the Preservers, even if they were not. The war between the Borg and the
Preservers went on and on, and the Preservers were losing. But while
they fought the Borg in the Delta Quadrant, they were also busy in a
place as far from the scene of battle as they could be. You see, they
were developing a new and powerful weapon, and wanted that weapon to be
created as far from the Borg as possible. It was not a weapon that was
in-

tended to be used. It was a weapon of last resort, a weapon of revenge,
should the Preservers be ultimately defeated; A weapon that could
conceivably lay waste to a large portion of the galaxy. But better that,
they reasoned, than allowing the Borg to continue their conquest
unabated. The Preservers, or whoever, felt that they were the last, best
hope of the galaxy, and if they fell, then nothing else mattered.

"But while they worked on creating their ultimate weapon, they first
created a prototype. They created --this."

On the screen appeared a vast spaceship, with a huge maw and a body that
trailed off in a vague cone shape.

"In comparison to the projected final product, it was simplistic," said
Picard. "But deadly, nonetheless. Perfectly designed for use within the
galaxy, for it would devour planetary masses for the purpose of fuel. It
was eminently logical. After all, the Borg left behind lifeless balls of
rock in their wake. So a weapon was developed that would, in a beautiful
twist of irony, use those 'lifeless' planets as fuel. They would use the
waste matter that the Borg left over against them.

Riker frowned. "I know that thing. That's..." he snapped his fingers to
jog his memory. "The planet-killer! The doomsday machine that the
original Enterprise faced! We learned about it in the Academy."

"So did we," said Picard. "Neutronium hull, a beam of anti-proton,
consuming planets... I'm almost embarrassed we didn't think of it
earlier.

"What I believe happened next is that the Preservers, or whoever created
it, received word that the war was going badly, indeed, that it was
hopeless. So they launched the planet-killer prototype while continuing

to work on the final version which was considerably bigger, more
powerful, faster..."

"How much faster?" asked Geordi.

Picard spread his hands. "Logs of the original Enterprise would indicate
that the planet-killer never exceeded warp four. I would suspect that
the final version would have to go considerably faster to have any hope
of catching up with a Borg ship."

"But how can you be sure the planet-killer was created as an anti-Borg
weapon?" asked Geordi.

"We projected back along the original planet-killer's path, just as the
crew of the first Enterprise did," said Picard, and obediently the
overview of the galaxy reappeared, this time with a broken line cutting
across the Alpha and Beta quadrants. "Science officer Spock projected
that the planet-killer's rather straightforward path of attack meant it
originated from outside our galaxy. It did. I surmise that it was
created beyond the galactic barrier, in a space station or artificial
city. Projecting the planet-killer's path forward, Mr. Spock discovered
that the machine's course would take it straight towards Earth. Also
correct. Look, however, at the direction it would have gone, and the
ultimate destination it would have found, had it not been deactivated."

The glowing line ran straight and true, slicing

directly into the heart of the Delta quadrant. "Borg space," said Riker.

"Right down their throats," agreed Geordi.

"It would have taken the planet-killer, at the speed it was going,
hundreds of years to get there," said Picard. "Possibly they didn't
intend it to actually be launched, but they obviously felt they had no
choice. Besides, they reasoned that if the Borg continued their
conquest, .'they would undoubtedly run into the planet-killer halfway."

"But the original Enterprise killed it," said Riker. "That's right.
Ironically, the Enterprise NCC- 1701 defeated a weapon that was created
to defeat beings that the Enterprise NCC-1701-D is forced to face."

"Terrific," said Geordi. "But what' else could they have done?"

"Nothing else," said Picard. "Now, here's the rest of it. The final
version of the planet-killer was never launched. We don't know the
reason. Perhaps they hit some sort of technological snag. Perhaps they
simply decided to flee the area of the Milky Way galaxy altogether."

"Or perhaps," said Guinan, "they'd created a weapon so powerful, that
they were concerned it would be an even greater menace than the Borg."

"That's a cheery thought," said Geordi.

"So it was never launched," said Picard. "And it floated here, beyond
the edge of our galaxy." The captain tapped it on the computer screen,
"unmoving, abandoned, forgotten. Until it was discovored by a woman with
a vendetta. A woman who wanted to destroy the Borg and would allow
nothing to stand in her way. A woman named Delcara. She got to the ship,
activated it, and is now heading towards Borg space. She encountered the
Borg ship here at Penzatti and demolished it. She then ran into the
Repulse, and overcame it. According to the Repulse, it looked like
this."

The planet-killer that the Repulse had fought and lost appeared on the
screen.

Deanna Troi gasped, her mind reeling against it, and the others looked
at her immediately. "Deanna--?" said Riker.

"I know it somehow," she said. "I... I saw it, but I can't remember..."
She closed her eyes, clearly straining as if she were trying to browbeat
her mind

into doing her bidding. "That shape, and those spires..."

"Counselor Troi, what do you remember?" said Picard urgently. He made no
effort to mollycoddle her. He'd seen, in recent days, how poorly she
took to treatment such as that, especially when she was feeling confused
or out of sorts.

"I..." She shook her head. "I can't recall. That dream I mentioned
earlier... there-was a flash of that machine's overall shape. But I
can't remember more. I'm sorry, Captain."

"It's all right. I suspect.we'll be having more than enough personal
experience with it."

"Captain, are you saying that the Earth is in direct danger, as it was
when the original planet-killer was enroute?"

"Curiously, no. If you'll note here, this new device seems to be
following an elliptical path." Another glowing line appeared and
Picard's finger traced the line. "It starts at the same point, but
curves around our sector. Still, there are sufficient populated areas
that concern is warranted. Mr. Data, I want course set for the Kalish
star system, the last known location of the planet-killer that the
Repulse encountered."

The officers looked at each other for a moment in surprise, and finally
Riker said, "Captain, shouldn't we wait here, as per instructions?"

"I've already sent word to Starfleet and expect permission momentarily,"
said Picard briskly. "There is no point to the Enterprise remaining
here. We will continue to treat the Penzatti who are aboard, but
awaiting the Borg return here is futile. They will not return here until
they have dealt with the planet-killer, for they will most certainly
recognize its origins and suspect its capabilities. It will be a threat
that they

cannot allow. Therefore, wherever the planet-killer is, that's where
they will be headed as well."

"Captain, how do we know that for certain?" asked Crusher.

He turned and looked at her. "Because," he said grimly, "if I were a
Borg, that's what I would do."

Picard was in the ready room, staring out at the rapidly receding
Penzatti homeworld. At the sound of the chime at the door, he said,
"Come." The total absence of sound after the door had opened immediately
told him who had entered without his needing to turn around to confirm
his deduction. "Yes, Guinan?"

She folded her arms and said, "Interesting theories you provide, sir.
But I'm surprised you didn't happen to mention back there the other
reason you want to head off the planet-killer."

He stared at his reflection in the window. "It poses a threat to life
and limb. It is an artifact from an ancient race. It laid waste to a
starship without any appreciable difficulty. It represents a significant
defense and offense against the Borg. And Starfleet, through Captain
Korsmo, has already expressed interest and con-tern about it. I don't
see what more reasons one needs."

"Oh, those are plenty of good reasons," agreed Guinan. Then her voice
dropped slightly, the light, bantering tone disappearing. "But there's
one reason that's a little better, isn't there? Her. Because somehow she
has taken over that... that thing out there. The reason it's giving the
Terran system a wide berth is because she's controlling it somehow.
Maybe she's even inside it. And you've been thinking about her, had her
rattling about in the back of your mind, for decades."

He was silent for a long moment. "We're connected somehow, Guinan," he
said. "In a way I don't even know that I understand. She knew to find
me. Now I have to find her. I have to know..."

"The unknowable?" He shrugged. "Whatever I can learn."

"At least we don't have to worry that your judgment is clouded." He
turned and gave her a firm, even scolding, look. "Nothing could ever do
that."

"I've learned, Captain, that it's never safe to say never. Because
nothing," she said ruefully, "has a nasty habit of becoming a very, very
large something."

Chapter Twelve

GEOrdi LA FORGE KNEW that they had a few hours yet before arriving at
the site of the battle between the Repulse and the planet-killer. The
engines were operating smoothly, and all systems were on line and
functioning at peak levels. So he felt no guilt in going down to sickbay
to spend some time with the woman who'd once been known as Reannon
Bonaventure. He even had a plan that he had already put into operation,
because he was certain that there was a woman inside therema woman who
could be reached, and was somehow aware of what had happened to her. A
woman that, in some way, he could help. Bey Crusher, however, was
hesitant when she saw the chief engineer enter sickbay. "Look, Geordi,"
she began. "I know what you're going to say, Doctor," he said, "but you
have to let me try. I know that I can help her."

"How do you know for certain?" She stood before him, arms crossed, body
language virtually shouting, Do your best to convince me, but I'm not
buying it.

"I don't know for certain," admitted Geordi. "But every time you work on
a patient, do you know for

certain that you're going to be able to save him?"

"Reasonably sure, yes."

"But not one hundred percent."

She rolled her eyes impatiently. Geordi didn't see that, of course, but
he detected an annoyed flickering of her electromagnetic aura. "Of
course not, Geordi. Nothing is absolutely guaranteed in this galaxy."

"So don't you think I should be allowed the same leeway of uncertainty
that you have?"

Crusher chuckled slightly. "What is it with you, Geordi? Why all the
interest in her?"

"Call it instinct, if you want, Doctor. I know what it's like to be in
need. Besides, I've been studying about her career, about her
personality. She was one hell of a character. She deserves better than
this."

"All right, all right," sighed Crusher, knowing that sooner or later she
was going to bow to the inevitable. "I had a feeling I wasn't going to
be able to resist you. I've explained to the Penzatti the situation with
her and they've promised me that they will restrain

themselves in her presence."

"Much obliged, Doctor."

He turned towards Reannon. She sat there on the edge of the biobed,.
staring at nothing. She was there because someone had put her there, and
she wasn't going to move until someone retrieved her, like some pathetic
lapdog. Geordi took her gently by the hand, still cold as ice, and said,
"Come on, Reannon." He tugged her slightly and she slid off the bed,
following him as he pulled her along.

They walked through the sickbay and thi time the Penzatti looked away,
although a number of them shuddered. The only one who continued to stare
at her, Crusher noticed, was the one who had attacked her earlier:
Dantar. But his green face was unreadable, his antennae unmoving. His
body was tense, as if waiting for the former Borg to make some move, but
she gave no sign that she was aware of his existence. Aware, really, of
anyone's existence, including her own. Geordi guided her out the sickbay
door, and the moment she was gone, it was as if the entire sickbay
sighed in relief.

Dantar looked up when he saw that Crusher was standing over him. "Yes?"
he said quietly.

"Are you all right?" she asked him. As a matter of course, she was
studying his injured leg and nodding with satisfaction at the way in
which it had healed.

"You mean am I going to attack that thing again?"

"You'll pardon me for being curious." He shrugged. "You explained the
situation to us. Furthermore, such aggression would do nothing to bring
my family back to life. I see no point to it." He smiled, and it looked
more like a grimace. "Do you?"

"No," she said, patting him on the shoulder. "Let's make sure that we
all remember that, shall we?"

Geordi led Reannon down the corridor, ignoring the puzzled glances from
crew members who passed by. Actually, it was easy to ignore the glances,
since he couldn't see them. What he was able to do, however, was sense
people's reactions through their body heat and the auras they gave off.
Whenever someone would be approaching, the emissions of their bodies
seemed to flicker as they noticed Geordi and his companion, but were
uncertain who--or what they were seeing. Then their pulse rates would
jump, or their heartbeats would increase; the general air of their aura
would flicker wildly with barely repressed alarm as they realized the
nature of Geordi's companion.

It put him in mind of ancient times when people

would see lepers and run screaming in hysterics. It was a prejudice,
pure and simple. Reannon had not asked for this calamity to befall her,
but now she was paying the price for it. Geordi wanted to shout at them,
to chide them for their fear, but he saw no point to it. All they saw
was a representative of the race that had destroyed thousands, even
millions, of lives. A race that had perverted Captain Picard into
something dark and twisted. No wonder they wanted to give her a wide
berth. Still, it was damned irritating.

They stopped in front of a set of doors and Geordi turned to her.
"Reannon," he said, making an effort to say her name to her as many
times as he could--hoping that sheer repetition would get some sort of
response--"Reannon, this is the holodeck. I've got someone I want you to
meet."

The doors hissed open as they entered and stepped out into the vast room
with the glowing yellow grids. As the doors closed behind them, Geordi
said, "This is a place where we can create anything we like that's
within our computer records. I've been doing some preparation, and I got
something I think you'll want to see. Computer," he said more loudly
now, "run program La Forge 1A."

Instantly the yellow grids disappeared, and Geordi and Reannon were
standing on the bridge of a ship. As opposed to the clean, efficient,
spit-and-polish bridge of the Enterprise, this ship had a certain
grunginess and tackiness about it. There was litter on the floor, and a
number of instruments looked as if they were being held together with
spit and bailing wire.

Geordi heard the sound of metal scraping against metal and recognized it
instantly. Someone was trying to repair something.

Over in the far corner was a Jeffries tube that extended up into the
ship's inner workings, and a pair

of legs was sticking out from within. He heard a grunt and a muttered
curse and promises that the ship's time left for gallivanting around the
galaxy was short. "Excuse me," he called out.

"Yeah, what?" called back a distinctly female voice from within the
Jeffries tube.

"I have someone I want you to meet."

There was an annoyed sigh, and several tools dropped down from inside
the tube and clattered to the floor. Then the woman dropped out as well.
Her eyebrows and the ends of her hair was slightly singed, and there was
a .general air of impatience about her. Geordi allowed himself a mental
pat on the back. The lessons he learned about imparting the illusion of
life to holodeck recreations had been well' served.

"So?" she asked impatiently. "What's the deal here? You are... ?"

"Geordi La Forge. And you are here courtesy of an extremely detailed
psych profile left in Starfleet computers by a woman who was afraid of
dying alone n space and leaving nothing of herself behind. So... Reannon
Bonaventure, I want you to meet Reannon Bonaventure."

Now that Geordi had the opportunity to view her up close, in the flesh,
so to speak, he saw that she, in fact, bore only the most superficial
of resemblances to Troi. Her thick black hair was pulled back in a bun,
and she had none of the aristocratic air that surrounded the Betazoid
counselor. Instead, she had a down-and-dirty air about her, an
earthiness that he found ingratiating.

The holodeck Reannon slowly circled the-real Reannon, absently tugging
on her ear in thought. She bent down slightly, resting her hands on her
knees and putting her face right up to the vacuous woman. Then,

from the same slightly stooped position, she turned to

Geordi and said, "You're kidding, right?"

"I'm afraid not."

She took the Borg's face, squeezed it in one hand, turned it to the left
and right and studied it. "I know I'm not much of a morning person," she
said at last, "but this is ridiculous."

"This," said Geordi, "is what happened to her at the hands of the Borg.
I wanted her to see you. To see what she had been like, so that she
could be that way again."

"Well,;' and Reannon stepped back and spread her arms wide, the gesture
encompassing all within their view. "This is it. This is what there is
to me. They've got this whole legend built up around me. 'The Brass
Lass.' 'Course, the problem with brass is that it tarnishes." She stared
once more at her future. "Tarnished something bad, didn't it."

"Could you say something to her?" said Geordi. "Something that will"

"That will what?" Reannon's voice was suddenly sharp and angry. She was
stalking the bridge like a caged animal. "I mean, what the hell did you
do this for? What're you, the ghost of Christmas yet to come? I mean,
look at this! You show me this... this pasty-faced thing that's going to
be me, and you ask me what I have to say to it? Here. Here's what I say
to it," and she leaned into the face of the real Reannon and shouted,
"You're an idiot.t Okay? You're a freaking moron.t I mean, look at you!
Look at you," and her voice was shaking with fury. "After everything
I've been through, after everything I've dodged and the life I've led,
I'm going to wind up like that? That stinks! How could you have let
yourself get into this!" she shouted at herself. "You're a zombie!
You're a walking space case! I mean, I figured if I die, okay, so I die,
and

that's all. But this? This isn't dead! This isn't anything! This is just
a... a waste.t'[

Geordi was astounded. He hadn't been sure of what he was going to get by
programming the holodeck for such fidelity to the original persona of
Reannon Bonaventure, but he certainly hadn't expected this. "Reannonm"
and he wasn't even sure whom he was addressing.

The holodeck Reannon had hurled herself into a chair that was in front
of her sensor apparatus. "Just go away, would you, please?"

"Reannon, only you can help yourself," said Geordi.

She spun around in the chair as if it had been hurled by a slingshot and
said, "Are you saying I can avoid this? That there's something I can do
to prevent this from happening?"

"No," said Geordi. "No, there's not. Not a thing.

But you can help restore yourself to reality."

"Yeah?"

"I think so," said Geordi with a confidence he didn't feel.

Reannon slowly rose from the chair and walked across the 'bridge to face
herself. She took the Borg woman by the shoulders and said softly, "Oh,
baby
what have you done to yourself?."

She did not reply to herself.

"Remember?" Reannon said. "Come on. Remember the good-times, huh? Huh?
Like that time the Ferengi tried to cheat you, and you left them holding
the bag? Or the time that those people on Savannah One wanted to make
you into a goddess, because they'd never seen a woman with pale skin
before? Or how about," and she smiled, "how about the feeling you got
when you were being pursued. The way the adrenaline would pump and your
mind would be

racing, trying to come up with a new angle. And how about sex, huh? A
guy in every port. They all wanted a piece of me, just so they could say
they had. I had men in two different sectors claiming they'd been with
me at the exact same time. Gods, the sex was great. Come on. Come on,
you can't say you don't remember that."

And there was no response from the Borg woman. She continued to stare
straight ahead, impassive, unknowable.

Reannon shook her now, sounding a little desperate. "Come on," she said
urgently. "You've got to remember. You've got to say something. Come on.
Say something. Speak to me, dammir," and her voice rose in confusion and
fury. "They couldn't have gotten to me this much. Not me! I'm tougher
than that. I'm better than that. Come on!" and she shook her violently.

Geordi started toward them. "Hold it. That's en--"

"Come on!" bellowed Reannon, and she drew back a hand and slapped the
Borg woman as hard as she could across the face. Her head snapped around
and she staggered back.

"Get away from her!" shouted Geordi, and he grabbed Reannon from behind,
pinning her arms back. Reannon struggled furiously in his grip as the
Borg woman slumped backwards and fell to the floor, staring up at the
ceiling.

"Say something!" Reannon shouted. "Say something, you useless slab of
meat! I'm trapped in you! Let me out! Let me out!"

"Computer," Geordi began, about to issue the order that would terminate
the scenario.

"No!" shrieked Reannon. "No computer! Not yet! Not yet! Please! Wait a
moment!"

"What is it?"

In a low, barely controlled voice, she said, "Please. Please promise me
you'll do something. Don't leave me like this. Please. Please promise."

"I'll do everything I can," Geordi assured her, finding it hard to
believe that he was trying to still the concerns of a holodeck
recreation.

"Don't do everything," Reannon told him. "Do

anything. Do whatever it takes, but save me. Please."

"All right," said Geordi. "All right."

"Promise."

"I promise."

Her struggles subsided and Geordi released her. She stood there a long
moment, staring at herself. Then

she turned towards Geordi and regarded him.

"I'll do whatever it takes," said Geordi.

"Thank you," she said, and to his surprise she took him firmly by the
face and kissed him passionately. And when she released him, he most
definitely did not want to be released.

She stepped away from him and coughed slightly, then turned and went to
the Jeffries tube. "Whatever it takes," she said one last time. "Now if
you'll excuse me, I got work to do." But her bravado barely covered the
unmistakable sound of fear that filled her voice, and she jumped back up
the Jeffries tube before she'd have to deal with it any further.

"Computer," said Geordi, "end simulation."

The ship surroundings promptly vanished, to be replaced by the steady
glow of the holodeck grids once more. Geordi went to the unmoving,
de-Borged form of Reannon and said, "How about we go to the Ten-Forward
lounge and get a drink. What do you say, huh?" He spoke in a convivial,
offhand way, as if in this casual manner he could somehow trick Reannon
into speaking. As if the entire thing were some sort of elaborate hoax
on her part, and if he caught her off

guard and got her to say something, she would be all right once more.

But there was nothing from her, and Geordi sighed inwardly. Well, no one
could say he had no idea what he was letting himself in for. He also
knew, though, that he would not be able to get the image of Reannon out
of his mind, and that he had to get in to help her.

He took her by the arm and she obediently went out with him.

Beverly Crusher entered sickbay and gave a cursory glance around before
starting to head for her office to catch up on her paperwork. Then she
stopped in her tracks.

One of the beds was empty, and she knew immediately which one it was.
She immediately turned towards the other Penzatti and said, "Where did
Dantar go?"

They stared at her blandly and shrugged. They put on a splendid show of
not knowing, and perhaps they didn't. More likely, they simply didn't
want to know.

"How long has he been gone?" she demanded. This got even less response.
She tapped her communicator and said, "Crusher to security. We may have
a problem..."

There was an uneasy air hanging in the Ten-Forward lounge, as there
always was when the crew knew that the Enterprise was enroute to a
particularly dangerous situation. Word had seeped through the normal
grapevines that made keeping a secret on a starship so damned difficult.
The general talk was that they were going to be encountering either
something that was the Borg, or just like the Borg, only more powerful.

Guinan moved among the customers, making small

talk and generally letting them know, in her subtle way, that she was
there if they had anything they wished to discuss. She moved to a table
at which Data was seated, and with a slight inclination of her head that
served as a greeting, she sat opposite him.

"Unusual to see you here by yourself, Data," she observed. "Usually
you're only here in the company of the others, unless there's something
very specific on your mind."

Data pondered that a moment. "I do not believe that is the case in this
instance," he said. "I merely wished to be with my fellow crew members
in an informal setting, and so I came down here."

"Any idea why that might be?" asked Guinan.

He shrugged, a gesture he'd picked up from Rikes. It had taken him a
while to get the hang of when to use it. At first he'd started shrugging
in the middle of conversations, totally unrelated to whatever was being
discussed. This started concern that Data was developing some sort of
twitch in his positronic brain. "I have no idea," said Data.

"Perhaps you enjoy it, Data."

He gave it some thought. "I do not think that likely. I cannot enjoy an
event. At most, I can appreciate the variation in stimuli that are
presented when"

She put up a hand and said, "Data, let's just say that you enjoy it and
don't know it, okay?"

He stared at her and was about to reply, when La Forge entered with
Reannon in tow. Heads turned all over the Ten-Forward-lounge, and the
relative silence that had been present before was now replaced by a low,
curious buzz. Clearly Geordi and his new companion were becoming the
center of conversation wherever they went.

Geordi's gaze scanned the room, and he saw that people were drawing
slightly closer together, as if to

put whatever distance they could between themselves and the female with
him. And the chief engineer, slow to anger, felt his annoyance boiling
over.

"What do you think's going to happen?" he demanded of the general room.
"That if you look at her too long, or accidentally touch her somehow,
you might wind up catching it?"

Guinan was at his side now, a hand on his shoulder, but it didn't calm
him. "She was assaulted! Don't any of you understand that? Her mind and
body were violated, and you're all acting as if it's her fault! So,
before you start looking at her and shying away, maybe you'd better look
at yourselves first!"

He pulled her along with him to the table where he noticed that Data was
seated. He was extremely grateful that the android officer was there.
Data may have been incapable of feeling the best of human emotions, but
he also couldn't display the worst, such as fear or suspicion. He sat
down opposite Data and Guinan, but before he could say anything, Guinan
cleared her throat slightly and pointed. He turned and saw that Reannon
was still standing, and with a sigh he pulled her down into the chair
next to him. "She's

kind of bad on picking up non-verbal cues," he said. "So I gathered,"
said Guinan.

Data was studying her as if she were under a microscope. "Her motor
functions are performing admirably," he said.

"Yeah, but there's nothing beyond that," said Geordi. He rested his head
on one hand and sighed. "I feel like I should be doing more, but I don't
know what, I took her to the holodeck to acquaint her with

herself the way she used to be."

"Did she respond at all?"

"Not a lick." He leaned forward, his VISOR inches away from Reannon's
eyes. "Maybe it's true. Maybe I am just wasting my time."

And Reannon looked at him.

Looked at him.

It was a subtle change in her face that, of course, Geordi could not
discern, but he thought he detected a slight, flickering alteration in
her aura, which immediately alerted him. "Data, Guinan... did she... is
she curious about my VISOR?" He had not moved a millimeter from where he
was.

"I think curious may be too strong a word," said Data. "She has,
however, noticed its existence. Since she has not apparently noticed
anything else,' this could be considered a positive step."

She Was angling her head slightly, studying the VISOR from every
direction.

Then she reached up, her hand slow and hesitant, until her fingers came
to rest on the VISOR. They traced the curve of it, lingered over the
circuitry that was at either end in the earpiece.

"I'll be damned," whispered Geordi, afraid to talk above a hush, lest it
ruin the mood.

"Undoubtedly, it is the mechanical aspect of your visual prosthetic that
has caught her attention," said Data, watching with fascination. "It is
the closest analog to her own recent experience."

"What... what do you think I should do next?"

"Let nature take its course," said Guinan. "Not exactly an original
piece of advice, but one that bears repeating."

Then Guinan looked up, aware that something had changed.

Guinan was as attuned to the mood ofTen-Forward as the average person
was to the beating of their heart. So when Dantar entered, she sensed
immediately that something was wrong.

The Penzatti was coming slowly towards the table, a fixed and determined
expression on his face. His antennae were quivering slightly, as if from
anticipation of something. His gaze was fixed on Reannon.

"Geordi," said Guinan softly, but with enough firmness that it
immediately alerted Geordi that something was wrong. She didn't need to
add to it, but instead rose and said pointedly to Dantar, who was still
some feet away, "Welcome to Ten-Forward. How can I help you?"

The next moments seemed to telescope outward, as if taking an eternity,
although actually they only occupied a few fleeting seconds.

Dantar's hands had been behind his back, and suddenly one of the crewmen
at a table noticed something and shouted a warning, starting to rise
from his seat. Dantar's hands now swung into view and in either hand he
was holding a Keldin blaster, the hand weapon of choice of the Penzatti.
It was deadly, powerful, and accurate. He took aim at Reannon, shouted,
"Murderer of my family!" and fired.

Geordi lunged toward Reannon, crying out a warning. She didn't respond
to it, still mesmerized by Geordi's VISOR. He slammed into her, knocking
her back and sending her tumbling to the floor, away from his grasping
arms.

At that moment the crewman who had called out the alarm got to Dantar
just as the Penzatti fired at where Reannon had been. The blasters
discharged their powerful bolts and blew out the nearest window of the
Ten-Forward lounge, creating a hole that was more than a foot wide. The
results were predictable and instantaneous.

With the roar of a hurricane, air was immediately sucked out of the
room.

People screamed and cried out, grabbing at each other and at the
furniture which was affixed to the

floor. The vacuum of space pulled at them with all its force, and they
resisted with everything they had.

Dantar had grabbed the nearest piece of furniture, but in so doing had
lost his grip on his blasters. He watched in horrified helplessness as
the weapons skidded across the floor and out into the vastness of space.

Reannon had been closest to the window, and she was yanked up off her
feet. Her arm went through the hole and her head was about to follow,
when a screaming Geordi La Forge leaped forward, heedless of his own
safety, and grabbed her by the leg. Geordi then lashed out with his own
foot, hoping to hook it around a table leg, and he missed. He was
dragged forward inexorably by the pull of the air and then stopped as
Data clamped his hand onto Geordi's ankle. Data, for his part, had sunk
his fingers right into the table top and wasn't budging. Guinan was
holding on fixedly also, her flowing gown whipping around her, and she
was trying to shout something that no one could make out.

Data, Geordi, and Reannon formed a human chain, Reannon suspended in
midair, one arm out the window, the rest of her barely anchored within
the safety of Ten-Forward. And even that safety was becoming
questionable. Her feet were floating above the floor as the air rushed
around her, her head bumping up against the window. Geordi was shouting
her name, his fingers quickly becoming numb as the temperature dropped.

He thought he was that way for months, years. Actually, it was barely
seconds, and then the great pull of space promptly ceased. Reannon
thudded heavily to the floor, doing nothing to break her fall, and there
was an audible hiss as air flooded back into Ten-

Forward to replace that which had been sucked out into space.

Geordi knew that as the emergency systems of the Enterprise kicked in, a
force shield sprang into existence directly over the hole,
re-establishing hull integrity until an emergency crew could arrive to
more permanently repair the breech.

Geordi let out a gasp and released his grip on Reannon's leg. Then he
flexed his fingers to try and get the blood flowing again, and even as
he did so he was calling out, "Is everyone okay? Everyone all right?"

There were ragged eries of confirmation from all around, as the shaken
crew members verified that they were in one piece.

Dantar was lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. "Did I kill
her?" he was moaning over and over again. "Did I kill her? Can my family
rest now?"

"Your family!" shouted Geordi from across the room on the floor. He put
one hand down to start and push himself upwards. "Your family would be
thrilled to know you've turned into

And then he stopped as his hand felt something warm and wet and sticky
beneath it. His head snapped around, trying to discern the source. And
when he realized what it was, he shouted out, "Data/" with more alarm
than the android had ever heard in the chief engineer's voice.

Reannon was lying on the floor, blood pouring from her left shoulder, a
shoulder that had no arm.

She didn't know enough to cry out in pain or shriek. She merely stared
at the absence of appendage with a kind of distant fascination, as if it
were happening to someone else.

Instantly Geordi realized what had occurred. When there was a breech of
hull integrity, the force field

covered over that breech and sealed it off. It had also tried to push
Reannon's arm back in--but instead, the arm had been sheared off as it
was shoved up against the jagged remains of the transparent aluminum
window.

"Data!" Geordi cried out, not exactly sure what he expected the android
to do. Data, however, did something immediately. He moved quickly to
Reannon and lifted her up in his powerful arms. Within moments tho front
of his uniform was soaked red with blood.

Geordi was on his feet, tapping his communicator and alerting Crusher
that he was on his way down to sickbay with the severely injured
Reannon. They ran out just as Worf and the security team ran in. Worf's
face registered amazement for just a moment as he saw the truncated
stump that had once been Reannon's arm, and then Geordi and Data were
gone. Data's legs were churning up distance with formidable speed, and
it was all that Geordi could do to keep up.

Worf's face returned to the normal Klingon scowl with which he was far
more comfortable, and then he and the security team strode across the
Ten-Forward lounge to the prostrate form of Dantar. A crewman was
sitting flat on top of the Penzatti to make sure he didn't go anywhere.
They needn't 'have worried. Dantar was still asking over and over again
whether the Borg was dead and his family avenged.

Worf frowned, an expression only slightly different from his normal one.
If the Penzatti man had lost his mind, or was even faking having lost
his mind as a bid for sympathy, he was about to find Worf an extremely
unsympathetic audience.

Dantar looked up at him, wide-eyed, and in a broken voice he said, "They
kept crying out to me.

