Darkening Star
Prologue
The Gift Revealed
“Captain, somebody’s trying to access the subspace transmitter.”
Captain Kathryn Janeway walked over behind the conn station, peering over her helmsman’s shoulder at the console’s readouts. The transmitter was indeed in use, broadcasting from the Jeffries tube off of main engineering. The captain felt a sinking feeling in her chest as she realized the implications. Seven of Nine, the Borg drone they had recently liberated, was attempting to contact the Collective.
Janeway mentally berated herself as she returned to her command chair. She had assigned Seven to work in engineering with the hope that she could help them clear the Borg technology that was preventing the starship Voyager from going to warp. Clearly she had given the former drone too much latitude and now her entire crew was at risk.
“Torres to bridge,” the ship’s chief engineer called over the ship’s communications system. “Captain, I don’t know how, but she’s erected some kind of force field around the door. We can’t break through it.”
Janeway looked to her left where Commander Chakotay was at work, bent over the small console between their chairs. “She’s bypassed our security protocols,” he uttered, concern apparent in his voice.
“Disable the transmitter,” Janeway ordered.
Chakotay shook his head. “It’s too late.”
Suddenly, the groaning of bending metal could be heard across the ship and the bridge crew exchanged puzzled glances.
From his position at the conn station Lieutenant Tom Paris stared wide-eyed at his console. “Captain, the bulkheads on deck eleven, section twelve, are in a state of molecular flux,” he shouted over the noise.
The bridge was jostled by a short series of vibrations, before the screeching noise was silenced. Janeway took a moment to search the terminal she shared with her first officer to try and find their source.
“Tuvok to bridge,” the voice of the ship’s chief security officer permeated the bridge. “Status.”
“There was some kind of explosion in the Jeffries tube just as she was about to initiate her transmission,” Janeway responded looking over the data on the small terminal. “We don’t know what caused it.” A brief moment passed before she heard Tuvok’s reply.
“I believe I may have the answer, captain.”
* * *
Far from Earth, deep in the Delta Quadrant of the galaxy, a vessel traveled through the void between stars. Physically, the ship was simple in design: a perfect sphere. It was an efficient design, with no space was wasted – all was designed to serve its creators. Unlike the vessels of other races, the sphere-ship had no bridge, no living quarters, nor recreational facilities. These things were trivial. Unnecessary. Irrelevant.
Spacecraft designs of many space-faring races, while functional, were also abstractions of those races’ beliefs. In this way, the sphere was no different; it represented the goal of its creators, the singular purpose to which they strived.
Perfection.
A goal as simple as the design of their ship, and like their ship, one they pursued with the utmost efficiency.
They were the Borg.
To achieve perfection, The Borg sought out technology. The technological advances of other races, be they weapons, engines, ships, cybernetics – all technology that they deemed worthy was taken and added to their own. They made it just as much a part of their ships as they made it a part of themselves. This was a very literal process for the Borg, for they augmented their bodies with technology, enhancing their otherwise limited biological forms, making them stronger, faster, smarter, closer to perfection.
However, technology was not all they sought. The biological distinctiveness of other races was just as important as the technological. Therefore, races with biological traits they deemed worthy were sought out, and the members of those races were assimilated and added to the Borg. Just as their bodies were enhanced with technology, so too were they enhanced biologically, their genetic code improved by the distinctiveness of the races they added to their own. They were, in a sense, evolving towards a state of perfection.
Aboard the sphere there was no debate, no indecision and no uncertainty. There were no individuals; all were one. Their minds were all connected, forming a hive-mind. The Collective. It was a single consciousness made up of the minds of all those assimilated by the Borg. Willingly or not, the knowledge and experience of those they assimilated was made a part of the hive-mind, while their bodies were augmented and made to serve the Collective as drones. The will of the Borg could not be resisted; it was absolute.
They were the Borg, and resistance was futile.
An alarm sounded within the sphere. The ship’s communications array had picked up a transmission. It was only a partial signal, but its meaning was undeniable.
“A Borg proximity signal has been detected,” a loud voice boomed and echoed throughout the sphere. It was the voice of the Borg Collective, a voice made up of the thoughts of billions of minds all speaking as one. “Origin, Unimatirx 291, Grid 096. Alter course to intercept.”
A humming sound resonated through the ship as the sphere’s transwarp coils began to charge. The hull of the sphere began to take on a bright greenish tinge, in stark contrast to the dark grey and black exterior. Once the charging was complete and the ship’s energy output reached its zenith, the Sphere shot forward and disappeared in a flash of green light. Its heading set on a direct course for the starship Voyager.
* * *
“Prepare a shuttle for launch and have Tuvok meet me on deck six.”
“Captain?”
“Kes is leaving us.”