The souls of my family, crying out. They wouldn't stop. Wouldn't stop.
Are they at rest now? Are they?"

"Yes," said Worf with no trace of patience. "Their souls are resting
comfortably in the brig, and you'll be joining them momentarily." And
without another word he hauled the Penzatti male to his feet and dragged
him out of Ten-Forward.

Picard entered sickbay and walked directly to Geordi, who was standing
outside the operating room, unable to bring himself to go in and witness
firsthand how things were going. Data was with him, having had no
particular compunction about entering the operating room, but sensing
that his friend could

use whatever support Data's presence might entail. "Are you all right?"
he asked.

"Fine, Captain. A little shaky, but fine."

"Guinan said the Penzatti was wielding some sort of blasters," said
Picard. "Where the devil did he get them?"

Geordi cleared his throat. "I did some checking on that," he said. "They
were being stored in the armory, and entrance to the armory is governed
by computer access. But the Penzatti have always been extremely good
with computers, and Dantar managed to discover the access codes and get
in to retrieve them. It's moot at this point. I saw them get sucked out
into space."

"I want the access code changed--"

"Already done, sir."

Picard nodded approvingly. "Good. And I understand Mr. Worf has attended
to new living arrangements for our rather aggressive guest. So the
remaining problem is our former Borg patient."

Crusher emerged from the operating room, having

already disposed of her bloody garments and switched to fresh ones.
Normally the fields that were generated around the operating arena
cleansed wounds immediately. But when a patient was bleeding as
profusely as this one was, one couldn't help but get her hands dirty.

She came straight towards Geordi, her fury boiling over. "You said you
could take care of her!" she said angrily. "You said you'd be
responsible! You stood right here and sweet-talked me about all the good
you were going to do her. A fat lot of good you've done so far, wouldn't
you say, engineer?"

"I saved her life!" protested Geordi. "Doesn't that count for
something?"

"I sent a woman out of here with two good arms and she came back with
one. That's what counts."

"Mr. La Forge is deafly upset with what happened, Doctor," Picard said
with command firmness. "I hardly think it necessary to berate him."

"You're not the one who was ankle-deep in blood," said Crusher.

"I sure was!" said Geordi hotly. "There was blood on my hands, and on my
uniform, and on my conscience, because all I was trying to do was help
this woman and instead she keeps getting injured while in my care. So
you want to heap guilt on me, Doctor? Go ahead. Go right ahead. Because
it's only going to be a fraction of what I've already heaped on myself."

She pursed her lips and then stepped to one side. "You want to go in and
see her? Go in and see her."

Geordi nodded briskly and then went past them and into the operating
room.

Crusher watched him go and then shook her head. "I don't get it," she
said. "I just don't get it. What is this fixation that Geordi's
developed on this woman?"

"He fixes things," said Picard with a shrug. "He lives every day with
something that repairs his eyesight. Plus he has his duties as chief
engineer which, at its core, means that he is in charge of all sorts of
repairs. So instead of a broken machine, he sees a broken human, and he
feels the need to repair her."

"It may be Something else as well," said Data thoughtfully. "It may be
that when he looks at. her, he sees her in a way that we do not, and
perceives possibilities where others would only see.. 2'--and he paused,
searching for the right word"... windmills," he finished.

Inside the operating room, Reannon was sitting up. And she was staring.

"How are you, ReannonT' asked Geordi. In his mind he heard the saucy
voice of the holodeck Reannon replying, "Just fine, how the hell are
you?" Here, though, in the real world, he was getting nothing.

She continued to stare, and Geordi realized that she was looking at
something very specific. She was looking at her arm.

"It was the best I could do on short notice," came Crusher's voice.
Behind her, Geordi heard the distinctive footfalls of Picard and Data.
"Given time, I can clone her a new arm once I've had time to grow skin
samples. Or, if she decides to stay with this, one, create skin grafts
over it to hide the metal. It'll take a bit of experimenting to match
her rather pale complexion, but I can do it. No one will even know it's
a prosthesis."

Reannon was studying her new arm. Its ribbed metal sections glinted in
the soft light of the sickbay operating theater. The fingers came to
slight points rather than the rounded edges of normal fingers, and

when she closed her hand into a fist, it made a soft clacking sound.

"She appears much more attentive to objects and the world than she did
before," observed Picard. "Obviously her time with Mr. La Forge is
having some degree of positive influence." The remark was aimed rather
pointedly at Crusher.

It was a mild barb that was not lost on her. "So it would seem," she
admitted. "Still, I'd feel more comfortable if Deanna had some time with
her. Psychology is her field, not Geordi's."

"The Counselor wasn't picking up anything from her earlier," said
Picard, "but it's more than possible that "

"Look!" Crusher said suddenly.

Reannon was staring at her mechanical hand, and the edges of her lips
had turned up ever so slightly.

"She is smiling," observed Data. "That is the first significant facial
reaction that she has displayed."

"She is smiling," said Crusher, regarding Reannon closely. "I'll be. All
right, Geordi, you have my full

apologies. You're clearly making headway with her."

"No, I'm not," said Geordi sourly.

They looked at him with surprise. "How can you say that?" asked Crusher.
"To get an emotional response from someone who seemed as brain-dead as o
. ."

"Yeah, but don't you see what she was responding to?" He took the metal
hand firmly in his own. "She's happy because she has a part attached to
her that's mechanical. Artificial. She's smiling because whatever part
of her is alive in there is happy because she's taken her first step
back towards being a cybernetic organism."

"You're saying that--" began Picard.

And Geordi nodded. "Yeah. The only reason she's displaying any sort of
emotion is because she thinks she's taken the first step toward becoming
a Borg again. And she's happy about it." He released her hand and, with
a discouraged shake of his head, walked out of the operating room.

Chapter Thirteen

"THAT'S ALL we can tell you, Jean-Luc. I wish we knew more." The face of
Ariel Taggert was on the screen, having replaced the image of moments
ago of the Repulse hanging in space, moving at one-half impulse power.
When the Enterprise had arrived in the Kalish star system and found a
battered starship and several planets missing, they had thought the
worst until they managed to open a channel to the Repulse and learn that
loss of life had been minimal. "It's a big monster, and it's powerful,"
continued Taggert. "I've fed you all the specs that our sensors were
able to pick up. When we last saw it, it was heading out of the system
at two-eleven mark four." Data, seated at ops, quickly ran the
coordinates through on his charts. "Captain," he said, and then amended,
"Captains," since the comment was really addressed to both of them,
"that would be in line with our projected origin of the device."
"Device." Taggert shook her head. "A chronometer is a device. This thing
was a monstrosity. This thing, and whoever was controlling it."

"You definitely communicated with it," said Pi-card.

"Ooooh yes. And it had a few choice words for us that, boiled down,
amounted to, 'Stay the hell out of my way.' If she's out for the Borg,
then I certainly wouldn't want to be in the Borg's shoes."

I've been there, and I wouldn't want to be there again, either, Picard
thought. Out loud, he said, "Shall we take you in tow, Ariel?"

She made a dismissive wave: "Save your energy. We'll have repairs
effected within twelve hours to be on our way again. Besides, in the
condition we're in right now, we wouldn't do you a damned bit of good. A
few phaser shots and some maneuvering tricks aren't going to help. Not
that attacking that thing with

all systems go would do you any good.".

"It's that powerful?"

"Oh yes," she said with quiet conviction. "I've never seen anything like
it, Jean-Luc. Not ever. You

can't stop it. No one can stop it."

"We'll have to try."

"Then God watch over you, Picard."

"If he will. Enterprise out."

Ariel's image vanished, replaced by the Repulse, and Picard turned to
Data. "Mr. Data, what will be the next star system that the
planet-killer encounters?"

Data didn't even have to glance. "If it continues its present course,
the planet-killer will next enter Tholian space."

"Oh, wonderful," said Riker. "They'll be thrilled to help out."

"Sarcasm, Number One? Perhaps you can employ it against the
planet-killer," Picard said.

"From what Captain Taggert was saying, phasers

and photon torpedoes had no effect," Riker said drily. "Perhaps other
weapons might be in order."

"I'll have Mr. La Forge prepare some slingshots. Mr, Data, set course on
two-eleven mark four. Warp factor seven." He pointed slightly in that
small shooting motion he'd developed. "Engage," he said.

The Enterprise leaped into warp space and was gone.

Taggert watched them' go, then said, "Bridge to sickbay. How you doing
down there, Kate?"

"Holding up," came Pulaski's reply. "You didn't

send us as many injuries as I figured you would."

"I'm mellowing in my old age," said Taggert.. "Old age beats the
alternative."

"Yeah." She paused. "Let's hope Picard doesn't have to deal with the
alternative. Bridge out."

She returned to her command chair and stared out at the stars hanging in
front of them. She felt woefully insignificant.

"Be careful, Picard," she said.

"Captain," Worf began, and then paused, rechecking the sensors on his
tactical board as if he couldn't quite believe it. "I believe we've'
found the planet-killer."

"Confirmed," said Data. "It is progressing along the same heading as
before, moving at warp three."

"A relatively leisurely pace," Picard observed. "Increase speed to warp
six, and let us hope she doesn't decide to make a race of it."

The Enterprise shot forward, and within moments the last artifact of a
long-gone race was looming on their screen.

There was a deathly silence in the bridge as they

took in the scope of it. Then, his voice barely rising above the hush,
Picard said, "Sensor readings?"

"Neutronium hull makes readings of the internal workings difficult to
ascertain," said Worf. "Emissions would indicate a form of conversion
engine, somewhat unlike any known to our technology."

"I am also detecting fluctuation rates in their warp drive field that
are at variance with the standard vibrations that our own technology
provides," said Data. "In fact, it would seem closer to the vibrations
given off by the propulsion of a Borg ship."

"You're saying that the Borg derived their propulsion technology from
the race that built that... thing?" asked Picard, pointing at the
screen.

"I'm stating only that there is a similarity," Data said. "The Borg are
known to assimilate the usable material and technology of whatever they
conquer. It is possible that if they discovered Warp technology that was
superior to their own, they would quite naturally incorporate it into
their own structure."

"But the Borg don't consume planets," pointed out Riker. "Planetary mass
is what fuels our friend out there."

"True, considering the speeds we've seen the Borg travel, they clearly
have some sort of nearly unlimited power base."

Troi was staring at the planet-destroyer with amazement and shaking her
head. "Incredible," she whispered.

Picard and Riker turned towards her. "Counselor-?"

"It's..." She was clearly overwhelmed, trying to find the words. "What
I'm picking up from that

vessel, Captain, it's..."

"Is it alive?"

"Captain," and she looked at him with eyes-that

had a hopeless look to them, "it's powered by emotion."

"I must disagree," said Data. "It is clear that the consumption of
planets..."

"I'm not talking about the physical fuel," she said. "The device has...
has an emotional drive to it. I've

never encountered anything like it."

"Is it like the Tin Man?"

"No. No, Tin Man was alive. Tin Man was a biological entity that needed
a heart. That thing out there, that is a mechanical construct. But it's
constructed with a technology that gives it some sort of an empathic
link with..."

"With what?" Picard was starting to feel frustrated. It was like pulling
teeth.

She shook her head. "I don't know. There's so much, so many voices. I
can't begin to describe it. But I definitely had a sense of it. It
called out to me, Captain, in my sleep. I remember the vague outlines,
if not the details. And that is most definitely what presented itself."

"Enough speculation," said Picard. "Frequencies."

"Open," said Worf.

"Attention alien vessel," he said. "This is Jean-Luc Picard of the
Federation starship Enterprise. Identify yourself."

There was no immediate response, and then Data said, "The vessel is
slowing, Captain. Warp two ... warp one... dropping out of warp space."

"Bring us alongside," said Picard, slowly rising from his chair. He
couldn't remove his eyes from the image on the screen. It was a floating
engine of destruction, bristling with more power and speed than anything
he'd ever seen or even contemplated. The intellect and technology that
had been able to build such a thing was truly remarkable.

Suddenly the lights began to flicker, and all over, the bridge panels
started activating. The crew looked around in confusion as Worf said,
"Captain, we are being scanned."

"Shields up," said Picard.

"Our shields are not stopping the probe, Captain," Data reported after
a' moment. "It appears to be doing no harm to our systems."

"Don't do anything," said Picard. "Let them probe us," as if we have a
choice, his mind added darkly. "Let them know that we have nothing to
hide."

And then Troi cried out.

In the Ten-Forward lounge; Guinan was staring out the viewing port at
the massive vessel that hung stopped in space before them.

"Incredible," she whispered. "Oh, sister... what have you done?"

And then she felt it, felt the minds reaching out. She staggered back,
banging into a table and using it to steady herself. She ignored the
sharp pain in her leg that had been created by the impact, turned, and
ran for the door of Ten-Forward.

Riker was immediately at Troi's side as she started to slide out of her
chair, her eyes rolling up into the back of her head. "Deanna!" shouted
Riker.

Picard immediately called out, "Bridge to sickbay! Doctor Crusher,
Counselor Troi is having some sort of

seizure!"

"NO."

It was Deanna who had spoken. Just like that, the convulsions, the
screaming, all of the consternation was gone. Instead, she was smiling
with infinite calm, her dark eyes glittering. She looked at Picard with
an emotion bordering on joy. "So... it is you."

"What?" Picard looked at Riker in confusion, and the first officer
didn't seem to understand the situation any more than Picard did. "Yes,
it's me, Counselor. Deanna, what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong." '

From sickbay, Beverly Crusher's worried voice called out over the
still-open channel, "What's happening up there? Should I come up therew"

"Oh, no," said Deanna, pulling herself to her feet. "Everything will be
just fine."

"Stand by, Doctor," said Picard.

"You're just keeping the poor woman on alert for no reason," said
Deanna.

And that's when Riker noticed it. "Your voice. Your accent is different.
Deanna, what's happened?" ',

"That voice," said Picard in disbeliefi "Yes, I lnow that voice,
that's..."

She turned towards Picard. "Do you understand now, Picard? It was
important to me that you be the first to know."

Picard staggered back, holding onto the arm of his command chair as if
deriving strength from it. For just a moment his mouth moved and he
looked utterly helpless, confronted by someone before whom he felt
vulnerable. But it was for the briefest of moments, so brief that his
crew didn't even notice, for all their attention was on Troi. Or
whatever Troi had become.

She was standing with her shoulders squared back, her chin upturned.
There was a faint expression of bemusement on her face.

"Oh, don't worry, Picard," she said. "I shall't stay long. But after all
you have done for me, after the simple clarity of your thought served to
point the way, I merely wished to thank you."

And she drew Picard's face to hers and kissed him. For just a second he
almost responded, and then he

took her firmly by the shoulders and held her at arm's length. "You are
doing this without the permission of my counselor. You cannot usurp her
body. Whoever you are...

"You know who I am," she said with raised eyebrows. "But as you wish,
Picard. It is probably better this way. The mind of this one is not
especially powerful. If .I were a part of her overlong, I could destroy
it. That will serve no purpose. So I release her to you."

As if a string had been cut, Deanna suddenly started to slump forward.
Picard caught her with one arm and looked around, as if searching the
air for the whereabouts of the being that had come and gone so quickly.
Troi looked around in confusion.

The turbolift slid open, and Guinan stepped out onto the bridge.
Somehow, considering the events of the past few minutes, the unusualness
of her appearance on the bridge seemed to fit right in.

She stood by the turbolift, her hands resting lightly on the curved
railing that separated the aft stations from the command area. She spoke
one word, in a voice far more severe than any they had ever heard. And
the word was a name: "Delcara."

The air in front of the viewscreen seemed to shimmer for just a moment,
and then she appeared.

Not immediately--slowly, like a Cheshire cat in reverse. First her face
was hanging there, only the faintest of outlines visible. Then her body
began to waver into existence. At first she seemed nude, but then
undulating folds of cloth materialized around her. Her hair billowed in
all directions, looking for all the world like a vast starfield.

She was just as Picard had remembered her.

Within seconds she stood before them, a flickering vision. Everyone on
the bridge was affected, held

breathless and motionless by the wonder of the female before them.

Almost everyone.

"Security alert," called Worfi "Intruder on the bridge!"

"No, it's all right," said Picard.

"Captain, there's aw"

"No," said Picard slowly. Despite all the emotions running through him,
despite the fact that deep within him was a confused Starfleet cadet who
had been confronted years ago by a woman beyond imagining, there was no
room here for indulgences. He could not allow himself to be distracted
by his own turmoil or the stark beauty of the woman from his past. He
forced his mind to act in its familiar patterns. Taking a deep breath,
he said, "No, there's not. There's no shadow."

They looked and saw that he was correct. The being in front of them cast
no shadow at all.

"She's a hologram," said Riker, understanding. Slowly Guinan approached
her, her eyes never wavering. Delcara smiled ethereally. "Guinan," she
said. "You look well."

"And you too," said Guinan carefully. "What are you doing here?"

"Conversing with your captain. He wished to speak with me, and I have
obliged him. I owe him that much."

"I wish to talk with you privately," said Picard. "You, myself, and
Guinan."

"Captain, I would not advise that," Worf spoke up, and Riker added, "Nor
I."

But Picard fired a look at them that spoke volumes and said, "That is my
decision, Number One."

In truth, he wasn't sure why he was making it. Perhaps because she
represented an incarnation of

something that was, quite simply, too personal for him to expose to his
officers. Or perhaps it was something else. Perhaps...

Perhaps he didn't want to share her.

He glanced at Troi, who had managed to regain her equilibrium and
who--in very broad strokes--had been filled in by Riker as to what had
happened to her. Troi looked at him with eyes that were filled with
understanding. Somehow he considered that very important to him.

"Yes, sir," was all Riker said. Worf said nothing, but merely glowered,
the way he did habitually when

someone did other than what Worf suggested.

He gestured. "My ready room is this way."

She nodded and walked towards it in a manner that seemed more gliding
than anything else. Picard was momentarily startled when the door did
not slide open for her, and it looked as if she would bump right into
it. Then, of course, he understood, as Delcara passed through it like a
ghost.

He turned to Guinan and said, "This should prove to be very, very...
interesting."

"Not the word I would have chosen, but it'll do," she said.

Chapter Fourteen

THE rmov. s or the ready room slid shut behind them and Picard turned to
face the woman from his past. "All right," he said, "How? How did you do
it? And why?"

"To what are you referring?" asked Delcara. "All of it. The Academy.
This ship. All of it." She looked from Picard to Guinan and back, and
then walked through Picard's desk to stand on the other side.

"All right," she said softly. "Guinan has told you much, I'm sure. Here
is the rest Of the' telling, then.

"I was drawn to you," she said, "in a way that I cannot describe to you.
I felt... a sense of you. A sense that you were out there, in the galaxy
for me." She smiled that wonderful smile. "Humans believe that
throughout the galaxy, there is always someone for everyone. That no one
need really be alone, and it is just a matter of finding the right
person. For some of us that cosmic balancing is more than just a theory.
It is a palpable thing that shapes and directs our lives."

He shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I do," said Guinan. "My people have a general--sense, if you will--of
the space-time continuum. An operational instinct, more than anything
else. It's an acquired trait, a training of the mind, really. The galaxy
is always whispering. We just learned to listen better than others. It's
a technique that Delcara was taught... that anyone can learn, really,
when they're ready. You're over-romanticizing it somewhat, bond sister."

She turned away from him to gaze out his window, at the ship that
contained her physical body. If she had heard Guinan's words at all, she
gave no sign. "There is something about me," she says. "Somehow,

I am linked with the soulless ones."

"The Borg," said Picard.

She shrugged. "If that is what they are calling themselves now. I sense
they have had many names in their time. And somehow I am drawn to those
who are destined to suffer at the hands of the Borg. It took me much of
my lifetime to realize that. Wherever I go... they follow."

"Delcara, that's ridiculous," Guinan spoke up for the first time. She
walked around the desk to face the hologram. "You act as if you yourself
are to blame for what happened."

Delcara did not even look at her. "Everything I touch, dies," she said.
It was not said in self-pity, but as if stating obvious fact. Her hand
reached out and skimmed the top of the desk, passing through. "Now I am
safe. Now the galaxy is safe from the Borg, and when I am through, the
Borg will be no more."

"You say you were drawn to me," said Picard. "Even if I were to accept
that... what happened that day? That night? Why could no one else see
you? I

thought I was losing my mind... Was that a hologram?"

"No. I possessed no holograph technology back then. No one else saw me
because I wished it so. Guinan has told you of my power. Of my command
of the mind. I am perfectly capable of instructing the mind to pay no
attention to that which it perceives. You saw me, however, because," and
again she smiled that luminous smile, the edges of her eyes crinkling
ever so.slightly, "because to deceive the mind in such a way is, in a
manner of speaking, to lie. I had no

desire to lie to you."

"And that night?"

"Let us say that I appealed to the aspects of your mind that held a
sense of the dramatic," she said. "A breezy night, in your dreamlike
haze, became a virtual hurricane."

"You touched me." His fingers brushed against his forehead, as ira mark
Were visible. "You kissed me. It felt like ice."

"That," she said darkly, "was an unfortunate indulgence on my part. I
have since learned what happened to you. A kiss from me brushes your
forehead. And a death sentence from the Borg--a life of living as they
do, or what passes for living--that living death sentence brushes
against you. Had I followed my heart's dictates..."

"I'd be a Borg to this day? Or dead? What utter nonsense," he said
sharply.

"Picard is right," said Guinan. "Sister, the years of isolation, the
pain, the loss--they've taken their toll on you. You're not speaking as
one who has thought out what she's saying."

Delcara passed through the desk and crossed the room. "And you, Guinan,
refuse to see the obvious. That is a mistake that I have ceased making.
Once I

realized the truth of it--once I realized the fate that had been
inflicted upon me--only then was I capable of taking steps so that my
fate would be in my hands once more. And it is. Look at it," and she
gestured (gut the window and toward her vessel. "Look at the fruits of
my labor."

It hung out there, carrying with it an almost obscene beauty in the
amount of destruction that it was capable of causing. There was a
somewhat hypnotic effect about it, and-it was with effort that Picard
tore his gaze from it. "You found

"Because of you," she said, "It took me years to acquire a vessel
capable of piercing the energy barrier around the galaxy. I traced the
path of the doomsday machine, and took its point of entrance into our
galaxy to be an indicator of its origin. I hoped, prayed, that I would
find something there to use against the soulless ones. What I found
exceeded all possible expectation."

"What is it?" asked Guinan, in spite of herself. Delcara paused a long
moment, as if trying to determine the best way to phrase it. "What would
you say, dear Picard," she asked finally, "are the limits of human
imagination?"

"None," said Picard firmly. "The human imagination has brought us to the
stars and will someday carry us beyond."

"Imagine then," she said, "a ship powered by imagination, fueled by
will. A ship driven by an overwhelming, undying need for vengeance."

"I would think," said Guinan dryly, "that considering much of what
you've said, such a ship and yourself would be well matched."

"True," said Delcara. "And so we are. Within that great vessel you see
hanging there in space are the hearts, minds, and souls of the greatest
of a once-great

race. A race that once strode across the galaxy the way that you would
step across a brook. A race that believed in peace--in the spreading of
life--with every fiber of its collective being. A race that was in tune
completely with itself and with the galaxy. And when they were
confronted by the soulless ones--by the Borg--they tried to reason with
them, to understand the Borg. To love the Borg, as they loved all life.
They did not comprehend that the Borg are the incarnation of anti-life,
and their compassion was the end of them. By the time they tried to
fight, it was far too late, but they fought nevertheless. And as they
fought, there were some who created the great war machines. As you
surmised, the doomsday machine was one such device. A model, really, for
the more magnificent and deadly one that was to follow.

"But the Borg were even more destructive than was imagined possible. The
prototype was completed, but the final model was not. The planet-eater
had been launched on a thai run, when its creators suddenly sensed that
their efforts had taken too long. They felt, deep within them, the final
death screams of their fellows thousands of light-years away, and they
knew that they were now the last of their race. The knowledge settled on
them like a shroud and encompassed them. And they were no more."

"They died?" whispered Picard, amazed in spite of himself. "The rest of
their race was wiped out by the Borg, and they simply--ceased to exist?"

"They did not die in the way that you understand," she said. "They
simply languished, becoming more and more shadows, beings of no
substance at all. Time lost meaning to them. They knew, in a distant and
oblique manner, that the prototype was continuing on its course, and
what had been intended as a test run was now the final statement that
they would make.

The soulless prototype was achingly slow, but eventually--centuries,
most likely--it would cross the galaxy and reach Borg space. There, they
felt, the Borg would be destroyed. But their hearts were not in the
notion any longer, for they had always been givers of life, not death.
Their mightiest weapon was left uncompleted, sitting outside the galaxy,
in its great dock.

"They died all together, all at once, like a great rush of air, or the
death rattle from hundreds of throats. And yet... and yet..."

Her voice trailed off a moment, as if she were lost in thought, and then
she continued, ". and yet they could not completely die. They were
too wondrous a race, more so than they would have imagined. Just as you,
dear Picard, and your people, are capable of greatness beyond that which
you expect--so were they. Their collective consciousness refused to die.
Their bodies and minds may have given up the ghost, but their
essence--their essence would not go quietly. Their essence roiled and
seethed with the cosmic injustice of it all, and it occupied the
remarkable weapon that had been created with the skill of their hands
and the strength of their intellects. You would say that they haunted
it. They occupied the great ship that had remained behind, and there
they stayed."

"You offer stories laced with fantasy and fable," said Picard.
"Metaphysical, instead of physical, science. Technology was discovered
decades ago on Camus II amidst the ruins of a long-dead civilization."

"Was it, indeed?" said Delcara with an air of barely held patience. "And
perhaps the Borg were responsible for that race's assassination?"

"Or perhaps that race was a colony or offshoot of the race that
developed your planet-destroyer," said

Picard. "The technology on Camus II was capable of mind transference.
Also, the denizens of Arret were able to store their consciousness in
mind-encasing globes. Isn't it far more likely that some rational,
scientific explanation exists to explain whatever was done to--"

"Why do you persist in this!" Her voice was filled with fury, her eyes
snapping and wrathful. "I speak to you true, of glories of spirit and
desire beyond human ken, and you wish to drag it down into mundanities!
I tell you the ship was haunted by homeless spirits, lost and alone..."

"Until you came," Guinan said.

"Until I came," agreed Delcara, Her ire seemed to have passed as quickly
as it appeared. "They cried' out to me and I heard them, once I was
close enough. I was drawn to the magnificence of their creation. They
loved me, welcomed me, saw me as their salvation and ally, their
rescuer, their goddess. The ship needed someone to complete the work. I
did so. And then it needed a physical host to guide it, and that I did
willingly. Throughout the years of loneliness they faced before I came,
they dwelled on their miserable State and, more and more, contemplated
revenge on the soulless ones. I became the vessel of that revenge."

"Is it what they wanted," said Guinan, "or what you wanted."

Delcara went to Guinan and for the first time actually looked her
straight in the eye. Guinan stood with her hands invisible, tucked deep
into the respective sleeves of her garment. She seemedinto Picardm to be
in a vaguely defensive posture.

"Every so often, bond sister," said Delcara, "there is a union that is
the perfect meshing of desires. Such was mine and my vessel. We are as
one. My ship protects my physical body, keeping it safe from all

harm. It protects and gives a channel to my desire for revenge against
the cursed Borg. And I, in turn, provide the drive to supplement the
dream of the Vessel. The souls of the damned inhabit that ship, my
beloved Guinan. My sweet Picard. The damned reside there: And I am their
guardian angel."

"The guardian angel of the damned," said Picard icily, "was Satan."

"Why, sweet Picard... how Judeo-Christian of you."

"This isn't a joke, Delcara!" said Guinan impatiently. "We trusted each
other. We told each other secrets that we swore to keep forever. I
thought you cured of your hopeless hatred for the Borg."

"Cured? No, Guinan. Never cured," and as she spoke, it almost seemed as
if the lights were dimming. "Am I supposed to simply live with the
knowledge that the Borg are out there and can continue to do as they
please, where they please? Am I to accept the misery they have caused me
and millions of others? Perhaps for a time I was able to tolerate that
knowledge. Perhaps I was able to hurl it away, to try and reconstruct a
life and pretend that it was a life worth living. But I was disenchanted
with that notion, Guinan. I was shown the folly and futility," and with
each word her voice became louder, angrier. "Hopeless hatred, Guinan?
No. No, not hopeless. That, "she said, pointing out the window with
quivering finger, "that gives me hope. That gives me strength. That
gives me might."

"And might makes right?" said Picard.

She looked at him with dark amusement. "Of course might makes right."

"But the Borg were mightier once. Did that make what they did right?" he
demanded.

With a raised eyebrow she replied, "The Borg were mightier. Not
anymore."

And with that pronouncement she turned, walked through the bulkhead, and
vanished into space.

Guinan leaned forward, hands on Picard's desk, and she looked as though
she were fighting to compose herself. He put hands on her shoulders to
steady her, and she said, waving him off, "It's all right. I'll be
fine."

"In all the time I've known you, Guinan, I've never seen you quite as
discomfited as you were just now."

She eased down into a chair and looked up at him with curiosity, even a
touch of admiration. "Discomfited. Oh, yes. I've seen a good friend--a
dear friend --reject rational explanations in favor of--how would you
put it--?"

"Metaphysical claptrap," offered Picard.

She nodded slowly. "Yes. Her fixation on that alone would be enough to
discomfit me. The fact that she's backed up by a weapon powerful enough
to lay waste to a galaxy makes it doubly intimidating. You, on the other
hand," she said, "faced with the woman of your dreams--you were utterly
in command. You never fail to surprise me, Captain."

He stared out the window of his ready room at the powerful ship that was
mere kilometers away. "Occasionally," he admitted, "I even surprise
myself."

Delcara merged back into the oneness of the ship and felt the cool
oneness of the many welcoming her.

"Hello, my children," she said. "I trust you did not miss me overmuch."

We missed you completely, they sang within her. We love you, Delcara. We
need you, Delcara. Never leave uS.

"I cannot promise never, my children.," she told them.
And she felt something even as she said this, a sort of... resentment. A
bright, silvering shard, white-hot next to the coolness that was the
normal state of the oneness. She found it disturbing and unsettling.
"What is wrong?"

You love someone else. They sounded petulant, their song hitting a
discordant note.

"How I feel for others does not matter," she said. "Whatever other
feelings I may have had pale in comparison for how I feel about you and
about our mission. I have given myself over to you, willingly and
gladly. You question that now?"

You listened to the things they said. You thought of going back to them.
And to him.

She was quiet for a long moment.

"I thought of it," she admitted, for there was no point in denying it.
"It could not be helped."

If you love us... if you value our mission of vengeance...

"You are not alive, except in your determination not to let the great
injustice of the soulless ones go unpunished. I share that
determination. But I have a living mind, a mind that is accompanied by
flesh and blood. And those... inconveniences, if you will... prompt me
to consider other avenues. To dwell, for a few flittering moments, on
the might-have-been's, and the never-will-He's. I cannot help that. When
I see Picard again, and I relive those comparative few

moments we had together..."

You loved the Picard?

"I love no one anymore," she said. "I dare not. But there is much in him
that reminds me of loves past. I see some of my life mates within him.
They had much of his spirit, his determination. Them is a blazing

glory of life in him that draws me to him, like moth to flame. But I
will not allow the curse that pursues to destroy him. I cannot help how
I feel, my children. But I can help what I do."

We want no one else to have you. You must be ours. You are needed for
the great mission of vengeance, and in performing that mission, you have
our devotion. But we must have yours. For if we are the will, you are
the way.

"I know," she said. "And I will be as one with you. That is what we both
wish."

.,nd that is how it shall be. For eternity, and beyond. And do not, the
voices added darkly, do not think of leaving us. It upsets us. It

"I would not upset you, my children, for all the world. You know that."

We know. But we wish to hear it again... and remind you. You are ours,
and we are yours. Forever.

Guinan had long since departed, at Picard's request. But the captain had
remained in the ready room, lost in thought. So lost, in fact, that at
first he did not hear the buzz at this door. This led to a more urgent
summoning, and finally he did look up and call out briskly, "Come."

The door hissed open and Deanna Troi was standing there. "Captain?"

Through the open door he caught a glimpse of Riker and Worf at their
stations, surreptitiously looking in the direction of the ready room.
When they realized that the captain had noticed them, they quickly
snapped their heads around and .gazed at the front viewscreen intently,
as if embarrassed that they'd been "caught in the act."

"Yes, Counselor," he said, and gestured for her to

enter. The doors closed, blocking the bridge from view. Inwardly, Picard
smiled, calling up an image of Riker and Worf leaning against the door
with drinking glasses against their ears.

She took a seat opposite him. and said, "I sensed you were disturbed,
Captain."

"I can't say I'm surprised, Counselor," he said, forcing a smile. "The
appearance of this... woman was something of a shock to me."

"What sort of shock? A pleasant one? Unpleasant?"

"A shock," he said simply. "I don't know if I've really digested all the
ramifications just yet."

"You're saying you don't know how you feel about her appearance?"

He arched his eyebrows. "You're saying that you do know how I feel?"

"You are most ambivalent," she admitted. "That, in and of itself, is
disconcerting for you. You dislike not knowing your own mind."

"It's called mixed feelings, Counselor," he smiled, although the smile
did not seem to touch his eyes. "It's not something I tend to indulge in
all that often."

"If at all," she said.

"If at all," he agreed. "I have something of a reputation for single
mindedness. It's a reputation that I prefer to live up to."

"How do you feel about this woman? This Delcara?"

He considered it, trying to put into words the emotions that were
rolling through him. Images danced through his head, visions of a time
past, and of a face and voice that had haunted him all these many years.

"For so long," he said slowly, "the events that had occurred in my youth
were so confusing to me. Such a--" and he paused, "such a bizarre night
of recollecticns. I was truly unsure whether they had happened to me or not.
There was a certain romance to that entire incident. I am not by nature,
Counselor, a romantic person. And I do not have an overabundance of such
memories. So to discover that what occurred had its basis in reality has
me somewhat unsettled. You see, I'm not certain whether I'm pleased or
disappointed."

She smiled. "The magic loses its luster when you discover it was done
with mirrors."

"Precisely. Even so, if I am to believe her story, there is a certain
degree of 'magic' involved. She spoke of being drawn across a galaxy to
me, of 'sensing' my existence somehow. Now you must admit there is not a
great degree of scientific basis for such things. Do you believe all
that is possible, Counselor? That some mysterious fate, or power beyond
our understanding, could have bound us together somehow?"

She shrugged her slim shoulders. "I certainly have firsthand knowledge
of such occurrences, Captain. After all, I had a fianc who painted
portraits of a woman he did not know. No one was more surprised than he
when she showed up, virtually out of the blue, with a sense of him that
was on par with his awareness of her."

"Yes. Yes, I had forgotten about that," admitted Picard. "At the time, I
must admit, I had grave doubts about the validity of all of it."

"I know you did," smiled Troi. "You considered the possibility that it
was somehow all an elaborate ruse on my fiance's part."

"You were aware of that?" he asked with surprise. "You said nothing to
me 'of it."

"There was nothing to say. You were mand are--a rational man, and in
that instance you were being

faced with extremely irrational, even impossible, circumstances. It was
natural for you to believe what was to you the far.greater likelihood
that some sort of deception was at hand."

"Yes," he admitted. "But since it seemed that everyone was doing as they
truly wished, and since I had no real proof other than my own inbred
skepticism, I kept my peace on the subject. And now..."

"Now your skepticism is challenged once more," said Troi. She hesitated.
"Do you love this woman, Captain?"

"Love her?" Picard looked amazed that she would ask.

"Yes. Do you?"

He gestured in a touchingly helpless way. "I don't even know her."

"Sometimes that's beside the point."

"Not to me."

"There is such a thing as love at first sight."

"Nonsense. The notion is as absurd as..."

"As faster-than-light travel? As instantaneous transport? As an android
wishing to be human? As feelings linking you-to another individual, even
though a galaxy may separate you?"

He sat back in his chair and sighed. "You know," he said grudgingly,
"you missed your calling. You should have been a lawyer."

She smiled at his mild discomfiture. "Why do you think I'm called
Counselor?"

Suddenly Troi's eyes widened. "Captain! She's moving o"

Picard spun in his chair and saw that Troi was correct. Quite without
warning, the ship that was Delcara's home was suddenly in motion,
pulling away from the Enterprise with speed that was amazing,

considering its massiveness. Picard's practiced eye told him that she
was moving at full impulse power.

He leaped to his feet just as he heard the summons

at the door of the ready room. He started forward and snapped out a
quick, "Come."

The door opened and Riker was standing there, arms behind his back,
seriousness in his demeanor. "Captain, the planet-killer

"On her way, yes, I saw," said Picard. "Lay in a pursuit course
immediately."

"It's not just that. Long-range sensors have picked up a new visitor. A
Borg ship--on an intercept course with the planet-killer."

Chapter Fifteen

PICARD STEPPED OUT onto the bridge, the uncertainty and confusion of his
recent discoveries falling away from him. Romantic notions and
half-memories of his youth were somewhat disturbing to him. But a
crisis, an emergency into which he was thrustwthese were things he
understood. Picard disliked intangibles, particularly when they
impaireckhis ability to do his job.

When encountering an unknown ship, Picard never immediately assumed any
sort of alert status other than employing his own native caution in an
unfamiliar situation. It did not create a good first impression to be
bristling with weapons and have one's shields firmly in place. That made
it seem as if the Enterprise was perpetually ready for war, hence,
extremely warlike. First would come efforts to establish communications,
talk with their new acquaintances, and make all the normal overtures of
diplomatic interchanges.

However, when encountering a known hostile such as a Ferengi or a
Tholian, Picard would order a yellow alert. There were certain races
which considered it a

sign of weakness, even stupidity, if you approached them with anything
less than full defensive fields in place. They would either take
advantage of you or even display their disdain for you by immediately
attacking, on the assumption that you were ripe for conquest.

When the Borg came on the scene, however, there

was room for only one way to proceed.

"Red alert," snapped Picard.

Immediately the red-alert klaxon sounded the ship. All personnel moved
with practiced efficiency to their battle stations. The shields leaped
into existence, and the weapons batteries were charged up and brought on
line.

"All stations report ready, Captain," Worf in-formed him. There was
pride--even something that could pass for excitement--in his deep
Klingon voice. As well as he performed his normal, day-to-day duties,
there was clear anticipation within him whenever a crisis presented
itself. "We are presently in pursuit of the planet-killer."

"Time to the interception of the Borg ship?"

It was Data who spoke up. "At present course and speed, five minutes,
twenty-one seconds."

"Give me a channel to the planet-killer."

After only the briefest of pauses, Worf said, "Open."

"Delcara," said Picard. "There is a Borg ship approaching."

This time there was no preamble. The holographic image of Delcara
snapped into existence on the bridge. Her arms were folded, her bearing
almost regal, and there was a startling calm about her. "Yes, I know."

"They are a most formidable adversary."

"As do you, I have firsthand knowledge of that, dear

Picard," she said. "I know what they can do. And they know what I can
do."

"Yes, and that knowledge of you is shared among them," Picard said. He
had risen from his seat and crossed the bridge to stand directly before
her. "Whatever success you had with them before, you cannot assume that
it will be quite so easily repeated. This time they will be ready for
you."

"And if they were ready for a black hole," she said, "would that make
them any less likely to be crushed once they passed the event horizon? I
think not. Knowing of me and being able to handle me are two wildly
different things. The former may be likely, but the latter--I think not.
Now, sweet Picard, I suggest you stay back... and stay out of trouble." And
with that, she vanished.

"Patronizing woman," Worf observed
with clear VENDETTA through to his spine. It was a most unexpected and unwelcome
feeling. The last thing he needed to do was freeze up due to the trauma
that the Borg had inflicted upon him. His crew was looking to him,
dammir, to him. He could not allow himself to be paralyzed by
recollections of the horrors that the Borg had visited upon him. Riker
was saying something, he suddenly realized. As much as Picard hated to
admit that he wasn't listening, the last thing he wanted to do,,was take
a chance on missing something important. I m sorry, Number One, what was
that?" Without missing a beat, Riker said, "Shall we prepare for saucer
separation, Captain?"

"No time, Number One. Besides, at this point I wouldn't want to
leave a saucerful of crewmen vulnerable to the Borg and only capable of
 impulse power,
They think they
can stop us.

annoyance. would you?"

"Alert Starfleet of the Borg's presence.' Not if it can be
helped, sir." This time there was a longer pause, and then Worf "One
minute to Borg interception, reported Data. "All hands stand ready," said
Picard. He dropped into his command chair and braced himself, physically
and mentally, for what was to come.

said, "Unable to comply."
"What?" Picard turned
towards the Klingon. "What's wrong?" "Subspace interference, presumably generated by
the planet-killer. It's been present ever since we first encountered the
vessel. I was able to pierce it establishlocal communications, but I am not succeeding for any long-range messfiges."
i 4t( Delcara smiled. Her
children were eager, their song

a loud and excited
harmonic,, "We will show them otherwise, won't we, my children."

"The Borg are now within visual range," DatThey cannot stop us. Nothing
can stop us. reported. ; "Nothing can. We are great. We are powerful. We

"On screen." .are the spirit of vengeance. We are the widow to
the The image of Delcara's ship cutting through spac{cosmos. We are

was immediately replaced by another, even mor{ We are strong,
and we are right, and we will triumph.

ominous, sight--a single Borg ship slicing through th "All
glory to u,,s," said Delcara, "Let's get those ether. �ulless bastards.
Upon seeing it, Picard felt a momentary chill el/

The Ten-Forward lounge' had cleared out the moment the red-alert siren
went off. Guinan stood alone, gazing out the front of the Enterprise.
She saw in ways that others couldn't, and she beheld the great
planet-destroyer that was piloted by her sister, and beyond that, the
foe that was about to be engaged.

"Caution, little sister," said Guinan softly. "Please .. be very, very
careful."

"We are being hailed by the Borg, sir," Worf said, not without a touch
of surprise.

Picard straightened his jacket, buying himself the bare seconds he
needed to compose himself and prepare to face the beings that had so
devastated his life. "On screen," he said, the words sounding leaden in
his throat.

Borg soldier appeared on the screen, the flickering corridors and lights
of the Borg vessel behind it. When its voice sounded, however; its mouth
did not move. Instead, the voice seemed to come from all around it. "You
will surrender your vessel to the Borg," it said simply.

"This," said the Captain, "is Jean-Luc Picard of the--"

"We are aware of your identity," and the Borg paused, "Locutus."

The name, that hideous name, hung there, as frightening as the bizarre
intimacy of being on a first-name basis with the Borg.

Picard slowly rose to his feet, his deep and abiding fury at what had
been done to him going a long way to overcoming the pulsing fear that
had first grabbed him when the Borg appeared on the screen.

"Locutus," he said in no uncertain terms, "is dead."

"Death is irrelevant," the Borg replied. "Locutus is irrelevant. Another
spokesman is being prepared."

Picard looked at Riker, whose face mirrored the shock that was in his
captain's. "Anmher?" he whispered to Riker. Riker shrugged. Picard
turned back to the Borg and said, "What spokesman are you referring to?"

"Your inquiries are irrelevant," said the Borg. "We will absorb this
other vessel, and then we will absorb you. Prepare to be assimilated by
the Borg."

"Prepare to eat phasers," muttered Worf, so softly that none could hear
him.

Without another word the Borg soldier vanished from the screen, to be
replaced by the image of the Borg ship.

"Captain, the Borg have engaged the planet-killer," Data reported.

"Hold our position," said Picard. He tried to sound neutral and
dispassionate as he said, "Let's see what she can do."

Delcara's ship angled toward the Borg, its great maw open and wide as if
eager to receive it.

This time the Borg ship did not even allow Delcara to get within
striking distance. They opened fire with increased intensity,
endeavoring to core out a piece of the planet-killer. Once they had done
that, they reasoned, they would be better able to analyze it and then
proceed with the assimilation of the weapon that had so handily
destroyed an earlier Borg vessel.

The beam struck the planet-killer, and the ship appeared to shake ever
so slightly, as if startled by the force of the power that it was
encountering. Astoundingly, carbon scoring appeared across a portion
of its neutronium hull.

shields are nothing against us, my children. We will destroy them. Now.
Now!"

"Now!" said Picard. "Pleaser and antimatter barrage, fire!"

The Enterprise cut loose on the Borg from behind just as the
planet-killer fired on the other side. The Borg shields sagged under the
increased assault, and they fired upon the Enterprise in the hopes of
dispatching the flea so that they could concentrate on the wasp.

But the flea refused to be scratched. The starship's shields held, since
the Borg were not at full strength. And then the Borg's shields were
shields blown into oblivion by the doomsday device's beam, which then
smashed straight into the core of the vessel.

The Enterprise came within a haws breadth of being wiped out, for almost
as fast as Delcara's beam went in through one side of the Borg ship, it
came out the other, transfixing the cube vessel. And the Enterprise was
on the other side, directly opposite Delcara. It was only a blindingly
fast evasive maneuver executed by Data that prevented the starship from
being reduced to scrap.

The Enterprise dropped back, and the crew watched in shock as cracks
ribboned across the surface of the Borg ship. The cube shook, as if in
anger or repressed frustration, and an additional surge of power leaped
from Delcara's ship.

The Borg blew apart, a dazzling burst of light and color. Fragments of
the mighty ship hurled every which way, bouncing harmlessly off the
Enterprise shields or hurtling away into space.

The bridge crew looked in astonishment at the sight before them. It had
happened so quickly, so easily.

Forty ships of the Federation and assorted planetary defenses all had
proven helpless against a Borg ship. Yet now the Borg had been blown
from space in a few scant seconds of battle.

A massive cloud of dust and debris hung before them, and then something
emerged from the cloud. It was the planet-killer, piloted by Delcara,
sailing through it serenely, like a ghost. Random pieces of the Borg
ship ricocheted off the enormous vessel, which didn't even appear to
notice.

Delcara sailed past the Enterprise with no attempt at communication, and
simply resumed her course--a course that would take her, eventually and
inevitably, into the heart of Borg space.

"Remarkable," said Picard.

Worf was studying the sensors and said, "There is an eight-percent drop
in the energy readings of the planet-killer. Also, there is some
external damage."

"Damage to a neutronium hull," Riker said, pulling at his beard. "That
either says a hell of a lot for the Borg to be able to damage her--"

"Or a good deal for her ability to withstand the sort of punishment
required to damage a neutronium hull," replied Picard. He hoped that he
was able to keep the amazement from his voice. The last thing he wanted
his crew to think was that he was daunted, even intimidated, by the
level of power that they had witnessed.

"The planet-killer has resumed course and heading, and is proceeding at
warp six."

Picard cast a glance at Riker. "The previous planet-killer appeared to
have a maximum of warp four." Riker simply nodded. Picard turned back to
Data and said, "Follow her, Mr. Data."

"Overtake or intercept, sir?"

"Just follow," Picard said. "But put enough distance between us so that
we can avoid the subspace

interference and get a message out to Starfleet."

"Yes, sir."

Picard stared pensively at the screen, his. mind racing, trying to
determine the best course of action. "Mr. Data," he said after a moment,
"extrapolating from current course, what will be the next star system
the planet-killer encounters? Still the Tholians?"

Data paused 0nly a moment to check. "Yes sir. It will enter Tholian
space in less than three days."

"Send a message," said Picard. "Alert the Tholians that they're about to
have an extremely uninvited visitor."

"Captain, receiving an incoming message."

"Delcara?"

"No, sir," said Worf, looking up. "It's the Chekov.

Captain Korsmo."

"On screen."

A moment later Morgan Korsmo appeared on the viewscreen. "Picard," he
said with no preamble, "there's a Borg ship heading your way."

"There was," said Picard. "It was rather handily disposed of by the
planet-killer."

His eyes widened. "You found it! Word was received from the Repulse that
it was heading into this sector. Have you established contact with it?"

"Yes, we have. It is piloted by a woman named Delcara who has taken it
upon herself to rid the galaxy of the Borg."

"I applaud her goals, if not her methods," Korsmo said drily. "Have you
told her the Federation security concerns regarding the power of the
weaponry at her disposal?"

"She is concerned only about her objectives," Pi-

card replied. "I don't think she gives a damn about whether we approve
of her cavorting about the galaxy or not. She's going to do what she
wants, where she wants, and she has the power to back up that
philosophy."

Korsmo's face darkened. "That is unacceptable. We have to do something."

"I tend to agree," said Picard. "Now we have to determine what that
might be."

"We have to show her who's boss!" declared Korsmo.

Picard and Riker looked at each other, and then Picard looked back at
Korsmo. "The woman has destroyed two Borg vessels, Captain Korsmo, one.
of them with only a slight bit of help from us. She's piloting a
semi-sentient ship that could swallow the entire currently active fleet,
and have room left over for dessert. She has a devastating force beam, a
hull our phasers couldn't possibly penetrate, and a thirst for vengeance
that has crossed light-years and centuries. I think she knows who's
boss, Korsmo."

Korsmo looked stunned. "Picard, you actually sound intimidated."

"Knowing your opponent's strengths and your own shortcomings isn't being
intimidated, Captain. It's called knowing where you stand."

"Where I assume you stand, Picard," said Korsmo stiffly, "is solidly
behind the wishes of starfleet. Now obviously, Picard, I can't issue
orders to you. But at present course and speed, we will be able to
rendezvous in twenty-eight hours. I want to set up a summit meeting with
this planet-killer, and I'll do it with or without your help. And if
they refuse to communicate, I'm going to attack."

"That," said Picard, "would be inadvisable."

"It would be suicide," put in Riker.

"You seem to have-forgotten that it is the decision of the Federation
and Starfleet that the planet-killer cannot be permitted to simply
gallivant around the galaxy doing whatever the hell it wishes," Korsmo
said tightly. "Not when innocents will be killed. Whether you support
that decision or not is completely immaterial. It must be reasoned with
or stopped or destroyed. To put it succinctly, we are to stop that thing
any way we can. There are no other options. And to be blunt, Picard 0..
I thought you had more guts than to let yourself get spooked by some
woman with a big ship. Korsmo out."

His image vanished from the screen and was replaced by the distant image
of the planet-killer, sailing straight towards the space of the
notoriously territorial Tholians.

"Perfect," said Picard. "Just... perfect."

Chapter Sixteen

"PERMISSION TO SPEAK FREELY, SIR?"

Korsmo looked up at Shelby with only vague interest. He put aside the
material he was reading, sat up straighter behind his desk (something he
always felt compelled to do in Shelby's presence, as if she reminded him
of some stern schoolteacher) and said, "Granted."

"Some hours ago you were in communication with the Enterprise, "Shelby
said stiffly. She stood with her feet slightly apart, her hands behind
her back. "It seemed to me that you were unnecessarily short-tempered
with Captain Picard."

"Are we going to go through this again, Commander?" demanded Korsmo.
There was something in his voice that indicated that, even though
permission to speak freely had been granted, he was not going to
tolerate hearing anything he didn't like. "I respect Jean-Luc Picard. I
have told you as much. What do you want me to do, write it in blood?"

"If Captain Picard says that attacking the planet-killer would be
inadvisable, I would wager that it's inadvisable," she said, her voice
flat.

Slowly, like a snake uncoiling from a basket, Korsmo stood bohind his
desk. "And if I order an attack," he said, "are you going to support my
authority on that bridge out there? Or are you going to undercut me?"

Her jaw muscles moved for a moment. "You are my commanding officer, sir.
Not Captain Picard. I would never act insubordinately with a commanding
officer," and she paused before she added, "no matter what the
provocation."

He nodded, but there was no trace of pleasantness in his face. "It would
do well for both of us to

remember that," he said. "Dismissed."

"Sir, I--"

"I said," he repeated, his voice hard as nails, "dismissed."

She took a deep breath, stalling for a moment to come up with something
more to say, some other way of prolonging the discussion so that she
could get across the points she wanted to make. But nothing came to
mind, and Korsmo was already ignoring her, staring back intently at
whatever was on his computer screen.

She managed to crane her neck just slightly, and saw that Korsmo was
studying the service record of one Jean-Luc Picard. And, very slightly,
he was shaking his head in disbelief.

Shelby backed slowly out of the ready room and stepped out onto the
bridge of the Chekov. The doors hissed shut behind her and she stood
there for a moment, composing her thoughts, mulling over the
significance of what she had just seen.

"Damn," she said softly.

In the engine room of the Enterprise, La Forge turned in surprise when
he heard the crisp voice of

Picard say, "Mr. La Forge, a moment of your time, please."

"Yes sir, Captain," said Geordi. He walked into his office, stepping
aside to allow the captain to precede him inside. He then stood and
waited for Picard to address him.

"The Borg woman," he said. "What is your progress with her?"

Geordi shrugged slightly. "Not much," he admitted. "I don't know if I'm
getting through to her at all. Although, she did show some interest in
my VISOR. And she was happy," he added distastefully, "when the
prosthetic arm was attached."

"Of course she would be happy," said Picard. "It's a mechanical
attachment. Anything with a mechanical basis might get a reaction out
of her." He paused. "Doctor Crusher is not having a great deal of
success with the re-education program. I'd like you to endeavor to reach
her once again. Spend some more time with her. Your VISOR clearly makes
it easier for her to identify with you. For similar reasons, Mr. Data
will assist you whenever possible."

"Because we're the two crew members who are more reminiscent of the
Borg?" Geordi asked, not especially sure if he liked the comparison.

Neither did Picard. "I did not intend to imply that, Lieutenant."

"I know, sir, I'm sorry," sighed Geordi. He pinged a finger off the edge
of his VISOR. "You'd think, after all this time, I'd be used to it by
now. May I ask why the sudden intense interest in Reannon?"

Picard leaned forward. "If we can establish communications with her, get
at some of the knowledge buried in her head, we can learn more about the
Borg. I remember much of my time with them, but she spent even longer
with them and may have learned a great

deal more. Also, she might be of some value in trying to establish
better relations with the pilot of the planet-killer."

"Value? How.'?"

"I want to show her the face of the enemy," said Picard. "Delcara views
the Borg as this inhuman, soulless thing. If we can salvage a Borg
soldier, make Delcara think of them as individuals, trapped as part of
some massive central mind over which they have no control--it might have
some impact on her. If we can give her food for thought, maybe we can
encourage her

then to sit down for an entire meal."

"It's a long shot, sir."

"It's better than no shot, Lieutenant. Now, if you'll excuse me," he
said, standing and heading for the door, "I have a summit to arrange."

The planet-killer hurtled forward on its course at warp six, and deep
within, Delcara heard the impatientsong of the Many.

We do not wish to meet with them, they cried out. They are a
distraction. There is no need for distractions, or for talking. If we
are to talk with them, it would mean slowing or stopping our progress.
We have waited so long ....

"That being the case," said Delcara patiently, as if addressing a child,
"it will not hurt anyone to wait a little longer."

You want to do this because of the Picard. You do not wish to disappoint
him.

"He has asked me to do this," said Delcara, "and

out of respect to him, I wish to do it."

We hate him.

"You owe him," and for the first time that she could recall, her voice
and thoughts raised in anger, "you owe him your existence. It was he who
gave me the

way and whose great thoughts led me to you. It was the power of his
personality, and the strength of his destiny, that called me to him. The
waves of fate ebb and flow around him, and I rode those waves to him
and, ultimately, to you. And if he wishes to speak with us, then I will
speak with him. It will cost you nothing. You, whose souls cry out for
justice, must understand when I do something that is just."

The Many were silent for a moment, and then they said sullenly, We
understand. You do as you wish. But their voice held no enthusiasm.

Geordi walked down the corridor, one arm hooked around Reannon's
flesh-and-blood elbow. She stared straight ahead as always, unaware and
uncaring of the looks that she received from Enterprise crewmembers as
they walked past. Geordi was very much aware, however, of each sidelong
glance, each additional step that was taken by a crewman to distance him
from the specter of a Borg soldier. Their reactions angered the normally
easygoing engineer all the more.

"This is some ship, isn't it, Reannon?" he said to her conversationally.
"Only commissioned four years ago. It's the best ship in the fleet, and
that's not just my being boastful. I can back it up with facts. Would
you care to see them, Reannon?"

"She doesn't care to see anything."

The voice came from nearby, k)w and hostile and familiar, and Geordi
kicked himself inwardly for being so overly attentive to Reannon that he
hadn't paid attention to the fact that his little walking tour of the
Enterprise had taken them right past the brig.

Dantar stood within, kept there not only by a formidable force field,
but by the additional presence of a glowering security guard. He did
not, however, seem m any particular hurry to go anywhere. Instead,
he leaned against the edge of the doorway, just beyond the point where
he would activate the field, and said, "She's not even a living being.
She's just a thing, and a murderer."

For a moment Geordi almost ignored him, but then his anger boiled over.
Stabbing a finger at Dantar, he said, "She's a victim, just the same as
you. She didn't want or ask for this. If she fully understood what she
did to your family, she'd be as grief-stricken as you are."

"Oh, really," said Dantar, his antennae twitching in

what appeared to be amusement. "You think that."

"I know that."

"You know what, Federation man? I don't care about that. All I care
about is what she and her stinking kind did. All I care about is the
idea of my fingers around her throat. That's all that matters to me."

Geordi shook his head and pulled on her arm. "Come on, Reannon."

They went off down the hallway, with Dantar crying out behind them,
"I'll get you! You hear me, you Borg bitch? I'll get you! I got your
arm, and if I have to take you apart one piece at a time, I will get
you!"

Geordi practically threw her into a turbolift and snapped,
"Engineering." He turned to Reannon and

said, "You'll like engineering."

Nothing.

"Lots of machines. And the engines throb with this

sort of deep thrum thrum sound. It's really fantastic." Nothing.

He took her by the shoulders. "Reannon, are you in there? Are you
hearing me at all? Come on, I know you're there. Some part of you is
hearing me. Some part of you wants to come back. I know it. I asked

Counselor Troi earlier, and she said she still didn't feel anything from
you, but I do. I know you're there. I know it. Come on out. Please." He
took her hand and placed it against his VISOR. "See? See? Mechanical
parts, just like you. It doesn't make me a soulless thing. It doesn't
mean you have to be that way, either.

Come on back, Reannon."

Nothing.

His fist thudded softly on the wall of the turbolift even as it slowed
and then opened onto the corridor leading to engineering.

Deanna Troi was standing there, arms folded, waiting for them. "Geordi,"
she said. She seemed more formal than usual.

"Counselor," he replied. He tiltet his head slightly. "Can I help you?"

"The question is, can you help her?" and she nodded her head towards
Reannon.

Geordi looked from the Borg woman to Troi. "Counselor, is everything
okay with this? I mean... you seem... I don't know..."

"Oh, it's nothing." She waved it off, and then her face fell slightly.
"No, it's something."

"Care to come into my office?" said Geordi. "It's been seeing a lot of
action today."

Moments later Geordi, Troi, and Reannon were in the engineers office.
Reannon stood with her back to them, staring blankly out at the view of
the engine room that was presented to her.

"I suppose I'm just frustrated," said Troi. "I hate to admit it.
Commander Riker would say," and she drew herself up archly, "that I'm
too aristocratic to be troubled by such things."

"No!" said Geordi in mock horror.

She smiled. "I'm afraid so." Then her smile faded.

"I feel as you do--that Reannon needs help. I find it terribly, terribly
frustrating that my empathic powers don't substantiate that belief. When
my powers aren't functioning, I feel as if my effectiveness is halved,
even quartered."

"Yeah, I know," said Geordi ruefully. "I recall you did have some
problems with that when you lost your empathic abilities. But I would
think, Counselor, that that would have been a learning experience."

"Oh, definitely," Troi said with a trace of self-mockery. "I learned I'm
a complete witch when my empathy is useless."

"Counselor!" said Geordi, amused. "Such language."

"One can't be honest with others unless one is honest with oneself,"
said Troi. "In a way I envy you, Geordi. In this instance you are just
as qualified, if not more so, to try and get through to Reannon. I've
had some sessions with her. I have to say that my frustration level is
much higher when I can't get through to someone on the most basic mental
level. Since you're not accustomed to dealing with people that way, your
patience is greater."

"Yeah, well, even my patience is getting a little strained," admitted
Geordi. "I--"

And he suddenly looked up. "Hey. Where'd she go?"

Troi turned and saw, as had Geordi, that Reannon had vanished from where
she'd been standing.

Geordi stood quickly and exited his office, Troi right behind him. He
glanced around quickly and then pointed, "There! She's up there."

High above the deck stood Reannon, climbing the catwalk that led up to
the area of the matter injector. She was moving with grim-faced
determination. Ensign Barclay tried to block her way, and she shoved him
aside with her mechanical arm without so much as a thought and kept
moving.

Then Geordi saw a familiar figure with gleaming skin coming up behind
her. "Data," he breathed.

Data, for his part, was pursuing Reannon. She had stopped where she was
and was staring out across the vastness of the engineering room. She
seemed hypnotized by the catwalks, by the power of the engines, and by
the gleaming metal that surrounded her on all sides.

And Deanna Troi staggered slightly. Geordi noticed it and, despite his
concern over Reannon, immediately switched gears and went to the
Betazoid counselor. He supported her, making sure she didn't fall over
as she locked into... something. "Counselor!" he said.

"My God," she whispered. "She's remembering." Reannon stood high on the
catwalk, transfixed. Her entire body seemed to be quivering. Data was
getting closer, within twenty feet of her. She didn't even seem to
notice him.

"Fear," said Troi, as if her mind were elsewhere. Her eyes were wide and
keyed in on Reannon. "She confronted something vast, something throbbing
with power and life... It was gargantuan... She was surrounded, hemmed
in, trapped, trapped, oh God, Geordi, trapped.. 2'

Data was within ten feet now, and in a calm, precise voice, he said,
"Miss Bonaventure. I am Commander Data. We met previously."

Her head snapped around, and she focussed on him for only the second
time since she'd come aboard. There was something in her eyes akin to
stark terror, and she looked like a trap doe.

"Captain Picard asked me to work with Lieutenant La Forge on progressing
with your reclamation," Data said politely. "It would seem my arrival
here is most timely. It is not completely safe for you to be up here,
and if you would accompany me, perhaps we could interact on a more
meaningful level. Would you be interested in learning to tap dance?"

She stepped back, flattening against the wall. Her mouth moved, but no
words came out.

He was within five feet of her, three, and then he reached out toward
her. "Miss Bonaventure, it would be best if--"

She lashed out with her mechanical arm, moving at incredible speed, and
she snagged Data by the wrist. She twisted and yanked with all her
strength and Data's arm came out.

He stepped back in surprise, the empty sleeve of his uniform flapping
almost comically. "Now, Miss Bon-

aventure, that was--"

She screamed.

It was primal, incomprehensible. There were no words, just hysterical
and terrified howls, and then she came in fast, swinging the arm like a
club. Data brought his remaining arm up, blocking the first blow, but'
Reannon reversed and swung upward, catching Data across the face and
sending him tumbling back onto the platform.

He skidded, automatically trying to grab the railing with the arm that
was no longer there. He grabbed out with his good arm, trying to haul
himself up, and Reannon stood over him, shrieking and yowling, smashing
him around the shoulders and back with his own arm. Her strength was
manic, augmented by the power of her mechanical arm and the sheer energy
of her hysteria. Data started to get up and was knocked

.flat again, and she started kicking furiousby, endeavorng to knock him
off the catwalk to the floor of the engine room far below.

And then the whine of a phaser blast sliced through the air. Reannon
staggered back, slamming against the wall. She was still standing, but
her consciousness had already fled her and slowly she sank down. Within
moments she was lying on the catwalk, out cold.

Data looked down and saw, far below, Worf. The Klingon security officer,
having arrived in response to an emergency call from La Forge, was
standing with his phaser angled upward. Now, though, he was lowering the
weapon and calling out, "Are you 'all right, Commander?"

"Other than the fact that I appear to have been disarmed, I am
functioning quits well," Data called down. "Excellent shot, Lieutenant.
It would appear that my attempts to communicate with her were not
proceeding well."

"Phasers are the universal communicators," rumbled Worf, holstering his.

Moments later Data was on the main floor of engineering, and Reannon's
unconscious form was being carried into Geordi's office, under close
guard from Worf. Geordi, for his part, was busy reattaching Data's arm.
"It would seem, Geordi, that we are making progress."

"Progress?" said Geordi. "She tried to kill you."

"I would surmise," Data said after a moment's thought, "that in her
confused state, she thought I was a Borg, and reacted accordingly."

"Data's right," agreed Troi. "Emotional response as dramatic as that can
only be considered progress."

"Yeah, well," Geordi observed ruefully, "a little

more progress like that, and we'll be able to sell Data for scrap
parts."

The three vessels had come together, proceeding along the course that
the planet-killer had determined for itself, but only at one-quarter
impulse power--a ' comparative crawl.

Picard and Riker stood in the transporter room, as O'Brien's confident
hands moved over the transporter controls. "The Chekov is signalling
that they're ready for transport, Captain," he said.

"Energize," Picard said, drawing himself up and, as was his habit,
smoothing his jacket.

The transporter shimmered, and moments later Captain Korsmo and
Commander Shelby appeared

on the platform. - r"

"Captain. Commanae, said Picard, nodding his head slightly to
each. "Welcome aboard the Enter-

prise. Commander, I might add, welcome back."

"In many Ways she never left, Picard," said

Korsmo, stepping down and extending a hand. As

Picard shook it firmly, Korsmo continued, "She

speaks of you almost constantly."

"The captain exaggerates," said Shelby, smiling.

"It's good to see you looking so well, Captain. And

you're looking fit, Commander."

Riker smiled. Once he would have sworn that, given

tt- *unit' he'd Just as soon pop Shelby one m

; j''lookat herrNow he found himself surpr. is-

ingly pleased to see her again. Funny, how coming through a crisis
together, and in one piece, could forever alter the way one viewed
someone. "The position of first officer obviously agrees with you,
Commander."

Very loudly and very deliberately, Korsmo cracked his knuckles. "Now
that we've gotten all the niceties

aside, not to mention displaying our thorough knowledge of each other's
rank, why don't we get down to business. Where's this Delcara person,
Picard?"

"She will come," said Picard. "I communicated our

desire to meet with her."

"Did she respond?"

"Not directly, but--"

"Then how the hell do you know she's coming, Picard?" said Korsmo
impatiently. "What the hell kind of show are you running here?"

Riker frowned, looking from one captain to the other and then at Shelby.
She seemed to be shifting uncomfortably in her boots, clearly not any
happier with Korsmo's attitude than was Riker.

With a soft voice that hinted at danger, Picard said, "Her response,
Captain, is clearly affirmative because she has dropped out of warp
space upon the convergence of our two ships.-She's packing enough
firepower to turn both our ships into free-floating molecules. She
doesn't have to talk to us, Morgan. She doesn't have to do a damned
thing she doesn't want to do, and the sooner you realize that we're
walking on eggshells with her, the better off we will all be. Are we
clear on this?"

Korsmo raised an eyebrow but merely looked bemused. "Quite clear. Lead
on, Jean-Luc."

Picard did so, Korsmo taking care to match his stride and even managing
to be a half step ahead of him. The two first officers hung back as if
by unspoken agreement, and when the two commanding officers were out of
sight, Riker and Shelby slowed even more.

"What's his problem?" said Riker with no preamble.

At first she considered making a strident protest of Korsmo's attitude,
but Shelby realized that there was no point to it. "He's jealous of
Picard," she said.

"Jealous?"

"Apparently, they were very competitive back in their Academy days," she
said. She spoke in a low voice, as if concerned that her voice might
carry. "He envies Picard's status, and the way he's viewed throughout
Starfleet."

"Korsmo's record is very respectable," said Riker in confusion. "Medals
and commendations, and command of the Chekov, which is hardly a garbage
scow."

"But it's not the Enterprise, "she said, which Riker had to acknowledge
with a nod. "And, when all is said and done, he's not Captain Picard.
When the great stand of Starfleet happened at Wolf 359, the Chekov
wasn't able to get there in time. I think Captain Korsmo has convinced
himself that, had he been there, he would have been able to make a
difference."

"He's probably right. He could have made it forty-one destroyed vessels
rather than forty."

"You're probably right," she admitted. "But he imagines that he could
have had some impact. It eats at him that he didn't have the chance. And
it eats at him even more that it was, of all people--"

"Jean-Luc Picard who turned the tide. Are you saying Captain Korsmo is
unfit for command?"

"Not at all. He just has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Picard,
that's all. We all have our blind spots. I know one officer, for
example, who has a blind spot when it comes to realizing the best thing
he could do for his career is move on to captaincy of another vessel and
let someone else take his place."

"Except for that blind spot, he's a superb officer," said Riker dryly.

"Oh, an exceptional officer. Absolutely exceptional." She smiled, and
she had a lovely smile. "And not afraid to make the tough decisions."

Ahead of them, the two captains strode side by side,

neither speaking, until finally Picard said, "It's good to see you
again, Morgan. Once this business is done, I'll buy you a drink in
Ten-Forward and we'll discuss old times."

"Old '

tzmes. Korsmo gave a short laugh. "I rode

you like the devil, Picard. I helped to make your life

miserable. Don't tell me you're nostalgic for that." Picard shrugged.
"You exaggerate."

"Not in the least. In a way, you have me to thank for your current
success."

Picard looked at him With barely concealed surprise. "I do?"

"Of course. It was my constant haranguing of you that drove you to
achieve as much as you could."

"What a fascinating way of recalling our Academy days."

"It's true. I spent so much time reminding you of your limitations, that
you felt driven to try and surpass them whenever possible."

That, Picard thought, had to be the biggest crock that he had ever
heard. But something warned him that Korsmo wasn't just needling him. He
had the distinct feeling that Korsmo actually believed it, and more,
that the belief was important to him. And now was definitely not the
time to challenge it.

"My thanks, Morgan," he said simply, and then quickly changing the
subject, said, "What do you intend to say to the pilot of the
planet-killer?"

"Starfleets position. A position that I expect you to back me on. I am
the senior officer here, after all, Picard."

"Senior off--"

"I received my commission as captain before you did," Korsmo said. "Or
were you unaware of that7'

"Two weeks before," said Picard, trying to keep the derisiveness out of
his voice.

"Seniority is seniority, Jean-Luc, and I'll thank you to remember that."

"I will consider myself officially thanked," said Picard, and then he
suddenly said, "Halt."

The turbolift came to a stop and Picard turned towards the surprised
Korsmo.

"We are dealing with an obsessed woman," he said, not allowing Korsmo to
even open his mouth. "You seem to be under the impression that we, with
our two starships, are going to intimidate this woman just by the force
of our presence and our words. You had best think again, Morgan. She has
the drive and the power

to do what she wants. We may not be able to stop her."

"We sure as hell will stop her," said Korsmo. "She may not listen to
us."

"She will listen if I have to shoot her legs out from under her.
Besides, we've done a scan on her ship. There's damage to a section of
the neutronium hull.

We can hit that if necessary, possibly damage her."

"I don't want her hurt."

"Now listen, Picard..."

And Picard stabbed a tingor into Korsmo's face and said, each word a
dagger, "I don't... want... her .. hurt."

Korsmo stared at Picard in utter confusion. "Have you lost your mind?
What is she to you?"

"A victim. A victim many times over, and I will not see her victimized
further. Clear?"

Korsmo seemed ready to laugh, but he saw the intensity in Picard's face.
His expression tightened and clouded. "I will do what I have to,
Captain," he said. "And I trust that you will do likewise."

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Picard said
sharply, "Resume." The turbolift obediently completed its journey to the
bridge in stony silence.

When Picard and Korsmo entered the conference room, Deanna Troi and
Guinan were waiting for them. A ship's counselor Korsmo naturally
recognized, but he stared with open curiosity at Guinan. Picard quickly
introduced them.

"May I ask, just out of morbid curiosity, Captain," said Korsmo, "why
you feel it necessary to have your bartender here?"

"Hostess," corrected Guinan politely. "I have a... history with the
woman in question."

"May I ask the nature of that history?"

"It's personal."

Korsmo seemed slightly taken aback by that and turned to Picard to
protest this apparent attitude problem on the part of someone who was,
at best, a crew member of questionable need in these circumstances. But
the firm look in Picard's face quickly discouraged Korsmo from pursuing
the subject further.

Picard turned to Troi and said, "How is Miss Bonaventure? I understand
that there was some unpleasantness in engineering."

"She is resting comfortably. Quarters have been assigned her," said
Troi, "to remove her from the i-ather tense environment of sickbay."

"Tense?" Korsmo looked at Picard vith a question in his face.

"There are Penzatti recovering from wounds there, and they react
somewhat strongly to Miss Bonaventure's presence. She is a female Borg
whom we have managed to separate from the Borg consciousness."

Korsmo scratched at his salt-and-pepper sideburns. "Never a dull moment
on this ship, is there, Picard? Kind of a zoo."

"I prefer to think of it as a stimulating work

environment," replied Picard. "It would be best to post a guard outside
her quarters--"

"Lieutenant Worf has already attended to that," Troi told him, and
Picard nodded his approval.

The doors hissed open, admitting Shelby and Riker. Picard looked at them
with faint disapproval. "Took

our time, did we, Number One?"

"Scenic route, sir."

"I see."

Moments later Geordi La Forge entered as well. Picard nodded a silent
greeting to him.

Korsmo was circling the briefing room, looking annoyed. "So where is
this woman? We're all here. Where is she?"

"She'll come," said Guinan.

"Ah. We have the personal assurance of your

hostess that she'll be along," said Korsmo. "Captain," Picard began
dangerously.

But Korsmo continued, "And what is it with this ship of hers? Is she the
only crew? How does it run?"

"She claims it runs on the hatred of ghosts," said Picard dourly.
"Frustrated spirits who waited for her to come along and provide them
with drive. However, Mr. La Forge has been working along far more
prosaic lines to determine just what it is we are up against."

"Our sensors have managed to punch through some' of the interference her
fields and hull have created," said Geordi, and he moved to the main
computer screen. He called up a schematic he had prepared as he
continued, "And Data and I have also done research into other cultures
that have similar glimmerings of technology of a more--shall we
say--mundane nature, based on things that the captain said Delcara told
him."

The planet-killer appeared on the screen, and Geordi tapped the
spike-like extensions. "These are

definitely what propel the ship. They warp space in a manner similar to
our own nacelles, but appear to do so in a slightly different manner.
We're detecting warp fluctuations on a field pattern at variance with
our own warp system. It'll take us at least a week to fully analyze the
structure, and we don't have the technology to duplicate it. It seems to
have tremendous potential, though, especially in its more efficient use
of fuel."

"Fuel that comes from planets. Then that's how it operates and this
nonsense about being driven by souls--" said Korsmo.

"I'm getting to that," said Geordi. "There's a race on Orin IV that has
technological procedures-that sound similar to what Delcara told the
captain exists on her ship, except it's not lots of hocus-pocus."

"Orin IV was a colony world about fifty years ago, wasn't it?" asked
Picard.

"Good memory, Captain. And the colonists made a fascinating
archaeological find--an intricate computer net that was still
functional, developed by an ancient race, speculated to be the
Preservers, and then long ago abandoned. It was crystalline in
appearance and about the size of a small mountain, and what it contained
was an intricate network of individual memory pockets.

"Presumably, when members of the race died, they would be capable of
imprinting the engrams of their minds--or perhaps transferring their
consciousness entirely--into the interlocking network within the
crystal. There they would provide knowledge and information that, to the
right operator, was accessible."

"Accessible how?"

"Through a central sort of mother board," said Geordi. "You see, that
was the really tough part. In a

way, it's the main difference between the setup on Orin IV and my
understanding of how the Borg operate. The Borg are one central
consciousness. The Orin IV mechanism consisted of hundreds, thousands of
individual pocket memories. Computer files, if you will. But in order
for them to be accessed, they required a central mind to act as a
processing station. That central mind had to be, first, a living
individual, and second, incredibly strong. The first time one of the
Orin IV colonists, who was a Betazoid, tried to use his empathic ability
to access the crystal computer they'd found, the minds stored within the
computer literally overwhelmed him and blew his gray matter inside-out.
Finally they brought a Vulcan in, but by then it was too late. The
failed attempt had wiped the data banks clean."

"So the people who created the planet-killer," .said Picard slowly, "may
have transferred their collective consciousness to the central data
banks of the vessel. But they needed a powerful enough living mind to
process all of their individual impulses, to unify them and drive their
individual functions towards one goal."

"They need one central mind strong enough to govern all of them and
direct the ship's functions," agreed Geordi. "Otherwise, they're just
random bits of data and information without any purpose. It's that
central, functional imperative that enables this planet-killer to be
something more complicated than just a mindless killing machine like its
prototype.

"One of the ship's functions that the mind maintains is the process of
consuming planets and converting them to energy for the ship's drive and
weapons systems. Those spike towers," he pointed again, "can warp space
for the purpose of forward drive, and also funnel force beams with
pinpoint accuracy, making it

capable of omnidirectional offense. Nasty piece of work."

Korsmo started towards him, about to make some point, and he walked
right through Delcara.

He jumped back in shock as Delcara's holographic persona turned to face
him for a moment and look at him with amused disdain. Then she looked at
Geordi. "So many explanations," she said. "So much effort to try and
take the divine rightnes and wonder of my mission and turn it into
something ordinary. 'Mother board' and 'functional imperative.' These
are not words of humans who understand what it is to live and breathe
and hate. These are words that the Borg would use. Beware that the enemy
becomes thyself, and that you are not as blind in intellect as you aie
in eyes." Then she turned back to Picard. "I've heard you, Picard. I am
here." She spread her hands. "What do you wish of me?"

Picard was staring at her, hard. There was something different about
her. She seemed older, somehow. Some of the luminous quality that had
surrounded her was diminished. Her face appeared longer, more drawn. Her
hair, which had seemed to be constantly billowing about her, as if
puffed up by a perpetual breeze, was hanging limply. Her eyes did not
sparkle as they had. He glanced at Guinan and Troi, and they noticed it,
too.

He couldn't dwell on it. Nor did he wish to contemplate Delcara's
singleminded determination to reject every rational answer in favor of
the irrational. There was business to be attended to. "Delcara," he said
formally. "This is Captain Morgan Korsmo. He and I are appealing to you
now as representatives of Star fleet."

"Are you, dear Picard?" She seemed amused, but there was something
haggard in her smile. "And what

is Starfleet's business with me, Captain Morgan Korsmo?" She walked
towards him and right into the conference table. She stood there, only
the upper half of her body visible, the lower half obscured by the
table, giving the impression that she was some sort of bizarre
centerpiece. It was a most disconcerting appearance.

Korsmo cleared his throat and said, "Captain Pi-card and I wish to
express our concern over your present course of action."

"You have a problem with my intention to obliterate the most dangerous
enemy in this galaxy?" Skeptical, she raised an eyebrow.

"It is our concern," Korsmo said, "that your plan of action will cause
devastating results throughout the Federation. Your vessel consumes
planets. There are various races, both friendly and unfriendly, that
will not take kindly to the concept of your ingesting them or parts of
their solar systems."

"I believe the human phrase is, 'You cannot make an omelette without
breaking a few eggs,'" said Delcara.

"This is more than a few eggs, Delcara," Picard spoke up. "You're
talking about the greatest destruction our galaxy has known. Far more
destructive than if the Borg swept through."

"Truly, sweet Picard, that was spoken as someone who has never
experienced the full sweep of a Borg invasion."

"We've had our encounters."

"You've had nothing," she said, her voice suddenly harsh. "One Borg
ship. A ship that smashed through your fleet and cost thousands of lives
and was stopped as much by fluke as by anything else. You have no idea
what the full might of the Borg would do to you. It would be far more
than my humble needs."

"Your humble needs will launch the galaxy into war against you!" said
Korsmo. "And Starfleet will lead that war! You cannot be allowed to
traverse the quadrants in a device of this power--a device which
consumes planets for fuel!"

"A device which will prove your ultimate salvation," she replied.

"Delcara," Guinan said firmly, "have you realized the magnitude of what
you're proposing? It will take you years, even at warp speed, to reach
Borg space. And all during those years, you will be cutting a swath of
devastation and destruction across populated space. Certainly you can
see the insanity of that?"

"Insanity is quibbling over a relative handful of lives when the Borg
care nothing for life! I will try to avoid populated worlds when I can,
but my ship--even with improved matter-to-energy conversion--has needs.
Those needs will be satisfied. Sustenance will be derived when needed,
and if lives are lost, I will mourn them, but it is necessary. And if
some race tries to stop me with deadly force, I will stop them with
deadlier force. And again I will mourn them, but it is necessary, and
their souls will come to know that they served a greater good. Mourning
loss of life, promising to try and be as careful as possible--these are
not claims that you could make in reference to the Borg's operations."

"Promising to be as careful as possible is hardly enough," said Picard.
He leaned forward on the table, facing the holographic image. "For
example, you'll be entering Tholian space in half a day. Your very
presence will be anathema to them, as will ours. They will. attack you
with everything they have!"

"My father," said Riker, "was the sole survivor of a Tholian raid
fifteen years ago. They're fierce and unrelenting."

"You speak to me of unrelenting? Me? Let them come!" shot back Delcara,
her voice even more harsh. The spaces where her eyes were darkened even
more than before. "They cannot stop me. You cannot stop

me."

"But years of devastation--" Guinan said.

"What are years to me? I have all the time in the universe."

"Delcara, you have made clear you intend to use your vessel for
destructive purposes," said Korsmo. She turned away from him and he
circled around the table so he could face her. "Starfleet cannot permit

that. You are hereby ordered--"

"Captain," warned Picard.

Korsmo ignored him, saying even more firmly and loudly, and pointing a
finger at Delcara so forcefully that it shook with rage, "You are hereby
ordered to surrender your vessel to myself or Captain Picard, as
authorized representatives of Starfleet. Failure to do so will result in
direct action against you."

Delcara turned on him, ebony with fury. "You pitiful, insignificant
fools!"

"Delcara," said Guinan, trying to calm her. Troi was flinching from the
raw emotions that were pounding against her like an angry surf.

"Have you no idea what you're saying? No concept of whom you're
challenging?" said Delcara angrily. "I am your savior! You should be on
your knees, thanking your gods that I have been sent to aid you. Your
hopeless little race would have no chance for survival if it weren't for
me! Do you think the Borg are simply going to forget about you? That
their defeat is going to prevent them from trying again? No!" She
stalked through the conference room, passing through Whatever was in
front of her like an angry ghost. "No! They'll just keep coming, and
coming, and coming.

They won't stop. They won't tire. They won't give up. They'll just
batter you down until you're dead or absorbed, and they don't care which
it is, because they have no heart and no soul and no humanity. They just
kill and kill and kill. Is that what you're fighting for? Is that why
you wish to stop me? So you have the privilege of being wiped from
existence by the soulless creatures called the Borg? I won't permit it!"
She slammed a fist down that passed right through the table, but she
didn't seem to notice. "I will save you, whether you want me to or not.
Whether you understand or not."

"You're crazy!" snapped Korsmo. "You half-witted woman--"

Guinan threw up her hands. "Oh, that's wonderful. Way to smooth-talk
her, Captain."

Korsmo spun and faced Picard. "Are you going to allow this 'hostess' to
talk to me that way?"

"Morgan, be quiet!" thundered Picard with such force that Korsmo
actually took a step back.

And Delcara laughed, a deep, unpleasant and slightly demented laugh.

"He's right, you know," she said softly. "Perhaps I am a half-wit. But
half of my mind, Korsmo, is worth more than the nothing that you have.
My obsession has brought me to the brink of madness and beyond, but your
ignorance has blinded you to the reality of the situation. I," she said,
spreading her hands wide as if acclaiming her victory, and her voice
rising in triumph, "am the One-Eyed Man! Look at me! Fear me! Yes, the
One-Eyed Man am I, and I walk the Kingdom of the Blind. And in the
Kingdom of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is king."

She turned, placed her hands above her head as if she were about to
execute a perfect swan dive, and leaped straight through the bulkhead.
Korsmo moved

as if to pursue her and quickly stopped, realizing the futility of the
notion.

"Charming woman," said Korsmo.

"Captain," said Picard icily, "May we have a moment alone, please."

Immediately the others cleared out, the last of them being Guinan, who
tossed a final, disdainful glance at Korsmo before the doors closed.

"Do you wish to tell me what the hell you thought you were doing?"
demanded Picard.

"Acting in accordance with the wishes of Starfleet," shot back Korsmo.

"Nonsense! In a situation that required patient, gentle negotiation, you
came into it with phasers blasting. You did everything I told you not to
do!"

"And since when do you give me orders, Picard?"

"Since you started acting like a damned fool!" snapped Picard. "Calling
people names is no way. to negotiate with them. And trying to bully
someone is a distasteful tactic under any circumstance. To bully someone
when you're not dealing from strength is sheer lunacy!"

"I had to show her who was in charge," said Korsmo forcefully. "Your
problem, Picard, is that you bend over backwards not to offend anyone.
How many times have you swallowed your pride? How many races have you
left laughing at us because when they stared you down, you blinked
first?"

Picard stepped back and eyed Korsmo as if he had discovered some new
strain of bacteria. "I perform my duties with an acute awareness of my
ship's safety, and with the concept that this is a galaxy that is
endeavoring to attain harmony. That goal will never be reached through
anger, threats, and intimidation."

"And it won't be reached through cowardice!" snapped Korsmo.

Immediately the air chilled even more than it had already, and mentally
Korsmo cursed at himself. What the hell was he talking about, implying
that Picard was some sort of coward? Certainly the man was insufferably
self-confident, and a goddamn. hero from one end of the galaxy to the
other, but that didn't mean...

Picard said nothing, although rage was seething through every pore. He
was too disciplined to say all the things that were racing through his
mind and instead said simply, "I will not even dignify that comment with
an answer."

Korsmo opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, the doors slid
open and Riker was standing there. With no preamble he said, "The
planet-killer is on the move. It has resumed course, and just lit out of
here at warp seven."

Picard and Korsmo exchanged glances, and Korsmo bolted out of the
briefing room, Not even taking time to get down to the transporter room,
he tapped his communicator and said, "Korsmo to Chekov. "

"Chekov here," came the reply.

Shelby stepped to his side as Korsmo said, "Two to beam over,
immediately," and he glanced at Picard as he said, "You know what we
have to do."

"Yes," Picard said simply, and as Korsmo and Shelby transported off the
bridge, he could not help but wonder how in hell they were going to do
it.

Chapter Seventeen

SHE COULD HEAR the anger of the Many in her head.

We are hungry, they said. We have spent time talking about the Picard
and thinking about the Picard. We need food. You don't care about the
mission of vengeance or of us, the last comment extremely accusatory.

Suddenly Delcara felt inexplicably tired. "Of course I care about you,"
she said. "We are all. We are

together. We are great. You know that."

Prove it. Find us food.

"We will be there very shortly," she said. "There is a starsystem just
ahead. But you cannot truly be hungry. The conversion engines have more
than enough power for now from the planets we have already consumed. How
can you be hungry already?"

We think you don't want us to feed anymore. We think you are concerned
that the Picard will be angry with you if you do.

"This is some sort of test, is that it?" Now she knew she was tired.
There seemed to be a great fog hanging over her mind, and she came to
the sudden realization that she could not remember the last time she had
slept. "Testing my feeling for Picard against my feeling for you."

Yes, said the Many.

"All right, then. I will show you that my resolve has not wavered. I
will show you all."

The planet-killer cut straight towards the heart of Tholian space.

"Twenty-two minutes until Tholian space, sir," said Data.

Picard sat motionless in his chair, watching the stars hurtle past.
Forty thousand kilometers to starboard, matching their warp speed, was
the Chekov.

"Sir," said Worf suddenly, "sensors have detected a Tholian ship dead
ahead. Energy emissions are extremely low."

"Used up their shipboard weapons in combat, no doubt," said Riker.

"Take us out of warp, Mr. Chafin," said Picard, standing. "Open a
hailing frequency torn"

"Chekov to Enterprise," came Korsmo's voice, and without waiting for
Picard to reply, he said, "Picard, why are you slowing down?"

"To offer assistance to the crippled Tholian ship," Picard said. "We
aren't going to be able to do anything against the planet-killer.
Nothing short of the entire remaining fleet could do that, and perhaps
not even then. We've got to help where we can and wait for our
communications to get through to Starfleet."

"The Tholian ship," said Korsmo acidly, "would not slow to help you.
We're going after the planet-killer. You do whatever the hell you want.
Korsmo out."

The Chekov leaped forward and, moments later, was gone from the screen.
The Tholian ship now hung visibly in front of them.

Thinking no more on the bitter exchange that had just occurred, Picard
ordered, "Give me a channel to the Tholian ship."

"Open," said Worf.

"Tholian ship, this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise."

The triangular ship seemed to be twisting and. turning, as if on a
string. Then the ship vanished, to be replaced by the blinding
blue-and-red glare of a Tholian. Picard winced automatically, as he
always did on the rare occasions when he was confronted by one of these
bizarre and notoriously short-tempered beings. Nothing was worse to have
to deal with than an angry Tholian, and yet Picard felt constrained to
do something.

The voice was shrill and fractured over the speaker. "Enterprise again?"
said the Tholian.

"Again?" said Picard. The last time he'd seen a Tholian was in his
Stargazer days. He had not encountered one since taking command of the
Enterprise. "I don't understand."

"I am Commander Loskene," warbled the voice. "Ninety of your years ago
the Enterprise trespassed into our territory. We dealt with a lying
Vulcan named Spock. Is he among you now?"

Picard looked at Riker, who shrugged. The Tholians were renowned for
their punctuality, but obviously had very little concept of the length
of time that had passed by human--or Vulcan--standards. "Not at
present," he said, declining to make the obvious rebuttal that Vulcans
did not lie. "We are in pursuit of a ship, large enough to swallow
planets..."

"You have released it upon the Tholians in order to destroy us," said
Loskene angrily.

"That is not true," snapped Picard. He was getting
damned tired of being accused of things this day. "It is helmed by an
individual who is acting of her own accord, and against the wishes of
the Federation and Starfleet. Am I correct in assuming that you have
engaged it unsuccessfully?"

"Federation officers lie, especially those in command of ships named
Enterprise," Loskene informed them.

"Sir, respectfully submit that this is getting us nowhere," Riker
offered in exasperation.

"The Tholian fleet will stop the destroyer ship," Loskene said. "And
once they have defeated it, we will seek revenge on Starfleet for this
unprovoked attack."

"Starfleet is your only prayer for survival," said Picard, his anger
barely in check. "Enterprise out." He turned and stalked back to his
chair as he said, "Mr. Data, take us in pursuit, warp eight. Engage."

The Enterprise hurtled into high warp in a desperate bid to overtake the
planet-killer.

They needn't have hurried.

When the Chekov caught up with the planet-killer, it was calmly
devouring the outermost planet of the Tholian starsystem.

"Warn her off, Mr. Hobson," snapped Korsmo. Hobson did as he was told,
but the planet-killer calmly went on about its business. Tractor beams
hungrily licked up pieces of the world and dragged them into the
monstrous maw.

"Target the section where the neutronium hull was
damaged," ordered Korsmo. "Load front torpedoes."

"Torpedoes loaded and armed," said Hobson. "Fire."

The forward torpedoes darted out into space and, seconds later, impacted
in the small area to the rear of the planet-killer.

"No visible damage," reported Hobson. "There's a secondary coating of
castrodinium beneath the neutronlure hull."

"Perfect," muttered Korsmo.

"Sir, we're picking up about seventy ships heading towards the
planet-killer," Hobson suddenly
announced. "It's the Tholian fleet, sir."

"The more the merrier."

Shelby glanced at Korsmo, who eyed her appraissingly. "What would you
do, Commander? Hang back and let the Tholians fare for themselves? Or
augment their attack?"

"She has to be stopped," said Shelby without hesitation.

"My thoughts exactly. Bring us around, helm. Open a channel to the
Tholians and let them know that they've got help, whether they want it
or not."

Delcara was in ecstasy. She fondled--almost sensually--the powerful beam
that sliced apart the planet, and was at one with the glorious rejoicing
of the Many as they consumed their latest morsel. More, they cried out, we
want more.

"You can have more," she said. "As much as you
want. There is another dead planet up ahead--" Not dead. Not this time.

She hesitated, not understanding. "What?"

We have looked into the hearts and minds and souls of
these beings. They are petty. They are territorial. They launch raids upon
those weaker than themselves. They are no better than the Borg in many
ways. We want them.

"No," said Delcara uncertainly. "For all their
faults, they are not the soulless ones." They would destroy us if they
could. "They cannot."

They will try. They come even now. And they were coming.

The Tholians had greatly improved the tractor field weapon that had
become their trademark. Whereas once it had taken hours for their
notorious web to be completed, they were now able to accomplish the
intricately interwoven construct in a matter of minutes.

Tholian Webslingers, as the main ships had been nicknamed by the crew of
the Chekov, leaped forward and encompassed the planet-killer. It was
hundreds, perhaps thousands of times larger, but this did not daunt the
Tholians. They were nothing, if not determined, and their ships began to
weave their webline around the stationary planet-killer. The mammoth
machine, for its part, appeared to totally ignore them, instead
consuming the last portions of what had once been the outermost planet.

Within seconds the first strands had been strung, and inside of five
minutes the planet-killer was completely enmeshed in the elaborate,
glowing blue force strings of the Tholian web. The tractor field was
designed to leach off the energy output of whatever it had surrounded
and use that energy to feed the web itself. It was an elegant and
brilliant design. The more energy the entrapped vessel expended, the
faster the web absorbed it and the stronger the web became. So, the
stronger the victim, the tighter the bonds that it created around
itself.

The Chekov hung back, reluctant to start-firing for fear that they might
accidentally hit a Tholian ship. The Tholians were testy enough as it
was, and despite Korsmo's original intentions to the contrary, the
Tholians had informed him in no uncertain terms that the starship was to
stay the hell out of it. For added emphasis, one of the ships had taken
a few pot
shots at the Chekov, shots which had bounced harmlessly off the shields.
It served merely as a warning, but one that the Chekov took quite
seriously.

The web closed around the planet-killer, and the Tholians congratulated
themselves on their victory. The planet-eating vessel was obviously so
petrified by the Tholian might that it was too afraid to fire so much as
a single shot.

Their rejoicing lasted exactly nineteen seconds, at which point the
planet-killer opened fire with its massive anti-proton beam. The web
flashed, energy running up and down its entire length, charging and
crackling. Two of the Webslingers had not yet disconnected and were
fried instantly, and moments later the entire web began to shrivel and
spark. The web was designed to absorb energy output, but it couldn't
even begin to cope with what the planet-killer was dealing it, and a few
blazing seconds later the Tholian web fell and burned away.

The Tholians, desperate now, opened fire, and the Chekov joined them,
launching photon torpedoes, phasers, and a full antimatter spread. The
planet-killer fired back intermittently, picking off ships here and
there as if it were more of an exercise in marksmanship than a serious
offense. It didn't need to mount one. The ships arrayed against it
didn't stand a chance.

The planet-killer then turned in leisurely fashion, ignoring the
attempts to slow it down, and started on a direct course towards the
Tholian homeworld.

It was at this point that the Enterprise showed up.

Yes, sang the Many. You see they wanted to hurt us. They are evil. They
care for no one and nothing except themselves. They deserve to die.

Delcara felt her defenses weakening. It made so
much sense, really. She could intuit so much of the discordance that was
part and parcel of the galaxy. There was so much chaos, so much evil.
Not just the Borg, but everywhere. Yes. Yes, the Tholians had committed
great harm. She sensed the truth of the telling. There had been raids.
There had been attacks on neighboring starsystems. There had been
extremely variable borders so that passing ships could be savaged on the
flimsy excuse that Tholian space had been violated. Yes, there was the
truth, clear now as light, guiding as a beacon, sending her toward the
homeword.

The planet-killer howled through space, closing. Not too far away, the
great sun of the Tholian system crackled in space, uncaring of the fates
Of those planetary bodies that orbited it. Whether the second planet
away--the Tholian homeworld--survived or was extinguished was of no
interest. The star would go on for a million years, and that was all
that mattered.

Tholian ships rose up to meet the threat and were smashed without
hesitation. The planet-killer paused, ignoring the scraps of ships that
floated past it, the crushed bodies of the Tholians whose life flames
had been snuffed out. It ignored as well the frustrated attacks of the
Chekov, which meant well. Delcara sensed that, and for that reason she
would destroy the Chekov only as an absolute necessity.

Twenty seconds to being within range of the homeworld.

Eighteen seconds, seventeen, and it hung there, large and inviting. Its
surface was hot, at least 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was about to
get hotter. The intensity of the heat would serve the planet-killer
well. Would put a fire in its belly.

Fifteen, thirteen seconds, and the planet-killer was closer and closer.
Eleven seconds...

Nine...

And out of nowhere, there was the obstruction.

"Eight seconds until collision," Data said tonelessly.

The planet-killer loomed larger and larger on the screen. Picard sat in
his command chair, gaze riveted. on the approaching instrument of doom.

When he had ordered an intercept course, everyone on the bridge had seen
the madness of it. Picard was interposing his ship, and the lives of
everyone aboard, between the Tholian homeworld and the oncoming
planet-killer.

The Tholians were no friends of the Federation; indeed, they were more
terrorists than anything else. They were notorious troublemakers. They
had refused to aid in the allied defense mounted months ago at Wolf 359
against the Borg, and indeed had made it clear that they wouldn't have
shed a tear if Earth and the entire Federation had been absorbed by the
power of the Borg. In fact, the flagships of the Tholian fleet had been
busy threatening the Enterprise before the planet-killer had blown them
out of space.'

Nevertheless, when Picard had issued the order that would very likely
cost them their lives, it had been followed with utter confidence and
discipline. Their lives and their dedication had been pledged to Picard,
and they would fulfill that no matter what.

If only it weren't on behalf of the Tholians, Worf thought sourly.

"Seven," said Data, "six, five..."

Five seconds, and the planet-killer would either smash right through the
Enterprise, or unleash its deadly beam to destroy the planet, and the
Enterprise
would be right in the way and cut to pieces, or the vast maw of the
planet-killer, which was fast approaching them, might simply swallow
them whole.

Of all the options under consideration, survival didn't seem to be among
them.

Delcara saw, or sensed, or somehow knew, that the Enterprise blocked
their path. The ship had been perfectly placed--there was no way to get
at the
planet without destroying the starship.

"Picard," she whispered.

He does this to challenge you, cried the Many. He thinks you won't
destroy him. He thinks he will triumph. Kill him. Obliterate him and
take the world. The world is ours. We want the world. We hunger for the
world.

"But Picard risks his life to save them. That must say something for
them," said Delcara desperately.

It says he is a fool. It says you give your love to a fool instead of
us. We want the planet. It ours. Give it to us. Give it. Give it/

The Enterprise hung there, glistening, white, a sacrifice.

Give it. cried the Many.

"Picard!" cried the One.

"Three," said Data,

The Enterprise did not budge.

The doomsday machine did not slow down.

On the bridge of the Chekov, the crew looked on in horror.

"My God, he's committing suicide," said Korsmo.

Shelby shook her head desperately. "He must have something. Some trick.
Something."

"Fire phasers? shouted Korsmo, but they were out of range. They were
going to be too late.

"Two," said Data.

Picard gripped the arms of his chair firmly. Riker's back stiffened, his
bearded chin jutting out defiantly. Troi was at peace. Worf was
disappointed that they weren't firing, even though it was pointless.
Data obliquely wondered if, should he survive the impact when the ship
was smashed apart, would he then float in space, inseparable from other
debris and ignored,

but conscious and aware?

"One," said Data.

They were looking straight down the mouth of the planet-killer. The
flames of hell danced deep within it, damned souls welcoming newcomers.
The heat was overwhelming, the heat was everywhere...

The heat was gone.

"Son of a bitch," whispered Korsmo, staring in disbelief. "He's got to
be the luckiest bastard in the cosmos."

"The planet-killer has veered off," Data said as calmly as if announcing
a routine mid-course correction.

The efgine of destruction was heading away from the Enterprise, faster
and faster, as if anxious and desperate to put as much distance between
itself and the starship as possible. And its course was taking it
straight toward--
"The sun. The planet-killer is on a collision course with the Tholian
sun," Data said.

The picture on the viewscreen immediately changed to accommodate the new
direction. And there was the planet-killer, dwindling against the fiery
face of the Tholian star. Its vastness was nothing compared to the giant
sun that it was charging, looking as helpless against the white inferno
as the Tholian ships had looked mere moments ago.

"The gravity of the star is pulling it in," said Data.

Slowly Picard got to his feet, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"Delcara," he whispered.

In the Ten-Forward lounge, Guinan saw and whispered the same thing.

Smaller and smaller it became, and smaller still, and Picard imagined
that he could hear screams in his mind, and one of the voices screaming
was his. Tractor beams were useless. Everything was useless. She was
going to die for some inexplicable, hideous reason, and there was
nothing he could do.

A ship that could swallow planets whole looked pitiful and insignificant
against the sun, and then it looked like nothing. It plunged,
lemming-like, right into the heart of the star, into a furnace with the
power and heat of a hundred million nuclear explosions, and vanished.

A silence fell upon the bridge, an awed and somewhat confused hush. Most
of the bridge crew sensed that something more had happened here than
they could understand.

Picard slowly sank into his command chair as if the air had been let out
of him. Troi looked to him with grief and sympathy, but the captain said
nothing. He just stared fixedly at the Tholian star, oblivious of all
else.

"We are being hailed by the Chekov," Worf said, uncharacteristically
subdued.

Picard didn't reply, but simply inclined his head slightly. Worf put it
on audio, and Korsmo's voice came on with a brisk, "Picard? You okay?"

"All hands safe here, Captain," said Picard. Whatever he was feeling, he
was internalizing it completely, but he sounded much older. "And
yourselves?"

"We're all sound here. Damned lucky that monster ignored us."

"That monster," said Picard, "committed suicide

rather than harm this ship. So do not--"

"Captain!" Worf said suddenly.

Picard and Korsmo spoke in unison. "Yes?"

"Sensors are detecting--"

"Oh my God," came Korsmo's voice.

And now Picard and the rest of the bridge crew saw it as well.

The planet-killer ripped free from the far side of the sun, undamaged,
unslowed. It picked up speed with every passing second, glowing white
hot and then cooling as it pulled away from the star, further and
further into space, further and further from its pursuers, and within
seconds it had leaped into warp space and was gone.

The two starships, and the remaining Tholian ships, sat there in space,
as silent as the void that surrounded them. It was finally Korsmo who
broke that silence, as his sarcastic voice sounded on the Enterprise
bridge.

"Well, Picard," he asked, "any other bright ideas?"

GRAND FINALE

Chapter Eighteen

The STAR HAD BEEN left far behind, but the anger still remained. The Many
were furious. You tried to hurt us, they cried. You tried to kill us!
"No, my children, my loves," said Delcara, feeling very tired. "I knew
that we would survive. I knew that we are great. I knew that our power
and strength would enable us to survive even the raging heart of a star,
for our heart rages far more." You risked us rather than the Picard.
"Yes!" said Delcara, her fury brimming over. "Yes, and I would do so
again. We are joined, Picard and I, in ways that I can neither explain
nor understand. We shall always be together, although fate decrees that
we must be apart. And I would not be the instrument of Picard's
destruction. You must accept that." We do not like it. "You do not have
to like it," she told the Many. "But accept it." They were silent for a
long moment. Is our vendetta not important to you? Is our love not
enough for you? they asked. We love you as he never can. He is mortal.

He is meat and he will die and rot. We are forever. We can love you
forever. The Picard cannot offer that.

"No," she said softly. "No, he cannot. Mortal love is so transient. If I
have learned nothing else in my long life, I have learned that. I have
lost so many. Children, mates. So many."

Not u, ]elcara, said the Many. Not us. Not ever. "Not ever," she said.

Shall we go faster, Delcara? We can go much faster, you know. Faster
than even the ships of the Picard could follow. Our upward speed has not
been measured. If you wish us to--

"Our present speed is satisfactory," she said. "We have all the time in
the universe, my children. Let us Savor the revenge and conserve our
resources."

You do not wish to hurry, accused the Many, their voices becoming shrill
once more, because you do not wish to leave the Picard behind.

"Perhaps," she sighed. "That may well be. If so, it is my desire, and
you will honor it, my loved ones. You will honor it."

We will always do as you wish, Delcara, said the Many. But there was
something in their voice that Delcara found disturbing. Something very
unpleasant. An ugliness, an unquenchable thirst for revenge that even
she felt was disquieting. And perhaps the most disquieting thing about
it was that she saw the thirst, more and more clearly, in herself.

Deanna Troi sat across from Reannon Bonaventure in the latter's
stark'and functional quarters. She held the woman's hand in her own and
stared deeply into her eyes, looking beyond those eyes, deep into the
mind.

"Reannon?" she said softly. "I am beginning to get a sense of you. You
are hiding, like a frightened child,

afraid to come out. Your soul is a terrified and vulnerable thing,
virtually destroyed by the Borg. But you can rebuild it. With love and
understanding, you can rebuild. It will take time, but you have that in
abundance. It will take support, but you will have that in as great
quantities. Come out to me. Reach out to

my soul, Reannon. You see it there, calling to you." Nothing.

There were footsteps just outside, and Geordi La Forge entered. He
paused in the threshold and said, "Sorry, Counselor, I didn't know you
were... I can come back later."

"No, it's all right, Geordi," she said, gesturing for him to enter.
"Your presence can only be of benefit."

He sat down within arm's reach and shook his head. "Still can't believe
that thing survived cutting right through a star. The radiation, the
heat--it's just incredible."

"What's more incredible is that we're still in pursuit and trying to
convince ourselves we can stop it," said Troi.

He looked up at her. "That sounds surprisingly fatalistic for you,
Counselor."

"There's a fine line between fatalism and realism, Geordi."

"Hey, who would have thought that the Tholians would have let us depart
from their space without any sort of further challenge? They still can't
believe that the captain risked everything to save their home-world." He
leaned forward towards Reannon. "Any progress?"

"There was that moment in the engineering room," said Troi, settling
back and trying her best not to look discouraged. "That was a definite
breakthrough. But now there's nothing. It's as if she's hiding."

"I can't say I blame her entirely," said Geordi.

"Nor can I. Obviously, she does not wish to face the reality of her
memories of the Borg. So she has blocked out everything, rather than
deal with it."

Geordi reached forward, took her hand and brought it up to his face.
"This got a reaction out of her before," said Geordi. "She seemed
interested in my VISOR. Maybe she will be again."

He brought her ice-cold hand up in front of his face, took the tips of
her fingers, and ran them across his VISOR. When they reached the end he
rubbed them back in the other direction, and all the time he kept
saying, "Reannon? Reannon? I know you're in there. I know I can help
you. Reannon?"

Slowly, ever so slowly, her gaze shifted to Geordi and actually seemed
to focus on him for a moment.

"Geordi, she's reacting," said Deanna in a hushed voice, as if afraid
that speaking out loud would somehow break the spell.

Reannon's fingers closed on the VISOR, and she yanked with all her
strength. The VISOR flew off Geordi's face and the world immediately
became blackness around him.

Reannon held the VISOR tightly, and again she started to make sounds,
muttering incoherences. Out of a reflexive sense of panic to the
darkness that had enveloped him, Geordi La Forge lunged forward, trying
to get to the VISOR. He missed completely and fell heavily to the floor.

The ruckus immediately prompted the security guard outside to enter,
phaser drawn. "Lieutenant!" he shouted, seeing Geordi on the floor,
grasping about desperately.

"No./" cried ou Deanna, leaping to her feet and raising her hands as if
to ward off a phaser blast. "No, don't! It's all right. It's going to be
all right!"

Reannon had turned away, moving quickly but in a

very tight circle. And she was trying to shove the VISOR onto her face.
She got it on once but it slid off, and she grabbed at it while
muttering incoherent, incomprehensible shrieks.

"What's happening!" called out Geordi. Troi was helping the engineer to
his feet, and again the engineer said, "What's happening? What's going
on? What's she doing?"

Reannon hesitated for a moment, looking around in confusion, and then,
gripping the VISOR with one hand, she started clawing at her eyes with
the other. Fortunately, it was the prosthetic hand that was holding the
VISOR, because if she'd used that hand to attack her face, she might
possibly have done serious damage to herself.

Troi reached forward and grabbed Reannon's wrist, all the time hushing
her and whispering to her to calm down, that everything was going to be
all right, that she was among friends. And finally the fit seemed to
pass, and Reannon slipped back into the sullen, coma-like attitude that
she had had before.

Without a word Troi handed the VISOR back to Geordi, who quickly
replaced it on his face. As what passed for the world snapped into view
once more, he sighed in relief. "Not damaged," he said. "That's a
relief. What happened, Counselor?"

"I believe," said Deanna slowly, "that she was attempting to rip out her
own eyes and replace them with a mechanical implement."

He hung his head. "Trying to re-create herself as a Borg, My God. That's
what she was trying to do, isn't it."

"That is my guess," said Deanna. "And yet, she is of two minds. On the
one hand, she tries to recapture her transformation into a Borg. On the
other hand," and Deanna ran her fingers maternally through Rearmoh's

hair, "she is repulsed by it and tries to deny what happened to her. She
is a very tortured individual."

"But I was sure I was getting through to her," said Geordi fiercely, "I
was so certain."

Troi looked at him curiously. "This is so important to you, Geordi. More
so than I would have suspected. Beyond any of the explanations you gave
before. Why? What is it about her that seems to have touched you so?"

He sat there, trying to find a way to put it into words, and ultimately
was unable to. "I feel close to her, that's all. I admire the type of
woman she is. Or was. The adventurer. Someone who is totally
independent, willing to take on anything. I admire her and I respect her
and--"

"Do you love her?"

La Forge looked slightly taken aback. "I... don't think so. I love the
opportunity to help her, and I think about..." His voice trailed off a
moment and then, softly, he admitted, "I think about her all the time."
Then he drew himself up, squaring his shoulders, and said, "It's a
challenge, that's all. A project. The same as any other challenging
project. I want to help her to feel better. That's all."

"If you say so, Geordi," said Troi neutrally. He glanced at her face and
wondered if she was smiling or not.

At that moment both Troi's and La Forge's communicators beeped. La Forge
tapped his, as Troi did hers. Picard's voice came over both of them as
he said, "I'm calling an immediate conference of all senior officers."

"What's happened, Captain?" Troi could instantly sense the controlled
distress the captain was feeling.

"Reports from outlying starbases along the frontier," said Picard. "The
Borg are on their way." He paused. "In force."

Picard signed off, and Geordi and Troi looked at each other. "They're
obviously determined to destroy the planet-killer," said Geordi, "before
it gets to Borg space."

"And in a battle between Delcara and the Borg... whose side would we
take?" asked Troi.

Geordi chewed his lower lip and finally admitted, "That's going to be
the big question, isn't it. The big, and maybe final, question."

Guinan walked slowly down the corridor, not even noticing the
crewmembers who walked past her. That was extremely unusual for her,
since on those rare occasions when she was noticed moving through the
hallways of the Enterprise, she always had a kind word or a polite nod
for anyone who passed her. Now, though, she was clearly preoccupied.

She stopped in front of a holodeck door and paused, as if considering
her options. The ship was still on yellow alert, so no crew members were
busy living out some sort of amusing fantasy through the Enterprise
holo-technology. Guinan composed herself and walked in.

The yellow grids glimmered around her as she stood in the middle of the
holodeck. She took a deep breath, clearing her thoughts, and then she
put her fingers to her head.

"Delcara," she said softly, and again, "Delcara." And when she spoke,
her voice went far beyond the confines of the holodeck, beyond the
confines of normal space.

All was silence for quite some time, and then an image shimmered and
appeared before her.

Guinan gasped when she saw her in spite of herself. Delcara's face was
more lined than before, and now her hair was brittle and looked like it
might even be falling out. When she stood it was with hunched back, as
if she were carrying the weight of the world on her. And her very aura
had changed. Once it had glimmered, white and pure, and now it was
darksome and disturbing. Her eyebrows were heavier, her eyes seeming to
be receding into her head. When she regarded Guinan, her entire face
seemed constructed for exuding suspicion.

"What's happened to you?" whispered Guinan. "Nothing," Said Delcara.
"Nothing, bond sister. You called me. I have come. What more can you
wish from me than that?"

"Computer," Guinan said abruptly. "Access ship's log, stardate 44793.6.
Re-create from visual records the woman named Delcara who appeared in
holographic form. Physical form only. Do not animate."

Within an instant the computer had complied, and a perfect construct of
Delcara stood before the two of them. She stood there quietly, unmoving,
a mere shell. Yet there was a grace and quiet beauty still in evidence
that had already faded from the being who had come to Guinan at her
behest mere moments ago.

"Geordi tried this with his Borg friend," said Guinan. "A woman whose
soul he is trying to recapture. I figured, if it's good enough for
him..."

"A Borg friend?" Delcara looked at her skeptically. "Recapture a soul?
That cannot happen, my bond sister. They have no souls. Nor does this,"
and she gazed in fascination at the body that stood before her,
motionless. "This, however, does present interesting .. opportunities."

She stepped forward, like a specter, and merged with the body.

The body staggered for a moment, as if getting its bearings, and then
Delcara's heart shone through the eyes. She held up the hands and
experimentally touched them to the face. "Intriguing," she said. She
looked over to Guinan, who was standing there with quiet satisfaction,
and held out her hands to her. "Bond sister, I feel as if I see you with
new eyes. You are looking well."

"And you--" Guinan took her hands. "You look terrible."

"Blunt as ever," said Delcara. "Wrong as ever. You counseled
forgiveness, Guinan. You counseled that I should live my life and not
dwell on the past. BUt look at what I have achieved, sister. Look."

"Yes, let's look, shall we?" said Guinan shaqaly. "Don't you understand
what's happening to you7 Your obsession is destroying you. It's eating
away at your soul. God only knows what it's done to your body. You won't
let us see that."

"My body is in perfectly fine health," Delcara told her.

"Come aboard the Enterprise, Delcara," Guinan said urgently. "Leave the
planet-killer behind. Come be with me. Come be with him. We are your
future. Not that machine in which you hide."

"You do not understand, Guinan. They need me, and I need them."

"You only need them if you need vengeance. If you put vengeance aside,
you need only love. And you don't need a machine that was built to
destroy to provide you with that."

Delcara turned her back to her. "You don't understand."

"No, no, I've never understood," said Guinan. "Letting an obsession
consume you in the way that it has is totally alien to me. I remember
you as you were,

Delcara. There was a darkness in you, true, but you were willing to let
in light. You were willing to love. You were willing to dream and hope
of things other than destruction."

"We change, Guinan. Well, not you, of course," said Delcara with a touch
of sarcasm. "You are the same, sweet-tempered, attentive individual you
always we re."

"I remember a time when that was important to you," Guinan replied.
"Delcara, come back to us. To me."

"They need me," she began again.

Guinan squeezed Delcara's "hands" as tightly as she could. "They need.
They need. But they don't give, bond sister. They take and take from
you. But they don't give you the flesh and blood relationship that only
other living beings can provide. The spirits of the dead possess you and
destroy you. Leave them and return to us."

"I can't!" cried Delcara in exasperation. "What would you have of me,
Guinan! What would you have!"

"Give up the vendetta..."

"I can't! Don't you see? That's all I am. That's all that's left of the
woman you once knew. I don't know

anything else, nor does anything else matter!"

"I don't believe that."

"Whether you believe it or not doesn't change it."

"Let us come to you," said Guinan desperately, urgently.

"Impossible."

"Not impossible. Let us into your vessel. See us like this," and she
squeezed Delcara's "hand" firmly. "Let us address the many beings that
you represent. Picard can be very persuasive."

"Picard," said Delcara with a faint whisper, and

then, her voice more firm, she said, "It's impossible, I said."

"That's not you speaking," said Guinan with surprising fierceness.
"That's them."

"They are many. I am one."

"But you're the one that matters to me."

"All right," said Delcara, sounding extremely tired again. "All right,
Guinan. I swear, you and your relentless nature. You would vex the gods
of patience."

Guinan smiled. "At the very least, I'd give them something to think
about."

"Time draws short, though," said Delcara darkly. "I sense more of the
soulless ones on the horizons of space. There are three of them this
time."

Guinan cast a glance in the direction that Delcara was pointing, as if
she could see through a bulkhead. "Three."

"Yes. It will be a difficult battle. But I will prevail. That is the
main reason that I agree to see Picard now, you see."

"On the eve of your great triumph?"

"No," she said simply, and sadly. "Because I anticipate that he will not
face the Borg another time and live. And his departure will leave a
great absence in me. How fortunate that I do not love him."

The holodeck-generated body arched her back slightly, and then slumped
forward, its eyes vacant and wide, staring at nothing. Guinan nodded
slowly and said, "How fortunate indeed."

Once again Picard had assembled his top officers in the briefing room,
with Korsmo and Shelby in attendance as well.

It was a strategy conference, the type of which Picard had hoped he
would never have to call again.

"The Borg," he said, "are on the way. The speed reported by Starbase 222
was somewhere above warp nine-point-nine."

Geordi whistled. "Incredible. The fastest that subspace radio goes is
warp nine-point-nine-nine-nine, and that's with booster relays, which
means that the Borg may be barely behind the radio transmission. You
know, the laws of physics say it's impossible to reach warp ten, but if
anyone can do it, I bet the Borg could. Not that I get any particular
pleasure from that thought, mind you."

"What's even more incredible is that they ignored the starbase,"
observed Shelby.

"Obviously, they were in something of a hurry," said Riker. "And I think
I know what they were in a hurry for."

He glanced out the viewing port. Ahead of them, space was warping around
the speeding shape of the planet-killer, still on its head-on course to
penetrate Borg space. Thus far the Enterprise and the Chekov were
keeping pace, but it was not an easy task, and it required careful
monitoring of the engines.

Riker shook his head in amazement. That it would take years to achieve
her goal was clearly of no interest to her at all. As she had said, she
had all the time in the universe.

It was time that the Enterprise did not share, which Data was just now
pointing out. "If we can assume that the planet-killer is capable of
surviving the next Borg attack, the next densely populated system will
be that of the Gorn. Furthermore, beyond that she will
inevitably--presuming she does not alter her course --enter a section of
Romulan space."

"Just perfect," said Riker sarcastically.

"Why doesn't she just open fire on the Federation headquarters and be
done with it?" demanded

Korsmo, sounding even more frustrated. "She's going to have the entire
galaxy in pieces before she's through."

"I am aware of what she might and might not do, Captain," said Picard
quietly.

"Well, she's not going to have the chance," said Korsmo. "I received a
communiqu6 from Star-fleet..."

"Yes, I know," Picard told him. "We received the same one."

Korsmo seemed surprised for a moment, but then shrugged. "Then you
know."

Crusher looked confused, as did Troi and La Forge. "Well I don't know,"
said the doctor. "Someone care to let me in on it?"

"Starfleet is assembling a fleet to intercept her," said Korsmo with
great satisfaction. "If the Borg don't get her, we definitely will."

There was silence in the briefing room for a moment. Picard cast a
glance at Shelby, who was seated next to her captain but clearly wasn't
sharing his enthusiasm. Nor did Riker look ecstatic. "Problem,
Commander? Commanders?" said Picard.

Shelby looked at Riker. "It's Wolf 359 all over again."

"My thoughts exactly," said Riker.

"I do not like what you're implying at a/I," declared Korsmo. "Starfleet
can no more let that woman carve her way through the galaxy than they
could let the Borg assault us unanswered. For a galaxy to be at peace,
that peace must be protected. Starfleet and the Federation aren't simply
going to turn away when such a massive threat presents itself, whether
it be the planet-killer or the Borg. And I will have you know, young
officers," he added stiffly, "that Wolf 359 was heroism at its finest!"

"Wolf 359 was a massacre," said Riker. "I will never forget the look on
Admiral Hansoh's face when he told us of the fight he was going to give
the Borg. He was like a war-horse put back into harness. You weren't
there to see that, Captains. We saw it. A brave defender going off to be
slaughtered. And we saw the graveyard of ships that were left behind in
the Borg's wake."

"And that was against one Borg ship," Shelby said. "Now you're telling
us that a fleet is being assembled--a fleet which can't possibly be as
powerful as the one at Wolf, because most of the best ships were lost
there--and it's going up against a foe that's more powerful."

Now Picard cleared his throat loudly and said, in a tone that was
indicating that no further discussion on that topic was being tolerated,
"It's of far moe importance, I think, that we deal with the here and
now. And the here and now would indicate that, sooner rather than later,
depending upon their speed, we will be encountering three Borg ships.
Mr. La Forge, what are our options?"

"We've developed ways to temporarily stall the Borg during an attack,"
said Geordi. "Fluctuating the phaser resonance frequencies tampers with
their ability to adjust to our weapons. Also varying the nutonics slows
down their ability to overcome our deflectors, although only for a
matter of seconds."

"There was something else you did. Memoranda were circulated throughout
Starfleet," said Korsmo, "and Shelby was telling me about it as well,
with the deflector dish..."

Geordi's head bobbed up and down. "We discovered that the power nodules
of the Borg were susceptible to phaser frequencies along the higher end
of the

band. It caused system-wide drops throughout the

Borg ship when fired on them. Figuring that more is

better, we generated a concentrated burst of energy

using power from the warp engines, channeled

through the deflector dish, to give us more punch than

phasers or photon torpedoes could have provided.

The problem was that since it took so much power, we

couldn't maneuver at warp speed. Furthermore, it

caused failure in the warp reactor core primary coolant
system, and we came damned close to cracking the

dilithium crystals."

"The result?" asked Korsmo.

Geordi shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and no

one else around the table looked particularly at ease.

ming. The Borg shields absorbed it."

"That would be my doing," admitted Picard.

"When the Borg 'recruited' me, they took all of our

possible planned strategies from my mind."

"The other drawback is that it left us virtual sitting

ducks," said Riker. "That kind of failure against one

Borg ship is bad enough. Trying it again with two

other ships to attack you while you're making yourself

vulnerable attacking a third is even more risky."

"They can only prepare for what they knew we

could do, up to the point where they abducted the

captain,". said Geordi. "But they don't know about

things that we've come up with since."

"You have something in mind, Mr. La Forge?"

asked Picard.

"Something that's worth a shot," said Geordi. i'Wesley had been
conducting experiments with creating warp bubbles."

"Oh God, don't remind me," said Beverly Crusher.

"But it may be something we can use," Geordi continued. "All the
equations and records of the

experiment are in the computer, and I've been looking them over from
time to time when I had a spare few minutes. And I've been discussing
possibilities with Data..."

"We have theorized," Data said, "that it would be possible to program
into the computer a remix of matter and antimatter to duplicate, on a
large scale,. the warp bubble that Wesley created."

"In the main engines?" said Picard, looking somewhat taken aback.

"No, sir," said Data. "The mixture would be contained in the emergency
antimatter generator on the lower engineering hull. However, upon
command, the computer would then channel it through the warp field
generators on the outboard nacelles. The warp bubble would interact with
the subspace field of the Borg ship and encapsulate it in a shrinking
universal field similar to the one which trapped Doctor Crusher. It
would, for all intents and purposes, remove the affected ship from our
space-time continuum."

"So we would have to maneuver close enough to the Borg vessel to,
essentially, 'drop off' the warp bubble on their subspace field," said
Picard.

"Yes, sir," confirmed Geordi. "And we would have to keep moving at
impulse power to leave the discharge behind. We'd have maybe three
seconds to get away--at impulse power--or risk being encompassed

in the warp bubble along with the Borg ship."

"Sounds dicey," admitted Riker.

"How long would it take you to prepare the emergency antimatter
generator?" asked Picard.

"Wesley did all the theoretical groundwork when he was first doing his
experiments." Geordi shrugged. "This is just a straightforward
application. Maybe half an hour."

"Make it so." Picard paused. "Captain Korsmo, i,,

But he didn't get to complete the sentence, as the briefing room
communicator sounded. "Captain," came Chafin's voice, "the planet-killer
is reducing speed."

"Are there Borg ships ahead?"

"No, sir."

"Maybe it's running out of gas," said Korsmo. The briefing room doors
opened and Guinan entered quickly. Korsmo looked up and sighed in
exasperation, but kept his peace. Guinan, for her part, ignored him
completely but instead went straight to Picard.

"She wants to see us."

"Wants to?" said Picard, not having to ask who Guinan meant by "she."

"Perhaps 'wants to' is too strong a term," allowed Guinan. "She will see
us. That alone is a breakthrough."

"What she' ?"

is that. asked Korsmo. "The woman in

the planet-killer?"

"Captain," Chafin's voice came, "it's dropping out of warp."

"Bring us alongside," said Picard, and stood. "Transporter room. Prepare
for four to beam aboard the planet-killer. DoCtor, Guinan, Mr. Data,
with

me."

"No, sir!" Riker said immediately, "that would be--"

"The only logical course of action," said Picard with quiet confidence.
"This may be our only chance to ally the planet-killer solidly with
Federation interests. If that can be accomplished, we need never worry
about the threat of the Borg again. Mr. La Forge,

Counselor Troi, tell me of the Bonaventure woman. Could she be useful
somehow in negotiating with Delcara?"

"You can't negotiate with her, Picard," Korsmo now said. "She's a
terrorist! She does what she wants, where she wants. There can be no
compromise with someone like that."

Picard simply stared at him icily, and then said very quietly, as if
Korsmo had not even spoken, "I'm waiting for an answer to my question,
Counselor."

"Using Reannon would not be advisable," said Troi. "She is at a very
delicate stage in her recovery, and very unpredictable. She could do as
much harm as good."

"I agree," said Geordi.

"Very well, then. She'll stay here." And seeing Riker's mouth about to
open, Picard quickly interrupted with a curt, "There is nothing to
discuss, Number One."

"Captain," Shelby now said, leaning forward, "this is not the time."

"Commander Shelby is right, sir. You can't be away from the Enterprise
now. The Borg are coming."

Picard turned to Riker, and his first officer understood immediately
from the look in Picard's face. This was more than determination on
Picard's part to take the risk himself. This was a personal fulfillment
of a lifelong quest on the part of his captain, and he came to the quiet
realization that there was no way in hell he was going to be able to get
in this man's way.

"You will have to give them my regrets," said Picard.

Chapter Nineteen

KORSMO STRODE ONTO the bridge of the Chekov and dropped into the command
chair. Shelby followed a few steps behind him, looking far more composed
and controlled.

"Against every common sense move," Korsmo said, more to himself than
anything. But everyone on the bridge heard, and turned towards him with
curiosity.

"Sir?" asked the man at ops.

Korsmo didn't look at anyone as he just shook his head and said, "There
are certain people in the galaxy who go by the book, who always do the
correct thing, and they lead satisfactory, but uninspiring, careers. And
then there are the ones who do whatever the hell they feel like, and
they get the attention and acclaim. Now, you want to tell me what you
call that?"

There was silence on the bridge for a moment, and then Shelby said,
simply and clearly, "I call that justice."

Korsmo fired her a look that wasn't filled with a great deal of
affection. "Thank you for sharing that with us, Commander."

Shelby said nothing, just inclined her head slightly as if giving a
tongue-in-cheek "You're welcome."

Korsmo looked at the screen, at the planet-killer that was now
stationary in space. The Enterprise had drawn closer, and Korsmo said,
"Hold our position here."

"Sir," said Hobson in surprise. "The planet-killer had been generating a
field scrambler that had made transport aboard impossible. But sensors
are detecting that a hole has just been created in the field. Should
we--?"

"No," said Korsmo quietly. "Take no action. Hold us steady. You see, we
weren't invited."

Guinan, Picard, Data, and Troi stepped up onto the transporter platform.
Worf and Riker stood at the base, while O'Brien checked his readouts.
"Transportation is now possible, sir," said O'Brien, not without some
surprise. "And I'm reading a transporter beacon signal from within the
planet-killer. Someone has someplace very specific they want me to send
you."

"Then we shall't disappoint them," Picard said. "Sir, I still recommend
against this," said Riker firmly, though he did not think, at this
point, that Picard was going to listen to him. In that he was correct.

"Recommendation noted, Number One."

Now Worf stepped forward and proffered a phaser. "Sir, you should have
this with you."

"I don't think that will be necessary, Mr. Worf." In a firm, even fierce
voice, Worf said, "I do." Picard was slightly surprised by the vehemence
of his security head. He also understood it. It was a very difficult
thing to ask a Klingon to stand by and permit a commanding officer to do
something that he, Worf,

felt was inappropriate. Klingons were driven by an immense sense of
duty, and Worf was in tremendous conflict. On the one hand, he was
obligated to obey the wishes of his captain. On the other hand, he felt
duty-bound to protect his commanding officer from harm.

As much out of consideration for Worf's feelings as anything else,
Picard took the phaser. "Thank you, Lieutenant," he said.

Worf gave a curt nod and stepped back, his arms folded across his broad
chest.

Picard Stepped back up onto the transporter platform and glanced at
Guinan. "Your first time through a transporter?"

She shrugged. "First time for everything."

Picard nodded and then turned to O'Brien. "Energize," he said.

They shimmered and vanished off the transporter pads.

"Vaya con dios," murmured Riker.

Picard was staring at himself.

He took a step back and reflexively his hand went towards his phaser.
Then he realized that the individual he was facing, who looked just like
him, was doing the exact same thing. In less than a second upon first
seeing his reflection he realized what it was, and he felt a bit
sheepish. He retreated a step farther so that he could get a look
around.

"Just as Geordi surmised," said Picard. "Crystal." Picard, Troi, and
Guinan stood in the middle of their surroundings, taking it all in. Troi
and Picard were clearly amazed at what they saw. Guinan, for her part,
merely stood impassively and looked around as if she had seen it all
before.

All around them, for as far and as high as they could

see, they were surrounded by intricately designed structures from a
material that looked for all the world like crystal.

The walls, vast sheets and pillars of crystal, reflected endlessly the
images of the four Enterprise visitors. Picard reached out tentatively,
after consulting with Data's tricorder readings, and placed his. hand
flat against one of the pillars. His reflection seemed to reach back at
him. The pillar was warm to

the touch, as if it were throbbing with life of its own. "Incredible,"
he whispered.

From all around her, Troi sensed life. It was like nothing she had ever
felt. The walls, the floors, the ceilings, wherever they might be--they
were completely encompassed by emotions. She told this to Picard, and
then added, "They seem--harnessed somehow."

"Imprisoned?" asked Picard.

"No. No, utilized, and willingly. As if... as if the ship is being
driven by pure will power."

"It is being driven by more than that," said Data, consulting his
tricorder once again. "These crystalline structures are actually power
cells that harness all matter of energy: physical, kinetic,
electromagnetic." He paused, checking further. The neutronium hull had
made sensor readings extremely difficult, but now that they were within,
he was absorbing the information as quickly as possible--which, for
Data, was quite fast indeed. "My interior readings are confirming what
Geordi was hypothesizing. The warp drive technology would seem to
generate different fields from that of the Enterprise. There is a
variant level in harmonic resonance that enables this vessel to warp the
fabric of space with greater energy efficiency and speed." He turned
towards Picard. "It is not dissimilar from Borg technology--indeed, it
my even be more efficient."

"The Borg are always speaking of absorbing technology," murmured Picard.
"The implication is that they develop precious little of their own."

"Of course they don't," said Guinan, staring at her reflection. She
adjusted her hat. "Creation of new technology comes from imagination.
You have to dream before you can do. Since the Borg have no imagination,
they are limited in their capacity to invent."

"And it is possible that the Borg have realized that," Picard said
slowly. "We wondered why their priorities appeared to have changed. Why
they seemed interested not only in human technology, but also in
interacting with humanity. Is it possible that they have' come to
realize the limits to their development, and want to tap into the human
capacity for invention in order to expand themselves?"

"It could be a very intriguing hypothesis,,, said Data. "The centralized
Borg mind may easily be capable of analyzing its own shortcomings. They
may wish to harness the creative ability of the human mind. Intriguing.
When you represented the Borg as Locutus, you referred to me as a
primitive artificial organism, despite my own ability for invention."

"Obviously they have come to value the human ability to think, as it
pertains to their attempts to improve themselves, while realizing the
limits of mechanical life." He glanced at Data. "No offense."

"None taken," said Data calmly. "None is possible."

That was when Deanna Troi screamed.

Immediately the others were next to her, as Deanna was staring at a
crystal wall. She was pointing in

confusion and said, "My face... I saw my face and then it Was... someone
else's. Not just someone. A hundred someones, or a thousand..."

She seemed genuinely rattled, but calmed down when Guinan rested a hand
on her shoulder. She shook her head to clear it and then said, "I'm
sorry. ! was startled."

"Very human of you," said Data consolingly. "That was the Many."

They turned to see Delcara standing in front of them. Picard was taken
aback, for he had not seen Delcara earlier in the holodeck, and she had
deteriorated even further than when Guinan had last seen her. Troi
gasped as well. Data merely aimed a tricorder at her.

Her hair was now a filthy white, and every visible inch of her skin was
wrinkled. She was smiling, but it was with a death's-head rictus of a
grin. Her eyebrows had actually converged, creating a single dark and
foul line of hair across her face, casting her once-lovely eyes into
permanent shadow. She was hag-like, stooped shouldered, the very
structure of her face changing. Her brow hung forward, Neanderthal-like,
and when she tilted her head slightly, contemplating them, she looked
like a gargoyle.

And insanely, she appeared oblivious of her appearance. It was as if
somewhere, somehow, deep within her, there was still the purity of
spirit. An innocence, a naivet that was simply unaware of what was
happening to her. As if the heinous intentions pervading her had simply
been layered onto her without touching the inner spark that once had
been a simple, loving woman named Delcara. A woman who knew nothing of
hatred and vengeance, but only love.

The woman whose inner beauty had once been

revealed, for only a moment, to a cadet named Jean-Luc.

Picard stepped forward and his hand passed through her. "Still a
hologram, I see."

"Still a captain, I see," replied Delcara. "You were a leader of men
even when I first saw you. How little things change."

"Delcara--" began Guinan.

But Delcara waved her off with a brief, angry gesture. "I brought you
here because you refused to understand," and her voice was laced with
barely controlled frenzy. "I brought you here to make you understand. I
cannot go back to the way I was. There is nothing left for me. Come."

She turned away before they could say anything and strode down the
corridor that seemed to stretch endlessly before them. Picard
immediately fell into step behind her, as did the others. They were
amazed at the silence around them. Within the Enterprise, there was
always some sort of background noise. The steady humming of the powerful
engines, the noise of servicing being performed on thousands of standard
automatic computer systems--always something.

Not here, though. Within the heart of the planet-killer, all was
silence. Even their boots made no noise, for the crystalline walls and
floors seemed to absorb all the sounds.

They turned a labyrinthine corner and stopped. Thus far they had been
surrounded by towering pillars and, far above them, tubings and
crossways that seemed to be channels for the pure power that coursed
through the entire structure of the planet-killer. Now, however, they
were faced with a single long, stretching corridor, lined with row upon
row of odd slabs, each one freestanding, about seven feet

high and positioned at roughly 45-degree angles to the wall. And at the
end of the corridor was a single column that stretched upward, the top
of it out of sight.

The hologram of Delcara walked toward it with measured steps, and then
stopped. It turned and faced Picard and the others.

"Now do you understand?" she said.

Inside the crystalline column, held upright like a fly in amber,
untouched by the corruption and beauty-destroying brush of
vengeance-obsession, was the pure and unscathed body of Delcara.

On the bridge of the Enterprise Worf suddenly looked up. "Sir,
long-range sensors are detecting three vessels approaching at warp
seven, heading three-two-two Mark nine. At present speed, they will be
here in seventeen minutes."

"Borg?" said Riker tonelessly.

"I believe so, sir."

"Alert the aptain. Tell the landing party to be prepared to beam
aboard."

"I am not able to raise them on the planet-killer, sir," said Worf after
a moment, and anticipating Riker's next statement, he said, "and the
field of the ship makes it impossible to lock onto their readings."

"So we can't beam them back if Delcara doesn't want us to," said Riker.
"Terrific. Engineering," snapped Riker, "how long before you have that
warp bubble formulation into the emergency generator?"

"About another fifteen minutes, Commander," came Geordi's voice.

"Sensors say that you're officially cutting it close, Mr. La Forge. The
Borg will be here in seventeen minutes."

"If there's one thing I hate, it's spare time," said La Forge.

"There won't be much to hate here. Step on it."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir," said Worf with undisguised surprise, "we are receiving an
incoming message from the Borg ships."

"Announcing the joy of their arrival, no doubt,"

said Riker. "Is the Chekov getting the same thing?"

"They indicate that they are, sir."

"Seems the Borg are having no trouble cutting through the subspace
interference that thing out there generates," observed Riker. "On
screen, Lieutenant."

The planet-killer vanished, and the last thing they expected to see
appeared on their screen.

At first glance it was a Borg, but only at first glance. His head was
shaped differently, the visible portion of his flesh and bone in the
distinctive shape and size of

"A Ferengi?" said Riker in surprise. "Is that a--?"

"It appears so," said Worf, no less astonished. The Ferengi Borg paused
a moment, as if allowing the humans to digest the full impact of his
presence. Then he said, "I am... Vastator. Vastator of the Borg."

Riker started to identify himself but then he heard another voice over
the channel. "This is Captain Morgan Korsmo of the starship Chekov."
Riker promptly kept silent--technically, Korsmo was the ranking officer
present and was the proper one to be in communication with the Borg. Not
that Riker was especially thrilled about that idea.

"Vastator of the Borg," continued Korsmo, "you are in Federation space.
I am ordering you, under my authority as a Starfleet captain, to return
immediately to your own quadrant."

"Your orders are of no interest," said Vastator, and then, incredibly,
his voiced acquired the silky subtlety of a Ferengi. "We are prepared,
however, to deal."

Riker looked at Worf and mouthed the word, Deal? "What sort of deal?"
came Korsmo's voice.

"We have learned of the power of the weapon that you are presently near.
It poses a threat not only to the Borg, but to yourselves. We will
destroy the weapon, and you will not interfere. In exchange, we will not
destroy you." It was bizarre to see the Ferengi speaking without the
usual sneer.

"No deals," said Riker sharply.

He was astonished when he heard Korsmo's sharp rebuke of, "Commander, I
am in charge here."

"The Federation does not deal with terrorists," said Riker. "You said so
yourself, sir."

"This is not terrorism. This is negotiations with a threatened race."

"The Borg are not threatened, Captain," said Riker tightly. "By and
large, they do the threatening."

"You need not decide now," said Vastator calmly. "You have sixteen
minutes to choose. Ultimately, your choice will be of no relevance to
us. Only to yourselves." With that, the Borg cut the communication.

The image of the Borg was immediately replaced by that of Korsmo, who
looked angrily at Riker. "I don't appreciate your interference in those
discussions, Commander."

"The Enterprise is not going to stand aside and let

the Borg destroy Delcara's vessel."

"Oh no?" snapped Korsmo.

"No. That ship hurled itself into a sun rather than destroy us. I hardly
think the Borg would be that considerate."

"And have you given thought, Commander," said

Korsmo icily, "as to what happens if Delcara does manage to destroy
those Borg ships and continue unmolested. Within a week's time she will
be intercepted by the fleet I warned you of. You yourself predicted
major casualties for such a battle. The word 'massacre' was voiced, as I
recall. If we have a chance of stopping her here, either by standing
aside or even attacking her ourselves, we save the lives of countless
members of Starfleet in a future battle. Are you willing to be
responsible for their lives, Commander?"

"And what do you think the Borg will do if they destroy her," shot back
Riker, trying his damnedest to keep his tone on the positive side of
insubordination. "Turn around, head back home and leave us?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps they will continue into the heart of Federation space.
And ships will assemble to meet them, and at least our two will be
around to be part of that assemblage. We can't guarantee the same thing
if we attack them here and now. And perhaps they can be negotiated with.
This incorporation of a Ferengi would indicate a willingness to bargain
on the part of the Borg."

"You can bargain with the devil, Captain Korsmo," shot back Riker, "but
you always wind up on the wrong end of the deal."

"That, Commander, is your opinion. It is mine that when the Borg show
up, we will not fire unless fired upon, and we will do nothing to defend
the planet-killer. Furthermore, if the planet-killer is in dire straits,
we will do what we can to aid in her destruction. Her existence poses
too much of a threat. Furthermore, Commander," he went on before Riker
could get a word out, "since I am the ranking officer present, you will
follow my wishes as per Starfleet regulations. Is that clear,
Commander?"

"Your wishes are very clear, Captain. But you're

forgetting one thing. Captain Picard and the away team are aboard the
planet-killer."

There was a chilling pause. "I've forgotten nothing, Commander Riker.
And Captain Picard was aboard the Borg ship, as Commander Shelby has
told us on so many occasions, when you gave the order to fire on it.
Picard's continued presence among us has more to.do with Borg technology
than with your concern about the ultimate safety of your captain. So
don't get on your high horse with me, Mr. Riker. You've established that
you know how to make the tough decisions. Now be so kind as to allow me
the same courtesy. The bottom line is this: Starfleet's orders are
clear. They want the planet-killer stopped. The Borg are going to stop
them. Therefore, we will permit the Borg to do that. For all we know, it
may be the first step to making peace with the Borg."

"Your interpretation of Starfleet orders--"

"Is the only one that counts, Commander," and he stressed the last word
to underscore the rank difference. "Chekov out."

And with that final admonishment, the Chekov blinked out.

"Keep trying to raise Captain Picard," said Riker tonelessly. He stood
and walked towards the viewscreen, as if he wished he could reach
through and lift the away team right out of the planet-killer and
deposit them safely aboard the Enterprise bridge.

And when he spoke next, it was with the tone of someone who was speaking
to himself--but, for benefit of the crew. "I refuse to interpret orders
in such a way," he said succinctly, "that it means standing aside and
letting the most monstrous beings we've ever encountered destroy both
our captain and the only weapon that has a hope of defeating them. And
if that's what Starfleet does intend, they can come and

explain it in person. In the meantime, that interpretation can go hang."
And you will too, Riker, unless you're damned lucky, he added silently.

He turned to Worf. "Go to red alert. All hands to battle stations." He
paused, as if for dramatic impact. "Tell the crew to prepare for one
hell of a fight."

Chapter Twenty

"DELCARA?" WHISPERED PICARD.

He placed his hands against the crystalline encase-merit and felt, even
more strongly than before, the warmth pulsing through. Inside the
crystal she was naked, every line of her body as he remembered it from
that night when he caught glimpses of it through her diaphanous
clothing. Her eyes were closed, her hair long and cascading down about
her shoulders.

Deanna Troi gasped once, her hands flying to her mouth, as if she wished
she could take back her initial startled reaction. Guinan stood
impassively, but it was clear from her demeanor that she was affected
nonetheless. Only Data, of course, was utterly nonplussed. Instead, he
held his tricotder before him and calmly studied the readings. "She is
alive," he said.

"Of course I'm alive," said Delcara with annoyance, standing next to her
body, apparently unaware of any difference between the appearances of,
ostensibly, the same woman. am the life. I am the life of this entire
ship. The pilot, with a powerful enough mind to use my body and soul as
a physical channel for the wants and desires of the Many. Without such a

pilot, they lack focus. They lack control. They're undisciplined, like a
huge class of rowdy children. Don't you see?" she said in frustration.
"They are the dead! The dead need the. living if they are going to
function! The dead cannot haunt themselves. They need--"

"A victim," said Guinan quietly. "You're a victim.

A means to an end."

"A glorious end."

"Come out of there, Delcara," said Picard. "Come join us. It's not too
late." He ran his hands across the crystal. "This barrier separates us.
It needn't."

"Ohhh, Picard," sighed Delcara. "Dear Picard. Exquisite Picard. I am so
tired of trying to explain the realities of the Spirit when you are so
obsessed with the unrealities of the flesh."

"I refuse to accept this!" thundered Picard. "I cannot simply turn my
back on you and allow you to... exist... in this condition. Frozen
between life and death, between heaven and hell. Spending an eternity in
purgatory for sins that you did not commit."

"Oh, how you do overdramatize, sweet Picard," said Delcara. She smiled
ruefully, and passed a ghostly hand across his face. "I have thought of
you for so long. Wondered what would become of you. Wondered how far
your drive would take you. It is truly a pity. Had we met in another
life..."

"Perhaps we have," Picard said softly. "Perhaps ours are two old souls,
striving to reach one another. This barrier is all that stands between
us."

"The Borg stand between us. The unbalanced scales stand between us."

"No!" said Picard, and he drew himself up in righteous indignation. "No.
Only this barrier. For this barrier is a creation of your own need for
revenge. You

can grow beyond that need, put aside your hatred and fury. Come out from
your encasement. Return with US."

"It's not too late," whispered Guinan. "Bond sister,

not. I know you believe it to

it's,! believe what is true. I believe what I know. This

is useless. Return to your ship. There is nothing for you here. Go." And
when the away team didn't move, the holograph shouted "Go!" and then,
even more loudly, "Go/"

And the holograph vanished.

And all around them the crystal walls came to life: Faces, hundreds,
perhaps thousands, all contorted, all infuriated, all consumed by a
passion that surpassed death, and they screamed in voices that echoed
and re-echoed, through the corridors and into their minds, "Go! Leave
us! You are not wanted here! We are the Many! You are the few!"

"No!" shouted Picard, his hands to his ears. Beside him, Deanna Troi was
on the floor, her mind on the verge of shorting out from the empathic
overload. Guinan staggered, putting up her hands in a defensive
maneuver, and Data was at Troi's side, trying to aid

but not knowing how. "Stop it!" Picard shouted again. "You cannot have
her! You have no claim to her!"

"I have claim!" shouted Picard. "I have as much claim as you! You have
no idea what she has meant to me! I have held, in my mind's eye, the
image of her throughout my career!" He could barely hear himself over
the deafening roar of voices that were trying to shout him down. "Ever
since that night at the Academy, I have seen her as a personification of
what I was striving for! The living embodiment, whether imagined or not,
of my greatest goal! She was the galaxy to me! She was the mystery of
discovery, the calling of

the unknown! I have truly loved no other woman in my life, because the
stars are my lover, and she is the stars! By day I gaze out at the stars
and see her image beckoning to me, calling me further and further. By
night I lie in my cabin and dream of her. She is in my thoughts and my
soul! There never has been anyone before or since who has captured all
that I am. She is the stars! She is my life! Give her to me, damn you
all! Damn you, you pathetic shades who know only hate and nothing of
wonder. Give her to me/"

Picard allowed himself a brief flash of pride. He'd come a long way in
the field of romantic extemporizing. He'd also come to realize that
Delcara's madness was rejecting all manners of entrearies based on the
rational and the sane. So instead he had turned to dramatic, ardent
claptrap in hopes of breaking through the barriers and reaching her. It
was overemotional, overwrought, and somewhat overdone. And it also had
just enough of the truth in it to add genuine pain. Perhaps even more
truth than he wanted to admit.

The Many screamed and howled in frustration, their anger and bodiless
fury pounding against the structure that gave them both life and eternal
damnation, and Picard would not back down, would not allow the
hysterical wailing of the Many to wear him out.

And the image of Delcara stepped forward from the body that was
imprisoned. The ugliness had fallen away from her, the physical
manifestations of the usurping of the beauty within her erased as if by
magic. The holographic representation was sobbing openly, and she
reached towards Picard, her hand passing through him once more. Picard's
grip flexed convulsively on the crystal entombment...

And within the crystal, the eyes of Delcara began to open.

And the planet-killer shook, as if with fury. Picard lost his grip and
stumbled forward, cracking his forehead against the edge of the crystal
column. He hit the floor and rolled onto his back, just in time to see
the rest of the away team shimmering, their bodies enveloped in an odd
effect that looked similar to the transporter, but different.

"What's happening!" he shouted.

The away team was gone.

Inside the crystal, Delcara's eyes had shut once more, and the holograph
turned towards Picard, her face shining with excitement. "I have my own
transporter capabilities, sweet Picard. You spoke such pretty words of
love to me that I knew we must remain together. So I sent the other
people back to the ship. Even Guinan, whom I will always love."

"But we can't stay here, Delcara, this vessel--"

"Is under attack, dear Picard." She smiled. "The Borg are here."

In her quarters, Reannon Bonaventure gazed out into space and saw the
three huge Borg cubes dropping out of warp space and firing upon the
massive vessel that hung nearby. Her breath caught, her eyes widened...

And she screamed a word.

"Borg!" she howled, a word torn from her innermost self.

The security guard who had been standing outside her door heard her and
his eyes widened in shock. She hadn't uttered any comprehensible words
until that moment. That he knew. He immediately pulled out his phaser,
ready for trouble, because from her alert he fully expected that there
would be a Borg soldier

within, perhaps trying to capture her and return her to the Borg.

He darted into the quarters, and all he saw was the woman, standing in
the middle of the room, and she was screaming over and over again,
"Borg! Borg! Borg!'; flapping her arms as if trying to take flight. But
there was no sign of any attacker within, and the guard paused in his
initial inclination to call for a security back-up.

"It's all right!" he started to say, but that was all he managed to get
out before things weren't all right. Reannon moved with incredible speed
and swung with all the strength in her mechanical arm. It connected with
the security guard's face, breaking his jaw, and rendering him
unconscious before he even hit the floor. Reannon grabbed the dropped
phaser and bolted out the door.

She ran out into the corridor, looking around in confusion, and then ran
to her right.

She darted down the corridor and saw a familiar symbol near one door.
She knew she'd been in the room before, although she couldn't remember
why or what it was. Everything was a fog to her with a few beams of
light piercing through, and those lights were pulsing and black and
evil. Living horror was eating away at her brain.

She ran in and stopped in her tracks.

She was in sickbay. The handful of Penzatti still recovering from their
wounds (the rest having been moved to private quarters) looked up at her
sullenly.

For a moment she didn't connect anything, and then her mind painted a
picture for her. It was a picture of soulless, mechanized creatures that
were living prisons, committing unspeakable and heartless acts
throughout a cosmos. And she had been one of them, and she had murdered,
and destroyed, and she

had not cared, and she wanted that life back, a life that horrified her
and soiled her, that was like a stench to her--

She staggered back and crashed into an equipment stand, knocking medical
tools off it. She grabbed up one or two and stared at them, the part of
her brain that was functioning, instantly intuiting the purpose of them.

From behind her she heard the confused shouting of voices--medical
personnel. She scrambled to her feet and ran out the door just as Dr.
Crusher and Dr. Selar entered from the opposite side of the sickbay.
They didn't understand what had set the patients off, but a number of
them were now shouting and crying out about the Borg. Things had
happened so quickly that none of the reedtechs had seen anything.

"They must sense somehow that we're encountering the Borg," said
Crusher, who knew that the ships had just appeared mere kilometers away.
Riker had alerted her, and she was preparing sickbay in dread
anticipation of heavy casualties.

"That is a logical assumption," agreed Selar. And it was logical. It was
also incorrect.

On the bridge all eyes were riveted to what was happening on the screen.

The three Borg ships, an awesome and terrifying sight in and of
themselves, had opened fire on the planet-killer. They were not using
half-measures. Instead all three were letting fly with everything they
had. The powerful beam that had once carved up the Enterprise like a
roast was now trebly powered as it ripped into the hull of Delcara's
ship.

And then three shapes began to take form on the Enterprise bridge.

Worf immediately had his phaser out, and Riker was on his feet, both of
them anticipating that Borg soldiers were about to appear. Then the
light flashed away, and when it faded, everyone on the bridge was amazed
to see Guinan, Troi, and Data standing there. Just as conspicuous as
their presence was the captain's absence.

"Report, Mr. Data," said Riker, wasting no time at all.

Data looked around, not in surprise so much as interest in the
surprising turn of events. "We discovered the living body of Delcara,
sir, and were assaulted by the remains of the beings that created the
planet-killer. Captain Picard stated an eloquent case for Delcara's
release--"

"Which appears to have backfired," said Guinan. She shook her head. "If
it's all the same to you, Commander, I'll return to Ten-Forward. I can't
do anything here." Her gaze drifted to the image on the screen, saw the
pounding that the planet-killer was sustaining. She turned to Riker and
said quietly, "I assume that you can." With that, she departed the
bridge.

Picard stumbled and went to one knee as the planet-killer shook around
him.

"You see, lovely Picard," called Delcara. "You see the power of those
you would have me turn my back on?"

"I ask you to turn your back on hatred!" said Picard.

"They don't understand such things. They only understand this."

The planet-killer fired back on the Borg ships. The anti-proton beam
lashed out and force shields appeared around the cubes, absorbing the
impact. They glowed from the intense battering they were forced to
endure, but they also gave as much as they got, and cracks in the
neutronium hull of the destroyer began to appear.

And the Many screamed in fury and fear, "You are not focussed! You are
not concentrating! What is wrong with you!"

Picard covered his ears, but it was purely a reflex action. The true
volume was inside .his head, and he knew it wasn't even directed at
him:The true target of the anger was Delcara, and he wondered how she
could possibly withstand it.

"Nothing is wrong with me!" shouted Delcara.

"He has corrupted you! The Picard has corrupted you!"

"He has not corrupted me! He cannot! If anything, he has given me the
purity of love!" she said desperately.

"This ha$ nothing to do with love/This has to do with our vendetta,
yours and ours/Now, attack them!Attack them with the anger and vengeance
that drive you, as it drives us. Attack, or we are surely lost!"

Delcara turned away from Picard and spread her arms wide. Within the
crystal, her body seemed to tremble for a moment.

"Damn you!" she cried out. "And damn me!"

"The Borg are ignoring us, sir," said Data, already seated back at ops
and functioning as if nothing extraordinary had occurred to him. Troi,
for her part, could barely speak, still overwhelmed by the mental
assault they'd been subjected to on Delcara's vessel. Riker had wanted
to send her to sickbay, but she had insisted on remaining at her post,
even though she

appeared pale and shaken. "They are concentrating

their full power on the planet-killer."

"Damage sustained by the Borg?"

"Their power level has dropped an average of; twenty-one-point-three
percent. The planet-killer is draining their force shields. They are,
however, inflicting considerable damage upon the planet-killer as well.
If the Borg are able to re-energize their power nodes, as they have in
the past with great speed, and continue their assault--"

"Then the captain dies, along with a weapon that the Borg actually fear
and respect. Mr. Worf, target the closest Borg vessel." He sat down in
the command chair, adjusting his jacket the way that Picard did, fully
aware of what Korsmo's reaction would be when the Enterprise opened
fire. "Full photon torpedo spread and phasers. Everything we've got
including the kitchen sink. Fire."

No less aware was Worf, but he could not keep the satisfaction from his
voice--the satisfaction of a Klingon who knew that battle was joined.
"Firing," he said.

The Enterprise cut loose and their offensive array peppered one of the
Borg ships, which was already suffering under the strain of resisting
Delcara's blasts. But the Borg ship didn't dare turn its attention away
from the planet-killer, for that's where the uni-mind of the Borg was
concentrating its assault. So the Enterprise continued to barrage the
ship, draining its power levels faster and faster.

"Commander, incoming hail from the Chekov," announced Worf.

"Tell him we're washing our hair," shot back Riker. "Continue fire, Mr.
Worf," and he looked at the planet-killing vessel that was assailing the
Borg ships

with blast after blast. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

On the Chekov, Captain Korsmo was on his feet, his fists clenched in
white-knuckled fury. "What in hell do they think they're playing at!"

"Power levels of the Borg ship currently under assault by the Enterprise
are down fifty-nine percent," said Hobson. "Other Borg ships are
sustaining damage. All are still attacking the planet-killer."

"That's what they're supposed to be doing! Get me Riker, now!"

"No response, sir."

"Damn it! Lock phasers on them!"

"On whom, sir?" asked the tactical officer. "Enterprise!"

Shelby turned in her chair and looked at Korsmo in astonishment. "On the
Enterprise?" There was no disguising the shock in her voice.

"I gave them a direct order, and they're disobeying. Mr. Davenport," he
snapped at the tactical .ottcer, "I said lock phasers! Half-strength,
enough to shake them up and let them know we mean business!" The veins
were distending on his throat.

"Phasers locked," said Davenport with deathly calm.

"Fire!" snapped Korsmo.

"Delcara, you cannot keep me here against my will," Picard was shouting
over the din. "You must return me to my ship!"

"This' was what you wanted! To be with me!" she said. "That what you
told me!"

"Not to be here! Imprisoned on this engine of destruction!"

"I can't leave them! And you mustn't stop me! The

battle is joined, and I'm your ship's only hope of salvation!"

He knew she was right. Even with the emergency procedures and strategies
they'd developed, the odds were still long against the Enterprise
remaining intact through a battle with even one Borg ship, much less
three.

"Return me to my ship, then," he said again. "That is my place."

"Your place is with me. You said so!"

"Delcara! Concentrate on the here and now!" shouted the Many.

"Shut up!" howled Delcara, "Shut up!"

The ship trembled around them even more forcefully than before, and the
scream of the Many was' truly frightening, for they howled with
something they had never expressed before. That no one thought they
could express.

Pain.

"My God," said Riker. "Look at that. It's... bleeding."

And so it was, or so it appeared. On the surface of the planet-killer,
bubbling out of a crack in its hull, was some sort of clear, thick ooze,
a mile in length.

"Some sort of energy conversion plasma," said Data, quickly scanning the
sensors. "Utilized for conducting energy throughout the body of the
planet-killer."

"All weapons, on the Borg. Fire!"

"Sir!" said Worf. "The Chekov has opened fire on US!"

The phasers of the Chekov sped across the distance separating them from
the Enterprise in the blink of an eye.

Davenport looked up from his station. And his voice was, once again,
utterly neutral, as he said, "Missed."

Korsmo turned and faced him. "Missed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fire again!"

The phasers lanced out.

"Oops. Missed again," said Davenport.

There was dead silence on the bridge. Korsmo saw the way that Davenport
was looking at him, and turned to see Shelby regarding him in the exact
same way.

And for a moment--just the briefest of moments--he saw himself the way
they were seeing him. He saw all the rationalizations he'd been using,
and all the reasons he'd followed that seemed like good reasons at the
time. And he saw what might be behind those reasons. All of that,
reflected in the eyes of Shelby and the rest of his bridge crew.

He knew he wasn't a bad man, or a bad officer. He knew that, in his
heart. But he didn't see any of that in the way his people were looking
at him. And after a long, soul-searching stare, he wasn't seeing it in
himself either.

When he spoke again, it was with quiet irony. "Having trouble with
targeting today, Mr. Davenport?"

"So it would seem, sir."

"Think you could target a Borg ship any better?" A slow smile spread
across Davenport's face, a smile matched by Shelby and the others. "It's
a bigger target, sir."

"All right. The ship at"--and he glanced down brieflym"seventy Mark
eighteen. As I recall, Commander Shelby, phaser beams at the higher end
of the band are more effective."

"Yes sir," said Shelby proudly.

"I may forget myself on occasion, but I never forget facts," said Korsmo
stiffly. "Mr. Davenport--blast them to hell when ready."

"Commander Riker," announced Worf, "the

Chekov has begun firing on a Borg vessel."

Sure enough, there was the Chekov, darting towards

another of the three Borg cubes, letting fly with

everything it had.

At that moment the Enterprise shuddered.

"The Borg ship we were attacking has locked onto

us with tractor beams," announced Worf. "Shields are

failing."

Geordi had come up from engineering to the engineering station on the bridge,
enabling him to react faster to what was happening. "Modulating mutations,"
he said.

"Shield failure continuing," said Worf. "Ninety

.. eighty..." It was a countdown toward death.

"They have ceased firing on the planet-killer. Full

concentration on us. "Shields at sixty... fifty..."

"Fire phasers, varying the harmonics. They've adjusted for the
upper end. Try the lower."

"Phasers firing," announced Worf.

"Minor power disruption on the Borg," said

Geordi. "They're still smarting from the planet-

killer. Their power systems are down sixty-seven

percent."

"Fire antimatter spread."

The Enterprise was giving it everything they had.

"Shields holding at fifty... dropping to forty,"

announced Worf.

"Nutonic variation failing," said Geordi, like a death knell. "Seconds
at best."

And the Borg ship trembled as the anti-proton

beam of the planet'killer struck to the core. Sparks

and power surges leaped throughout the ship.

"Tractor beam gone!" said Geordi.

"Full reverse!" shouted Riker. "Work on restoring shields! Give us some
distance!"

The Enterprise hurried away, and seconds later one more stab from the
planet-killer blasted the Borg ship to pieces. It created a massive
cloud of dust and rubble, and through it sailed the doomsday machine,
triumphant, wounded, bleeding, and with the other two ships pursuing it.

"Sometimes," Riker said, "seconds are all we need."

They struck again and again at the gaping wound that had been carved in
the hull of the destroyer. The Chekov concentrated fire on one of the
remaining Borg ships, and seconds later, shields restored, the
Enterprise dove towards the other unoccupied Borg ship.

The plan was unspoken and simple: attack the Borg ships and give the
planet-killer enough leeway to destroy them with its superior firepower.

Riker prayed it would work. And he kept on praying right up until the
moment when the planet-killer ceased firing.

"We hurt." cried the Many. "We hurt."

"I'm sorry!" Delcara screamed. "I'm sorry, my children. I should never
have listened to him! He distracted me! I let myself think of things
other than our purpose!"

"No, Delcara, listen--" said Picard, forgetting himself and reaching
out. His hand passed right through her and rested against the crystal.
"Listen to

And then he heard it. The sound that was like an explosive, controlled
popping. The sound he would never forget.

A Borg had appeared within the heart of Delcara's vessel.

Then he heard more. And more. God, how many? At least half a dozen.

They were coming towards him from just ar)und the corner, and Picard's
phaser was in his hand. A chill struck to his spine. They wanted to
destroy Delcara. They might even want to recapture him. The thought of
returning to that living nightmare called Locutus was almost more than
he could stand, and when the first of the Borg appeared, he opened fire
using the maximum stun setting.

The Borg staggered and fell over, and immediately a second was behind
him. Picard squeezed off another shot and then quickly altered the
frequency on the E-M band and fired again. A second Borg went down, and
moments later, a third.

The holographic image of Delcara had vanished, as if afraid to oppose
her greatest nightmare face to face. Picard charged forward, rolling
forward and firing. A fourth Borg went down, but suddenly a fifth
stepped into view. It targeted Picard with its gleaming mechanical eye
and raised its huge metal arm. Electricity leaped out from the end, and
Picard lunged to one side, barely out of the way.

The Borg stalked forward, the image of Picard now locked firmly into its
mind. It stalked forward, firing again when it saw Picard dodge between
two of the crystal slabs. From hiding, Picard fired again, and this time
the protective shield of the Borg adapted to his phaser fire. The
soldier was now ready for any phaser attack.

Picard flattened his back against one of the crystal Slabs, his heart
pounding so furiously he was certain the Borg could hear it.

The Borg stalked slowly forward, the uni-mind of the BOrg exercising
caution. Its tracking eye swept across the array of crystal slabs in
front of it, trying to find the one called Picard. The image of the
human was firmly in place...

And suddenly Picard was everywhere.

Every single slab had an image of Picard poised in it, ready to attack.
Each one was distorted, furious, howling a challenge.

The Borg turned left and right, its arm moving to one side and then the
other. Nothing but Picards.

It fired a burst of electricity to the right, electricity harmlessly
ricocheting off a crystal slab, and Picard charged in from the left. But
at the last second the Borg saw him coming and swung its mechanical arm.
Picard caught a jolt of electricity that numbed his right arm, and he
dropped the phaser. He fell to one knee and rolled to the side as the
Borg came towards him, and then he lunged forward, slamming into the
soldier in the midsection. The Borg had prepared for phaser attack but,
insanely, not a physical attack. The Borg did not anticipate, only
adapted. It was the single advantage the captain had. Picard and the
Borg went down in a tangle of arms and legs and prosthor-its.

The strength of the Borg was overwhelming as it tried to bring the end
of its mechanical arm up towards Picard's face. It drew closer and
closer, Picard shoving with his one functioning hand as hard as he could
against the arm. It was a losing battle, one in which Picard had only
seconds left.

And suddenly he released his grip on the mechanical arm altogether and
slid forward the length of the

Borg soldier. Picard's hand lashed out and gripped the Borg's shoulder.
The Borg brought his artificial arm directly into Picard's face and was
about to blast enough electricity into the captain to render him
unconscious and, possibly, dead.

Picard ripped away the circuitry on the Borg's shoulder, the circuitry
that kept the soldier in communication with the Borg uni-mind. Like a
marionette severed from its strings, the Borg's head lolled back
instantly. Picard rolled to one side as the soldier immediately turned
into a thin line of ash and vanished.

He felt a flash of triumph for perhaps a second. And that was when he
heard the hideous whine of a phaser at a high setting--his phaser.

He scrambled to his feet and almost screamed.

It was a Ferengi, one that had been transformed into a Borg. And he was
firing on the crystal chamber that held Delcara, using the phaser that
Picard had dropped.

From the sound and intensity of the beam, Picard could tell that it was
on setting 16. It was a setting so powerful that it could destroy a
volume of metamorphic rock some 100 meters across. It was drilling
full-bore into the crystal encasemerit, and whatever that casing was
made out of, it wasn't going to be strong enough. That it was resisting
as much as it was was nothing short of miraculous.

And Picard's voice and the voice of the Many were raised together, and
they howled, "Stop!"

In front of the crystal, the holograph of Delcara sprang into existence,
the phaser beam naturally passing right through her. She was holding up
her hands, as if trying to ward off the pounding of the blast.

The Ferengi/Borg did not stop. In seconds the

crystal blackened and cracked, and the body of Delcara began to fry, the
pure skin shrivelling, the beautiful hair burning like straw. The
holograph screamed, a scream that would follow Picard to the end of his
days, and vanished. Picard was already in motion, charging towards the
Ferengi, and the alien suddenly ceased fire, spun, and aimed the phaser
straight at Picard. Whereas the crystal had momentarily resisted a
setting-16 phaser blast, albeit it not especially well, Picard wouldn't
survive for a second. There was no way he could dodge it. "No deals,"
said Vastator of Borg, and pushed the firing buttons.

Chapter Twenty-one

"THe ceased firing," announced Worf. "However, it is still moving. The
Borg are now concentrating fire on it. Their power levels are beginning
to increase."

"Mr. La Forge, get ready with that warp bubble. Mr. Chafin, bring us
right down their throats at full impulse. Mr. Data, monitor engineering
and computer release. The timing on this one is going to have to be
computer-perfect, and I want you handling it."

"Yes sir," said Data. "Emergency antimatter generator standing by, sir,"
said Geordi. "Approaching Borg vessel, sir," said Chafin. The monstrous
vessel loomed larger and larger. In the distance there were flares of
the Chekov firing upon the other one. "We will be in range in fifteen
seconds," said Data. "Fourteen ... thirteen..."

"Channeling emergency antimatter generator through main warp nacelles,"
said Geordi. "Preparing for release."

We're going to be looking right down their throats, thought Riker
grimly.

Data was counting down. Riker could practically feel the surging of the
engines, holding the explosive force of the warp field in place.

With the Enterprise not firing, the Borg ship was paying them no mind at
all. Instead it was continuing. to pound the planet-killer.

"Three... two... one..." Data said. "Engaging warp engines!" La Forge
called out.

And at that precise moment Reannon Bonaventure burst onto the bridge.

The warp engines of the Enterprise released the altered warp field and
blasted forward. The warp bubble immediately integrated itself into the
field surrounding the Borg vessel and contracted. Space twisted and
snarled around it.

On the bridge everything happened with incredible speed. Worf saw
Reannon and his eyes widened. Without hesitation he started towards her,
and as smoothly as if this sort of thing happened every day, another
officer leaped in to man tactical.

Geordi turned and spotted Reannon, and he froze, in shock.

Reannon swung her phaser up and Worf dropped to the ground to avoid the
blast.

All of that happened in one second.

In the next, Reannon leaped forward toward Ops, where Data was preparing
to blast the ship forward on impulse power, away from the rapidly
spreading warp bubble. She screamed one word, the only word anyone would
ever hear her say: "Borg/'; and swung her prosthetic arm with all its
strength.

She smashed in the side of Data's head.

The force of the blow was so powerful that it hurled Data from his chair
and sent him flying into Chafin at

conn. The crewman went down beneath the insensate form of the android
officer.

Now there was no one at helm or navigation; the Enterprise had exactly
one second to cut itself loose.

On the bridge of the Chekov, Hobson shouted an alarm as the ship
abruptly shook. "Captain, some sort of tractor beamJ We're losing
shields.

"Shift the nutonals," ordered Shelby.

Technically, he should have given the order, but Korsmo knew that
Shelby,,was the,,expert and, furthermore, that she was right. Do it! he
snapped.

Ineffectual said Davenport at tactical, unaware that the Borg ship they
were facing had already learned to adapt because of the Enterprise
pulling the same trick seconds ago on another Borg vessel.

"Shields at eighty... sixty..."

"Fire phasers!"

"Shields gone."

The Chekov struck back at the Borg ship, which had momentarily diverted
its attention from the moving planet-killer to dispense with the
annoying gnat of a starship.

"Their power levels are at fifty percent but climbing," called out
Davenport.

"Torpedoes and antimatter spread. Fire."

The Chekov attacked with everything, and the Borg ship absorbed it.

"Tractor beam gone," said Davenport.

The Borg laser beam lashed out, ripping across the unprotected hull of
the Chekov. Bulkheads blew inward and crewmen by the dozens were
immediately sucked out into the cold depths of space.

"Hull breach!" shouted Hobson. "Warp drive out! Structural damage on
deck 36, sections 19 through 24."

The Borg struck again. This time the beam gutted engineering, moved up
and sliced across the left nacelle. There was a massive explosion as the
nacelle blew clean off. Hulls ruptured throughout the Chekov, and
bulkheads on the lower decks collapsed.

Power went out all over the ship, the vessel barely limping forward. It
was moving at a mere fraction of impulse power, and even that would be
used up in minutes.

On the bridge everything was in smoking ruins. Everything had happened
so quickly that they had barely had any time to react. It was as if the
Borg had been humoring them all that time, making them think that they
made a difference.

Davenport lay slumped over the tactical station, a huge gash in his
forehead. Shelby was coughing, trying to pull herself up, her faced
covered with grime. She spit out a tooth and licked the blood away from
her mouth. "Captain," she whispered.

Korsmo was in his command chair, shaking his head. Blood was covering
the right side of his face, and yet, in the semi-darkness of the
battered and nearly dead bridge, there actually seemed to be grim
amusement in his eyes. Slowly he turned towards Shelby and, through
cracked and bleeding lips, said,

"Picard beat these bastards?"

She nodded.

He shook his head. "Son of a gun." He didn't ask for a damage report. He
knew what the damage was. And he saw only one response to it.
"Shelby--you think a starship exploding against their hull would help
stop them?"

She shrugged fatalistically. In a way, she still couldn't believe she'd
survived her first encounter with the Borg. She inwardly believed she'd
been living

on borrowed time since then. Well... this was payback. "It couldn't hurt
to try, Captain."

"Mr..Hobson appears unconscious. Take helm." She did so, pushing
Hobson's unmoving body aside. She wasn't especially gentle about it, but
then, in a minute or so it wouldn't really matter.

The screen didn't have full power to it. The image was flickering, but
they could still make out the cube of the Borg ship.

"The Borg ship is still functioning at less than full power," said
Shelby, hoping she could trust the instrument readings. "It expended
some energy firing at us. It's recharging."

"Then we'll charge first. Bridge to engineering. Come in, Parke."

There was a pause and then a voice that sounded, on the verge of panic.
"Bridge, Chief Engineer Parke is dead. They're... they're all dead.
They're... this . this is Ensign Toomey, sir."

Korsmo nodded approvingly. "Pull yourself together, son. That's good.
Ensign, I just saw our left nacelle go floating by, so I assume warp
isn't very likely. Impulse?"

"I can give you half impulse sir, but not for very long."

"It'll be long enough. Get ready, son." He turned to Shelby. "Full
ahead," he said quietly, aware that he was giving his last order.

"Captain," said Shelby, making sure her voice didn't catch in her
throat. "It's been an honor serving with you."

"Yes." Korsmo smiled. "It has, hasn't it."

She shook her head and punched in the course. The ship staggered forward
on a collision course with the Borg, on its final run.

And a massive object cut in front of them. "What the hell?/" demanded
Korsmo.

It dropped down, almost from nowhere, gleaming white against the scarred
surface of the Borg cube and blocking the suicidal path of the Chekov.

Korsmo had a split-instant to make a decision. He made it. "Hard aport!"
he shouted, and instantly Shelby cut hard to the left. The newcomer
banked hard and neatly dove out of the Chekov's way. It angled down and
away from the Borg ship and suddenly a tractor beam had grabbed the
Chekov firmly, taking it in tow.

It was a starship, and even through the battered viewscreen, Shelby was
able to make out the registry number on the underside of the saucer
section: NCC-2544. "It's the Repulse/" she said.

"The Repulse?" Korsmo couldn't believe it. "What's she doing here?"

"Saving our butts, Captain."

The Repulse swung around, releasing its tractor beam hold on the Chekov,
and headed back towards the Borg ship.

"Open a channel. Repulse/That you, Taggert?"

"You've looked better, Korsmo," came the voice of Captain Ariel Taggert.
"Sit back and watch the fireworks. Our engineer Argyle has got a
knockout punch that Commander Shelby should find familiar. And our
sensor! say that the Borg ship won't have enough power to repel it for
another ten seconds. Fortunately, we're ready in three... two... one...
fire!"

Power churned around the deflector dish of the Repulse, and an instant
later a massive charge of energy lashed out. It struck the Borg ship
dead on, and huge pieces of the craft were blown away, faster than the
monster could possibly repair.

Shelby's eyes widened. "That was Geordi's idea!

Powering an energy blast via the warp engines and pushing it through the
main deflector dish! But they were prepared for it when we tried it!"

"They may be prepared this time," said Korsmo, "but they weren't ready.
They may not have been expecting it from another ship, and they didn't
have the power to counter it anyway."

The structure of the Borg ship actually seemed to crumble inward, power
cells unable to cope with the sudden and total loss. The entire ship was
held together by the collective strength of the Borg, and with no
strength, there was no ship. As the Repulse kept up with the blast,
second after long second, the Borg ship tried to rally, but it had no
defenses to muster.

Shelby and Korsmo watched in helpless amazement as the Repulse, using
the strategy that didn't work for the Enterprise, blasted the Borg ship.
The vessel lost all cohesion and simply came apart, huge fragments
tumbling away.

"Son of a bitch," said Shelby. "It would have worked. Riker will be
pleased to know."

Riker leaped forward, under the swinging arm of Reannon, and hit the
controls. The Enterprise surged gamely ahead, the impulse engines
roaring.

The Borg ship's subspace field seemed to be twisting like a thing alive
as the Enterprise ripped away. Geordi, fighting down his shock over the
sudden and violent appearance of Reannon, quickly rerouted the
navigation systems through the engineer station and pushed the impulse
engines as far as they would go. He watched the monitors, sure that any
second the overworked engines were going to blow the saucer section
clear off the secondary hull.

It seemed as if the Enterprise actually stretched,

space warping back on itself around it, and then the mighty starship
leaped free. Ahead of them, space was collapsing into a dazzling,
spiralling whirlpool of light. The Enterprise vaulted towards it, the
thick legs of impulse power picking up speed with every step.

Reannon swung her metal arm at Riker and he blocked it, slamming a fist
forward into her stomach. She doubled over and, with a quick turn, Riker
hu/'led her towards Worf. The Klingon snagged her and held her immobile
with a hammerlock.

"Get her the hell out of here!" shouted Riker. As Worf obeyed, shoving
her towards the turbolift and following her in, Riker continued,
"Geordi, what's happening! Are we clear? You said we had only seconds!"

The light around them was blinding, blinding to everyone except Geordi,
whose VISOR immediately made the brilliance bearable. And then the
Enterprise ripped through the undulating fabric of space and out into
the blessed peace of normaIcy.

"Clear! We're clear!" Geordi crowed. "We made it!" Riker noticed, on the
screen, that another starship had shown up, and it was at that moment
pounding the other Borg vessel with energy blasts that seemed
devastating. It looked like the Repulse. He also noted, in a flash, the
dire condition of the crippled Chekov. But first things had to be first.
"Where's the Borg ship we dropped the warp bubble on? Did it work?"

The monitor switched to a rear view and there, rippling behind them, was
a huge area of space that looked like a lake someone had just dropped a
stone in.

It continued to ripple.

Then it flattened, seeming almost to turn sideways, as if something was
struggling to get out.

"I don't believe it," said Riker. "I do not believe it."

The space where the Borg ship had been had now coalesced into a visible
square, as if someone had simply cut a section out of the fabric of
space with shears and walked away with it. The square took on form and
substance, and then twisted on its axis and pushed out into a cube.

The Borg ship was back, and directly behind them. "I' think we made them
mad," said Geordi.

Chapter Twenty-two

VASTATOR OF THE BORG pushed the button of the large

phaser that was pointed point-blank at Picard. Nothing happened.

Picard, for his part, was already moving. He knew what the Ferengi did
not: that after a type II personal phaser released a sustained blast at
setting 16, there was an automatic cool-down period. Otherwise the
weapon would overheat and, sooner or later, explode. That cool-down was
precisely six seconds.

That was enough for Picard to cover the distance and ram his shoulder
into Vastator. The Borg stumbled back, holding on to the phaser as
tightly as he could, but Picard grabbed at it and managed to get a solid
grip. They struggled, shoving against each other, and then Picard
stumbled back, the phaser slipping out of his hands.

He dodged behind one of the upright crystal slabs, flattening against
it.

"Picard," snarled the voice of the Ferengi. It was absolutely uncanny.
There was a trace of the persistent obnoxious overtones of a Ferengi,
but it was

combined with the icy machine-like precision of the Borg. "Picard... let
us deal."

The thing was stalking him. "What is there to deal about?" said Picard.

He heard the sudden whine of the phaser and the crystal that he was
hiding behind started to superheat. He lunged for cover once more as the
crystal exploded. He toyed with the idea of charging again but rejected
it. The Borg was too far away, and might even be hiding behind another
crystal. Six seconds was too short a time in which to charge a target
when you didn't know exactly where it was.

The crystal slabs were maze-like, providing rudimentary shelter. He saw
his face reflected in it. His face was screaming, as if the Many were
personifying his personal agony. The agony of helplessness. Meters away,
Delcara was dying. He knew that. And kilometers away, his ship was in
the midst of battle, and he wasn't there.

What madness had possessed him? He had told himself that coming to the
ship, coming directly to Delcara, he could persuade her to abandon the
planet-killer. Once that was done, he had been certain the power could
then be harnessed for the Federation. The ultimate defense against the
Borg.

That was what he had believed. But was it the truth? Or had he been
chasing a crazed dream of decades ago, a dream that was conjured up by a
young, inexperienced teenager named Jean-Luc, and insanely pursued by an
adult madman named Picard.

"Picard!" came the voice of the Ferengi Borg again, and again the phaser
lashed out. This time, though, it was at the crystal slab to his right.
The crystal sizzled and crumbled beneath the onslaught, and Picard put
his arm up to shield his face as pieces flew right past him.

So the Ferengi didn't know exactly where he was. That was comforting.
And the crystal blocks were so superdense that they didn't simply
vanish, but instead put up a resistance and even maintained molecular
cohesion in defeat.

He cast a glance in Delcara's direction, but his view was cut off. That
was fortunate. He knew it would have been rather disheartening if he
could have seen her.

Another crystal--further to his rightmblew apart, accompanied by the
whine of what had once been his phaser. The Borg was clearly starting to
become impatient. "Picard," he said again.

"What do you want!" called out Picard, and then for good measure dropped
back, scurrying crab-like to another crystal slab directly behind him.

"I am prepared to deal," said Vastator.

"Since when do the Borg deal?" demanded Picard. He didn't trust the
Ferengi when they were normal Ferengi. He sure as hell didn't trust them
when they'd been converted to walking cybernetic nightmares. "I would
have assumed deals are irrelevant."

"You are a special case..." and then he paused and added with chilling
familiarity, "Locutus."

Picard held his breath, waiting for the chill to pass through him.
"Locutus is dead!" he called.

"Locutus is inoperative. Locutus can be restored."

"You'll have to kill me first!"

Vastator fired again at the slab behind which Picard had been hiding
moments before. It blew apart especially violently and Picard thanked
whatever gods were orchestrating this insanity that he was crouching
behind a crystal slab for protection. A number of shards hurtled past
him, looking unpleasantly sharp.

"I do not understand you," said Vastator. His voice sounded farther
away, but Picard did not dare to stick

his head out and check. Curiosity could kill the captain. "Your
resistance is futile. We simply wish to make you a part of the New
order."

"The New Order!" Picard called back, wishing that he could shoot back
with a phaser instead of with words. "The most disdained words in the
English language. In the twentieth century they spoke of a New Order,
and they were still mouthing such inanities when World War III began. So
don't speak to me of the New Order of the Borg."

"Come now, Picard," said Vastator. His voice seemed to be moving once
again, and Picard couldn't tell whether it was closer or further. "Do
not forsake the Borg. Do not turn your back on us."

"Why? Because I'll end up with a knife in it?"

Another howl of the phaser, another crystal slab blown to bits.

And Picard suddenly gasped and looked down. A shard was sticking out of
his right leg, blood trickling from the wound. Pain was creeping through
the leg and he felt it starting to go numb.

He heard another phaser blast and it was striking the slab he was
behind. As he lunged for another slab to his left, it suddenly clicked
into his mind just what it was that the entire crystal set up was
reminding him off a cemetery. An array of closely set headstones, row
upon row of the dead buried deep beneath the soil. It was not a pleasant
realization.

He crawled on his belly, sucking in dust and coughing. He bit down on
his lower lip, determined not to cry out, and gripped the shard that was
sticking out of his right thigh. He pulled it out and internalized the
agony that threatened to paralyze his entire body.

The vessel around him suddenly started to shake. Something was
happening, something else. Something that seemed to suddenly provoke
Vastator further. He

fired three times, all around Picard, and the captain refused to give
in, refused to sit still, refused to surrender, although every nerve
ending was screaming for rest. His brain just wanted to shut down, tried
to convince him that nothing mattered more than just resting for a few
minutes, that's all, just a few minutes.

"We simply want to improve the quality of life for all species!"
announced Vastator, saying words that had a haunting ring of familiarity
to Picard.

"How do you intend to do that?" shouted back Picard.

"By improving the quality of the Borg, of course," said Vastator. "Then
the improved Borg will assimilate all species, and there will be an end
to war. An end to struggle."

"An end to imagination!"

"The Borg will assimilate that as well. Imagination assimilation has
already begun, utilizing that which was taken from Locutus, and now from
Vastator. The Borg continue to adapt and improve. That is why the Borg
will triumph. Picard.. I have endeavored to give you the opportunity
to show yourself willingly. Such has not been your choice. So I shall
force you." There was a brief pause and then the Borg said, "Show

yourself or I will completely destroy the female."

"Leave her alone! You've killed her already!"

"There is a spark of life. But I will take it now, unless you show
yourself!"

Vastator stood still for a long moment, contemplating the foolishness of
it all.."As you wish, Picard."

"Wait!"

And Picard stepped out into the middle of the pathway that led down to
the crystal column in which Delcara was contained. Blood was pouring
down his leg, and he had to lean with one hand against one of

the remaining crystal slabs in order to remain standing.

"Picard," said Vastator. "You see? The Borg would not have acted thus
before Locutus and, later, I were created. The Borg would not have
conceived of such self-sacrifice. You value the life of one individual
over another. Locutus and I have given the Borg new understanding.
Locutus can again."

"Locutus," Picard repeated firmly, "is dead." His face was pale and he
felt numbness spreading to his foot. He could barely move his toes.
Walking seemed to involve commanding an inert slab of meat that was his
right leg in name only.

"I mean you no harm, Picard," said Vastator. "'If I had, you would be
dead."

"�astator," said Picard slowly, "who were you before?" He took another
step forward.

Vastator was not concerned. Picard posed no threat. His leg was crippled
and, besides, Vastator was holding a phaser. "Before is irrelevant."

"It's relevant to me," said Picard.

"I was called Daimon Turane of Ferengi. Daimon Turane is irrelevant.
Ferengi are irrelevant. Only the Borg matter."

"Turane," said Picard slowly, with effort. He was now barely ten feet
from the Borg. "I remember... what it was like when I was Locutus. I
remember that there was a part of me, hidden away, that they couldn't
touch. And that part was screaming for release, screaming even for
death, rather than a continuation of that unnatural existence."

"You romanticize, Picard. Romance is irrelevant."

"It's not irrelevant, damn it!" Picard said, trying not to fall. Now he
was eight feet away, and then seven. "This shell called Vastator is not
you! It's some

representation, a re-creation. It's not really and truly you. Fight to
be let out. Fight for release. On the Enterprise, we can help you, as I
was helped."

"Depriving you of Locutus was not help," said Vastator. "It deprived you
of your place in the New Order."

"There will be no New Order! Daimon Turane would understand that.
Vastator can not. Vastator can't understand that humanity will fight and
keep on fighting. Will never stop resisting, and will always find a way.
Throughout our history there have been a series of conquerors, one after
the other, and we have survived them all."

Vastator cocked his head slightly. "You require a better class of
conqueror." He leveled the phaser at Picard's chest. "No further.
Choose. Subject yourself to my wishes and the rule of the Borg, or die.
There is no other choice."

"Fight them, Turane! Fight them--!"

"There is no Turane. There is only Vastator. Choose now."

"You won't kill me with that," said Picard with confidence.

"Is that your last, futile hope, Picard?" said Vastator. "Depending upon
an appeal to a being who no longer exists, telling that phantom that it
cannot bring itself to put an end to you? You believe that Vastator is
inhibited by your petty morals from destroying you with this phaser?"

"Not at all," said Picard.

"What, then, do you mean, that I won't kill you?"

"I mean that a phaser at setting 16 has a capacity of only ten shots
before being utterly depleted. You're out of power."

Vastator aimed and fired.

A phaser blast hit Picard dead center of the chest.

The captain staggered back, arms pinwheeling, and then he caught himself
on the edge of one of the slabs. He felt a stiffness in his chest, and
the wind had been knocked out of him. Vastator strode towards him and
squeezed the button again. And this time, there was nothing.

"Maybe eleven shots," admitted Picard, "although the last one would be
substantially depleted. A direct hit at setting sixteen and I'd be
free-floating atoms by now. All you had left was one minor burst that
would have rendered a hummingbird unconscious. Maybe."

Vastator tossed aside the phaser and came straight at Picard, leading
with his mechanical appendage. A blue-tinged charge of electricity
danced around the end of it.

Picard dropped to one knee as the deadly metal arm passed just over his
head. At the same time, he yanked from hiding within his environmental
jacket a shard of crystal, dark with blood and recently pulled from his
own thigh. Vastator was carried forward by the weight of the arm and he
overshot his mark. For a split second he was off-balance and vulnerable,
and Picard took that moment. The captain swung his arm upward and drove
the point of the crystal shard deep into Vastator's chest.

No blood came out. He might just as likely have hit some sort of
circuitry. It didn't matter. It had the same effect. Vastator stumbled
back, making strange, choking sounds, and he tried to bring his
mechanical arm up to grab Picard once more. He didn't even come close.
With a groan like a falling tree, Vastator tumbled forward and fell
heavily to the floor.

Picard sagged, his energy depleted, and started to. pull himself away
from the collapsed form of the Borg. And then, to his horror, Vastator
started to raise himself, as if doing a push-up. Then he flipped over

onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, and his mouth moved, trying to
form words. He gasped out in a low, hoarse .voice, "Pi--card."

The captain did not answer at first, and then, trying to overcome the
pain, he said, "Yes."

Vastator's mouth moved once more and no words emerged. But Picard
believed--although he would. never be positive--that the words formed on
the lips of the Ferengi Borg were Thank you. Then the head of Vastator
slumped to one side and didn't move.

Picard turned and saw, what seemed a mile away, the encasement of
Delcara. Biting his bottom lip so hard that he was certain he would chew
right through it, Picard hauled himself to his feet, clutching his right
thigh with both hands as if he were trying to hold the leg on. He
staggered down the aisle, feeling like some sort of crazy groom at a
surreal wedding. His bride waited for him, near death, 'Til death did
them part.

The ground began to shake around him once more, and the last few steps
were desperately hurried. He practically threw himself the rest of the
way and landed against the crystal column. It was thicker than any of
the slabs, which was why it had survived as much of the phaser pounding
as it did. Not enough,

though. Not nearly enough.

She was looking at him.

Not her holographic image--she herself. Her luminous eyes were open,
staring down at him from a face that was a charred memory of what it had
been. There was not an inch of her that hadn't been damaged. Her skin
was broiled black, covered with cracks and rips, lifeblood oozing out.
Once the crystal had been a symbol of purity, but now it was smoked and
becoming smeared with the thick coagulation of vital fluids. Her long,
lovely hair had been burned away, as had her eyebrows. Here and there
her flesh and muscle had

been so violently scorched that the bone beneath was visible, and that,
too, was blackened and splintered. The lips that had once brushed
against his forehead had been burned away, cracked and mutilated teeth
visible in blackened gums.

She was a ghastly, flame-withered shell of her beautiful self. A single
tear moved down her cheek, a crystalline tear, leaving a trail of
glimmering hard wetness down her face.

Her ruined jaw moved, but the voice sounded in his head.

Oh my sweet Picard, she said. Look what they've done to me.

"The Enterprise," said Picard urgently. His hands pressed against the
crystal. There were cracks through it, but he still couldn't pry it
away. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to cradle her burned and broken
body in his arms and brush away her tears. "We can get you back to the
Enterprise. We can save you there. We have to."

And if they can't, dear Picard? If they can't? Then I die, and none of
it matters.

"They can! But we have to get back to them! My ship needs me! With you
or without you,

Your ship is safe, my love. In fact, it has helped me. It has given us
the strength we need to do what must be done.

"What are you talking aboutre?"

And the planet-killer began to move.

Chapter Twenty-three

BOYAJIAN, THE SECURITY GUARD on the Enterprise who

was standing outside the brig of Dantar of Penzatti, looked surprised
when he saw Lieutenant Worf striding towards him, dragging the woman who
had once been a part of the Borg. She was pulling at his grip, but only
halfheartedly. With no patience at all, the Klingon stopped at the brig
directly across the corridor and shoved her in. Then he activated the
force field and turned to the guard. "Make sure she doesn't go
anywhere."

"Yes sir," said Boyajian, not fully understanding what had happened. But
he knew that look on the Klingon's face well enough to know that further
questions would not be particularly welcome, much less answered. So he
kept his peace as Worf turned and hurried back down the hallway.

The woman stood there for a moment, looking confused, and then she went
to the bunk at the opposite side of the brig and lay down, her back to
the corridor.

But Dantar had seen her brought in, and he began

to taunt her loudly. "Hey, Borg!" he shouted. "Re-

member me? The one whose family you destroyed!"

"Hey! Knock it off," snapped Boyajian.

Dantar ignored him. "Oh, but you probably wouldn't. I'm just one of
many, and it's all the same to you, isn't it. Come in, massacre a few
million living, breathing, loving beings, and then move on. All in a
day's work for you."

Across the way, he could see her shoulders starting to shake, and the
sounds of choked sobs. "Oh, am I upsetting you now?"

"Look, I'm warning you," Boyajian said, even angrier.

"Warn her."" shouted Dantar. "Warn her that I'll never forget. Nor will
the rest of my people! Warn her that if she thinks she's ever going to
go back to some sort of normal life, she can forget it. She has the
blood of millions on her hands. Because she was one of them. One of the
damned Borg. And no matter what she does, and no matter what she
pretends she is doing, she'll never be able to erase that. It's too
much. It cuts through everything! Do you hear me, Borg? Do you? Never
forget! Never forget what you did! There's your warning! There's your
life! Borg! Monster! Monster beyond imagination, doomed and damned
forever and ever--"

The racking sobs grew louder and louder,. and Boyajian pulled out his
phaser and aimed it at Dantar. "I have never fired on an unarmed
prisoner," he said angrily, "but so help me, I will this time. I'll put
you to sleep until the beginning of the next century if you don't shut
up!"

Dantar stared at him sullenly for a moment, as if trying to decide
whether the guard was bluffing or not. Obviously he decided on the
latter, for he retreated to

-the other side of the brig, contenting himself with the sobbing from
across the corridor as the beginning of what he hoped would be a long
and terrible penance that the bitch woman would suffer for what she had
done. However long it was, it would not be enough.

He was disappointed when the sniffling eventually trailed off, and
decided that soon he would have to provoke her once more. He hoped they
didn't change her location anytime soon.

Worf made it back to the bridge in record time, but what he discovered
there wasn't especially pleasing. The Borg ship had reappeared on the
screen, and Geordi was just finishing saying something about making them
mad. The Klingon immediately went to the tactical station, replacing the
man who had substituted for him.

Chafin at corm had managed to lift the insensate Data off himself.
Having no idea what to do with him, he propped the android back up in
his place at ops. It was truly insane. If it weren't for the sizeable
crease in the side of Data's head, you wouldn't know there was anything
wrong with him as he sat at his post.

"Commander," said Worf, "energy readings of the remaining Borg vessel
are at only twenty-seven percent of norm."

"It took a hell of a lot out of them," Geordi said. At that moment the
planet-killer swung towards the massive Borg craft, its great maw coming
toward it. A beam of glorious blue light emerged from its maw and seized
the Borg.

"It's a tractor beam!" said Geordy. "Delcara is trying to pull the Borg
ship in!"

"Borg vessel is now at thirty-three percent of norm and climbing,"
reported Worf. "It is resisting the pull of the tractor beam."

"If it won't be pulled, maybe it'll be pushed," said

Riker. "Mr. La Forge... status on deflectors."

"Fully charged and ready."

Riker's face was set. "Set tractor beams for repulse, rather than
attract, and aim them straight at the Borg at full power."

"I can only keep that up for five-point-three minutes before risking
power burnout," Geordi told him. "Also, with the tonnage of the Borg
ship, we'll practically have to be touching them to have any effect.".

"Activate tractor beams while bringing us gradually to within five
thousand kilometers. Hopefully, with the combination of the
planet-killer's and our tractor beams we'll have enough power. Engage."

"Here's hoping," murmured Geordi, and he carried out the command.

The Enterprise shuddered slightly as they approached the Borg ship,
doing everything they could to push the ship towards the fate that was
awaiting it.

"Why doesn't the planet-eater fire on it?" demanded Worf.

"The tractor beam probably takes up less energy than that anti-proton
blaster," speculated Geordi. "Must be trying to conserve power."

The Borg struggled against the pull of the tractor beam, like a spider
caught in a web.

"Commander, Borg is locking offensive weaponry on us!" Worf announced
suddenly.

"Deflectors on full! Maintain tractor beam!" ordered Riker quickly.

Within an instant the shields were cloaking the Enterprise once more,
just in time, as the Borg blast ricocheted off. The tractor continued to
push.

And a second later the great starship was joined by another. The Repulse
pulled alongside, and although she had depleted mightily her engine
stores with the

hammering she'd given the Borg before, she still had more than enough to
provide additional tractor beam push.

Slowly, inexorably, the Borg ship fell towards the maw of the
planet-killer. The flames from the massive doomsday weapon's conversion
engines seemed to lick out hungrily towards the cube, as if it were a
child eagerly balancing a tasty sugar cube on its tongue.

And at that moment the Borg ship's tractor beam lashed out.

"Sir!" called out Worf. "They've snagged the Repulse.t They're dragging
her with "Photon torpedoes ann phasers: vre.

The weaponry smashed down against the exterior of the Borg ship, blowing
pieces into rubble, and still the cube stubbornly hung on to the
starship. The Repulse struggled in its grasp, trying to pull away, its

entire exterior trembling with the exertion.

- st,, "Grab the Repulse.t

"Reverse tractor said Riker.

Pull her out of there!"

Instantly Geordi obeyed the command, and a moment later he had the
Repulse firmly in the grasp of the Enterprise tractors.

Freed from the pounding of the starship tractor beams, the Borg ship
started to surge forward.

But it was too late. It was too far into the maw of the doomsday
machine, and the planet-killer's tractor beam dragged it all the way
inside. The flames of t. he engine engulfed it, blasted it apart, and a
massive explosion ripped from the heart of the machine, outward. The
Repulse, with the aid of her impulse engines, the Enterprise tractor
beam, and a healthy dollop of just damned good luck, rode the crest of
the blast and hurtled out into space with only .some bumps and bruises
to show for the experience.

For a brief moment Geordi La Forge thought that was it for the
planet-killer. He had studied up on the history of the previous one,
once they'd realized what they were dealing with, and discovered that
the exploding engines of a starship were enough to put it out of
commission.

But his readings quickly told him a different story. This monster was
considerably larger and more powerful, and it hungrily digested the raw
power that the exploding Borg ship provided it. It feasted, thriving on
it. The giant wounds on the surface seemed to be disappearing, and
Geordi realized what was happening. The thing was repairing itself.

But it was slow, sluggish, and Geordi said as much to Riker. "Its power
levels are rising, but it's not

maneuvering the way it did before."

"Then what--?"

Riker didn't get to finish the sentence, because suddenly the
planet-killer leaped forward.

"Planet-killer resuming heading, at warp seven!"

"Follow it, warp seven! Engage!"

The Enterprise took off after it, and the Repulse, warp engines
exhausted after the assault on the Borg, was unable to follow. So
instead they set about rescuing the remaining crew members of the
unfortunate Chekov.

As the Enterprise hurtled along behind the planet-

killer, Riker snapped, "Try and raise the captain."

"Nothing, sir," said Worf.

"We're still receiving interference with our transporter locks?"

"Yes sir. The vessel is still generating a scrambling field that makes
locking on and transporting impossible."

"Damn," murmured Riker. "Bridge to transporter room."

"Transporter room," came O'Brien's voice. "O'Brien. monitor that beast
we're pursuing. If at any point the interference clears and you can lock
onto the captain, beam him back immediately."

"But sir!" said O'Brien with alarm. "We can't beam him back while in
warp unless we're matching the speed of the other vessel exactly.
Otherwise his. molecules wind up smeared all over the transporter
deck!"

"I know that," said Riker coldly. "Leave that to us. Bridge out. Geordi,
take the conn."

Geordi was momentarily surprised. He hadn't been at conn for quite some
time, but he immediately understood what Riker wanted--the most
experienced available hand in command of the ship's speed. Data, with
his computer mind, would have been perfect. Unfortunately, Data wasn't
even in shape to put his boots on at the moment. Geordi immediately took
the position as Chafin slid aside, deferring to the chief engineer.

"Planet-killer moving at warp eight."

"Match it."

"Warp nine."

"Keep up with her, Mr. La Forge, or we'll lose him," said Riker.

"Warp nine, sir. With everything we've been through, we can maintain
this speed for twenty minutes."

"If I'm not mistaken, Mr. La Forge, that will shortly be moot," said
Riker grimly. And then, under his breath he murmured, "Come on, Captain.
Get through to us."

Picard gripped the crystal encasemerit that was going to serve as
Delcara's coffin. He looked up at her

and could practically sense her life ebbing from her.

He knew what was happening, instinctively, as clearly as if he himself
had decided on the course of action. She sensed that she was dying, even
if she wasn't admitting it to herself. And driven by desperation, she
was sending her vessel hurtling through space at whatever speed she
could muster, trying to accomplish her insane dream.

He pounded in frustration on the crystal. "Delcara, stop! Stop/"

Her voice was barely a whisper in his head. No, dear Jean-Luc. It's too
late for that. I'm going to make it.

"You won't!"

I will. I must. For them. For me.

"Delcara, you are dying. If you don't let me get you to the Enterprise,
we cannot save you!"

Save me for what? Her voice was like a dying butterfly in his mind. A
lifetime of .regret? A lifetime of frustration? A lifetime of a mission
unfulfilled?

"Enough of your mission!" shouted Picard. "Enough of your hatred and
vendetta. Enough! You've let it consume you for far too long! Put an end
to it!"

That, dear Picard, is what I'm trying to do. And you

will be with me.

"Delcara--"

I will avenge the races. The Many. The Many I've lost. The Many who cry
out. Every shattered dream, every word spoken in hatred, every life lost
to senseless violence and cruelty, mine, all mine. So much to do. So
much to do. Her voice sounded singsong within his head, as if she were a
child speaking. I never realized. I've been lazy. So much to do, and who
knows what

could happen. The BOrg first. The Borg now. I do not feel like waiting
anymore.

"You don't feel like waiting because you're dying! Damn you! Come out!
Come to me! You speak of love! Now act from love! Now! Now!"

And those eyes looked at him from deep within the ruined face.

Later. I promise. You and I, together, will do it all later,

"Warp. nine-point-two nine-point-four 2' Geordi was calling it
off like a death knell. "I can't believe this."

The starfield hurtled past like multicolored strings.

God f6rbid they hit a planet or even an asteroid at this speed. Ships
could search for a thousand years and still not find all the pieces of
the Enterprise.

"Warp nine-point-six!" called out Geordi. "Maxi-

mum rated speed! Danger of coolant overheating!" The planet-killer
showed no signs of slowing. "She's at nine-point-seven! Nine-pomt-egm.

"Catch up, Mr. La Forge," said Riker, with a voice so hard he could have
driven nails with it.

The Enterprise roared forward, stress on every part of her hull.

No one spoke. They all knew what was happening and what was at stake.
And their margin for error had been shredded to ten percent.

In the transporter room, O'Brien's fingers hovered over the controls,
his eyes scanning for some sign, any sign, of life readings from the
planet-killer. The scrambling was still in effect, his attempts to lock
in continually thwarted. The nightmarish image of Captain Picard
materializing in the platform in some hideously demolecularized state
would not

erase from his mind. He'd seen it happen once, and even now he woke up
with cold shakes on occasion at night.

"Come on, Captain," he said. "A whisper. Something."

In a way that Picard could not explain, he sensed how fast they were
going, and how much faster still they were going to go.

"You can't do this!" he shouted. "I know what you're trying to do!
You're trying to exceed all known warp boundaries! You want to get to
Borg space within minutes instead of years! You're hoping' to cheat
death! But you can only do that if you come with me!"

Cheat death and cheat myself No, lovely Picard. You and Im

"No! Damn you! There is no you and I!" and he slammed his fist against
the crystal. His hands were inches away from her, but they might as well
have been miles. "You're insane! You're mad with vengeance! You won't
listen to me! You won't listen to Guinan! You only listen to the voices
that scream to pursue your obsession! I won't participate in it!"

You said you love me. Yet you only want me to come with you. You must
come with me now, beautiful Picard. Wonderful Pi--

"You're mad! I thought there was hope for you!" and he turned away from
her on his damaged leg. The agony spurred him on. "I thought there was
something to be salvaged and loved! I wanted something that didn't exist
anymore. That never existed! You were in my mind, and that's all you
ever were! I reject you! Now and forever, I am no longer yours! I belong

to myself, and I will have no part of you! None!"

And Delcara screamed.

None!

"Warp nine-point-nine," said Geordi tonelessly.

"Increase speed to nine-point-nine," Riker told him, every word
leaden.

"Engines will shut down automatically in two minutes," said Geordi even
as he complied. Even under the best of circumstances, they could have
sustained that speed for only ten minutes.

"Now or never, Captain," whispered Troi.

In Ten-Forward, Guinan watched out the window, and waited.

And knew,

Delcara screamed, and it seared into Picard's mind and soul, and he
cried out a name.

A name. And a word, both the same.

- And the name and word was Vendetta, spoken with hatred and fury and
loathing. There was no trace of love.

And a voice cut through his mind and spoke four words in response. And
the response was simple and eternal: I thought you understood.

And he disappeared in a haze of blue.

"Warp nine-point-nine-nine,". said Geordi, pro-nouneing a death
sentence.

At nearly 8000 times the speed of light, the doomsday machine, second
and final draft, hurtled away. The Enterprise's engines powered down.

And then, in a burst of power that was unrecorded in the annals of
Starfleet and physics, the doomsday machine, Mark two, leaped beyond all
known speeds.

Alien warp technology of a like that had never been seen before, and
never would again, smashed through the barriers of time and space, all
driven by one overwhelming need.

It tore, unstoppably, and inevitably, towards the

speed limit of the galaxy. Towards the unreachable. Toward warp ten.

And vanished.

Chaptr Twenty-four

SWEET PICARD WAS GONE. Delcara understood. Sometimes, for those you
love, you have to let them go. None of it mattered anymore. He had his
life, and she had hers. The Enterprise was long gone now, unable to keep
up. Delcara had reached and exceeded speeds that had been thought to be
impossible. But nothing was impossible if the will and the drive and the
need were strong enough. Her life. Her vendetta. A journey of years
would instead be a journey of minutes. She stood on .the brink of
accomplishing that which had driven her for so long. She would confront
the Borg. She would defeat the Borg. And after that, who knew? Perhaps
she would return to Picard. Anything could happen. She was living proof
of that. The universe was an infinity of maybes. She held her breath.
The pain was gone. Just a few more minutes...

Chapter Twenty-Five

SWEET PICARD WAS GONE. Delcara understood. Sometimes, for those you
love, you have to let them go. None of it mattered anymore. He had his
life, and she had hers. The Enterprise was long gone now, unable to keep
up. Delcara had reached and exceeded speeds that had been thought to be
impossible. But nothing was impossible if the will and the drive and the
need were strong enough. Her life. Her vendetta. A journey of years
would instead be a journey of minutes. She stood on the brink of
accomplishing that which had driven her for so long. She would confront
the Borg. She would defeat the Borg. And after that, who knew? Perhaps
she would return to Picard. Anything could happen. She was living proof
of that. The universe was an infinity of maybes. She held her breath.
The pain was gone. Just a few more minutes...

Chapter Twenty-Six

SWEET PICARD WAS GONE. Delcara understood. Sometimes, for those you
love, you have to let them go. None of it mattered anymore. He had his
life, and she had hers. The Enterprise was long gone now, unable to keep
up. Delcara had reached and exceeded speeds that had been thought to be
impossible. But nothing was impossible if the will and the drive and the
need were strong enough. Her life. Her vendetta. A journey of years
would instead be a journey of minutes. She stood on the brink of
accomplishing that which had driven her for so long. She would confront
the Borg. She would defeat the Borg. . And after that, who knew? Perhaps
she would return to Picard. Anything could happen. She was living proof
of that. The universe was an infinity of maybes. She held her breath.
The pain was gone. Just a few more minutes...

Chapter Twenty-Seven RIKER WATCHED IN APPROVAL as Picard slid off the
biobed and tested the strength of his leg. "You'll be limping 'for a
couple of days," said Dr. Crusher. "So be sure to take it easy. "Yes,
Doctor."

"Oh, so he listens to you, does he?" said Katherine Pulaski, taking a
few minutes to visit from the Repulse, which was cruising at warp one
next to the Enterprise, enroute to Starbase 42. The surviving crew
members of the Chekov were all stable. In fact, Captain Korsmo was
positively obnoxious, and she welcomed the opportunity to take a brief
respite back aboard the Enterprise. "Well, it's not easy," said Crusher.
"He does have a tendency to have a mind of his own."

"That can so get in the way. By the way, Beverly, I heard about Wesley
being accepted into the Academy. Congratulations." She shook her head.
"So much to catch up in the half hour or so I can spare here. I hear
Worf had a son? Data had a daughter?"

"Not with each other," said Riker dryly. "Data as a father." She shook
her head. "I don't

usually underestimate individuals I meet, but when I do, I don't do it
in half measures."

"And how are you doing back on the Repulse?" asked Riker.

She shrugged and smiled. "You know me. The moment I got there, I just
laid down the law, and everything was fine."

"I can just imagine," said Picard. "Doctor Crusher, now that you're done
treating me, you might want to give O'Brien a sedative. He's still jumpy
after his rather miraculous split 'second transport-of me at warp
nine-point-nine."

"He said the scrambling signal just stopped," said Riker. "The moment it
did, he locked on and beamed you out. Closer than we like to call it."

At that moment Geordi entered, his arms folded. "Captain, I was hoping
you had a moment to fill me in on what you saw when you were over in the
planet-killer. I have a theory or two about what happened with--"

And at that moment the alarmed voice of security guard Boyajian called
out through the sickbay intercom, "Dr. Crusher! Emergency medical team
to the brig! Immediately!"

Immediately Crusher bolted out, followed by Pulaski, Geordi, Riker, a
limping Picard, and a medtech with a crash cart.

They weren't all able to fit into one turbolift, so the medical
personnel took the first one that came, and seconds later Picard and his
officers were on the other. He found himself automatically leaning on
Riker's and Geordi's shoulders for additional support.

Seconds later they emerged on the lower deck, where the brig was
situated. But before they saw anything, they heard something.

It was laughter. Loud, raucous laughter, coming

from the area of the brig.

Dantar of Penzatti.

They got there and saw Dantar, leaning just inside the force field of
the brig, laughing and pointing and laughing once again. Boyajian was
shouting at him, furious, face almost purple.

Picard, Riker, and Geordi came forward and saw the disturbance was in
the brig directly across from Dantar. Before they could get there,
Boyajian was standing in front of them, addressing Picard. "I'm sorry,
sir!" he kept saying, over and over. "I had no idea! She was just lying
there so quietly, I thought she'd cried herself to sleep! I just left
her alone And then I saw the blood dripping down, and it was too late--"

"What??

Geordi pushed his way through, suddenly knowing and sensing with hideous
certainty. He looked into the brig. Riker and Picard were just behind
him and, when Riker saw, he put a steadying hand on Geordi's shoulder.

Crusher was passing a trioorder over Reannon's body, but it was merely a
formality. She was shaking her head in dismay.

Reannon was lying still on the bunk, as a pool of blood collected
beneath her. She had been half turned over now and Geordi could see her
eyes staring out at nothing, just as they had for so long before. Now,
though, there wasn't even life behind them--because of a long, perfect
incision across her throat, dark and entrusted with blood.

Pulaski was removing something from the palm of Reannon's limp left
hand. She held it up for Crusher to see.

"A scalpel?" said Crusher in astonishment, taking

it. She held up the laser device. "How in the hell did she get this?
She must have sneaked it out of sickbay. Stuck it in her clothing."

"Worf didn't exactly have time to frisk her when he brought her here,"
said Riker regretfully. "But why--?"

,nd the word hung there.

Chapter Twenty-eight

AND AIa'rER THAT, who knew? Perhaps she would return to Picard. Anything
could happen. She was living

proof of that. The universe was an infinity of maybes. She held her
breath. The pain was gone. Just a few more minutes...

Sweet Picard was gone.

Delcara understood. Sometimes, for those you love, you have to let them
go. None of it mattered anymore. He had his life, and she had hers ....

Chapter Twenty-nine

"I pounds HER. In here. And out there. Everywhere," she said.

In the Ten-Forward lounge, Guinan sat opposite Riker, Geordi, and
Picard. The men had full glasses of synthehol in front of them.

"That's fine for you, Guinan, but it doesn't help us. Where is she?"
said Riker. "Is she in Borg space? Is she dead? Is she--"

"There is an old paradox," said Guinan, "that says that if you are
standing, say, a meter away from your destination, and then you travel
only half that distance, and then half of that new distance, and half
of that and so on... you'll never reach your destination. That you
become infinitely closer, but never attain your goal."

Now Geordi spoke up, but he was very quiet and restrained. Usually in
this type of conversation he was positively bubbly. "And there's another
theory," he said, "that applies the same concept of becoming infinitely
close to warp ten. The most you can reach is warp nine-point-nine-nine
with an infinite number of

nines repeating infinitely. And as you become infinitely closer to warp
ten... subjective time slows down."

"I've heard of this," said Riker. "Time distorts infinitely around you
as you get infinitely closer to warp ten."

"You wouldn't even know it was happening," said Geordi. "It's like, if
the universe were shrinking and all units of measurement were shrinking
proportionately. You have nothing to compare it to, and you don't
realize that, for the rest of the universe, time is continuing normally.
But for you there is no more normality. What is a second to us becomes
eternity to someone who is trapped in an infinite time distortion. It's
like the old line, 'The.hurrieder I go, the behirtder I

"But where is she?" demanded Picard. "I understand what you're saying,
and I certainly know the theories, but... where is she? Is she trapped
in warp space?"

"She's in warp space," said Guinan very quietly.

"And subspace."

"What?"

"And she's here in Ten-Forward, and throughout the Enterprise,"
continued Guinan. "And throughout our galaxy, and throughout the cosmos.
Don't you see? She's travelling eternally through time as the universe
passes through her, for the universe keeps expanding. She's occupying
all points of the universe simultaneously. To her, the stars will hurtle
by, and she will look forward to endless tomorrows and an infinite
stream of yesterdays. She'll continually pass through her own immediate
past, and have no future. And she'll never know," she finished quietly.
"I can't reach her. I can feel her here," and she touched her heart,
"but that's all. And that's all that will ever

be..." She looked down. "I don't think I wish to discuss it any
further."

Guinan stood and walked away from the table. After a moment Riker did
likewise, and headed for the bridge to keep an eye on things. Data was
fully repaired from the brutal injury he'd taken, but he would be under
close observation for the next twenty-four hours. Just to play it safe.

La Forge and Picard sat alone at the table, staring into their drinks.

"She always said she had all the time in the universe," said Picard
slowly. "And now she does. And her vendetta, which ruled her life, will
be her life. Forever. It will drive her on and on, and be the only thing
in her existence, and she will never be able to accomplish it." He
shook his head and, in one shot, drained his glass. "How disgustingly
ironic."

Geordi didn't even look up, but asked, "What was she to you, Captain? If
I may ask."

"She was. ." He paused, trying to find words. "She was a concept. A
symbol. The idea of her came to mean more to me than the actuality of
her. What she represented was so pure, but the reality was far from
that. In the end I tried to make her into what I envisioned her to be,
and what she could never be. And yet, in a way, she is. Was. She was
everything I could have asked for. Unreachable. Untouchable. Always out
there, guiding me onward. I seek to touch the stars, Mr. La Forge. To
brush my fingers across them, and search out the mysteries they hide.
She was all of that. All of that, and more."

"You contradict yourself, Captain."

"Very well then, I contradict myself," replied Pi-card, the edges of his
mouth crinkling slightly. "I am large. I contain multitudes."

"Shakespeare?"

"Whitman."

"Oh." He paused. "He could have been writing about Delcara."

"Yes," said Picard. "Yes, he could." He took another sip.

"I was the same way with Reannon," Geordi said after a moment. "I wanted
to reach her. I wanted to do

things on her behalf. And in the end, I never was able to."

"The woman was destroyed before you ever got to her, Geordi,'; said
Picard softly. "Reannon Bonaventure died years ago. You also had an
image you were striving for, that could never be achieved. Which simply
proves that lieutenants and captains can both share a blindness for
simple reality."

"Kind of a brutally hard knock against a quixotic view of life, isn't
it," admitted Geordi. "The Borg are pretty damned big windmills to tilt
with."

"But they are giants, Geordi," said Picard after a moment: "And in being
caught up in the great turning arms of the Borg, we can be thrown down
into the ground, or hurled upward to the stars. We all have our quests.
And we do what we must, because it's expected. Because we need to.
Because we want to. Because--"

"Because of Dulcinea," said Geordi, raising his glass.

Picard raised his in response. "To Dulcinea."

"To more giants," said Geordi. "And to more misadventures."

"More adventures, old friend," Picard gently corrected him, and smiled
as they clinked glasses.

But the smile did not reach his eyes.

Chapter Thirty

The Universe was an infinity of maybes. She held her breath. The pain
was gone. Just a few more minutes... Just a few more minutes... Just a
few more minutes... Just a few more minutes... Just a few more
minutes... Just a few more minutes... Just a few more minutes... Just a
few more minutes... Just a few more minutes.. Just a few more minutes.