The Turbolift doors hissed shut as Lieutenant Tuvok left the bridge, leaving Commander Chakotay to mull over his captain’s last order. Kes had been a valuable member of Voyager’s crew for almost three years. The thought of losing her as a crewmember, nurse and friend was an unpleasant one. Despite that fact, Chakotay knew her decision to leave was made with Voyager’s best interests in mind. Kes’ rapidly developing psionic abilities were beginning to threaten both the crew and even the ship itself. Just yesterday she had managed to create an energy discharge in the Jeffries tube that had prevented Seven of Nine from completing her message to the Borg Collective. Unfortunately, the resulting blast had severely weakened the ship’s infrastructure across the entire deck.
An explosion rocked the ship, causing some of the officers on the bridge to stumble. Chakotay’s mind was quickly shaken from his reflections back to the situation at hand.
“Janeway to Chakotay,” came the captain’s voice over the ship’s communications system. “Beam us directly to the shuttlebay!”
Chakotay nodded towards the operations station to his left where Ensign Harry Kim was posted.
Kim’s fingers danced across his console as he attempted to operate the ship’s transporters. A bead of sweat appeared on his brow when the console chirped negatively, denying his request.
“The molecules in Kes’ body are destabilizing,” the young ensign called over the beeping console. “It’s interfering with the transporter.”
“Captain, we can’t get a lock,” Chakotay stated, responding to the captain via the comm.
“Acknowledged,” came the captain’s reply. Chakotay could have sworn he heard her start to say something else but the comm line was closed before he could make it out.
Outside, the hull of Voyager was beginning to buckle. The solid duranium plating began to twist and ripple as if it were liquid. On the bridge, the sound of screeching and bending metal almost drowned out the sound of the Red Alert claxon. The bridge crew looked around anxiously, as if expecting the bulkheads to break apart at any moment.
“What’s happening?” Chakotay shouted over the roaring alarms and screeching metal.
From his station at the front of the bridge, the ship’s helmsman answered. “The hull is destabilizing,” Lieutenant Paris called, reading the information displayed on his terminal. “The molecular bonds are breaking down.”
A section of the outer hull came apart in a fiery display, shaking the ship violently. On the bridge, the force of the blast was enough to cause the Master System Display to short out and explode, knocking the crewman working that station backwards and sending them tumbling over the guardrail behind the captain’s chair. Chakotay sprang from his own chair and helped the stunned crewman to her feet. Fortunately she had not been injured. The crewman nodded thanks to the commander and quickly returned to her station. As Chakotay was returning to his chair, a second explosion rattled the ship causing him to stumble forward landing awkwardly in his seat.
“Hull breach on decks three, four and five!” Kim shouted, his hands still working the console.
“Emergency containment fields!” Chakotay ordered.
The creaking and groaning of the hull intensified and Chakotay wondered whether the ship would hold together long enough for the captain and Kes to reach the shuttlebay. As if responding to his unspoken thoughts the captain’s voice sounded over the comm once again.
“Janeway to bridge. Kes is aboard the shuttle. Initiate launch sequence.”
“Acknowledged,” Chakotay replied, tapping a few buttons on the small control terminal set between the captain and first officer’s chairs.
The shuttlebay doors opened at the rear of the ship and a lone Class 2 shuttlecraft flew out, quickly gaining momentum and moving away from Voyager.
“Shuttle distance, one hundred thousand kilometres. Speed, one quarter impulse,” said Paris as he operated his terminal, calling up an image of the shuttle on the bridge’s main view screen.
The turbolift doors hissed open once more. Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Tuvok entered the bridge, the latter taking the tactical station while the former moved to the center of the room, giving the view screen a scrutinizing look.
“Can you hail her?” Janeway asked, her full attention fixed on the image of the fleeing shuttlecraft.
“I’ve been trying,” Kim answered with a hint of frustration in his voice. A faint crackle of static could be heard over the comm system before the shuttle pilot responded to their hails.
“It’s happening. It’s happening to me,” Kes’ soft voice answered. Her tone carried no fear, but an air of excitement and gratitude.
“Her atomic structure is completely destabilizing!” Kim shouted, staring in disbelief at the readouts his instruments were giving him. The image on the main view screen brightened suddenly as the shuttle began to glow and light started streaming out of the tiny craft’s cockpit windows.
“My gift to you,” was the last message Voyager received from Kes before the shuttle was enveloped by, and disappeared in, a massive flash of light. The officers on the bridge were blinded by the intense glow that seemed to permeate the hull and envelop everything in the room. In an instant it was gone, leaving a puzzled crew and no sign of the shuttle.
“What happened? Where’s the shuttle?” Janeway asked, unable to see any trace of the little craft.
“The shuttle is no longer registering on the ship’s sensors,” Tuvok answered. Before he could utter another word, Lieutenant Paris cut him off.
“What is that?!” Paris shouted staring at the main viewer. The rest of the bridge crew turned their attention to the large rectangular screen. Where the shuttle had once been, there was now a swirling mass of light and energy. At its core, the mass was bright yellow with orange highlights running up and down its jagged form. Along its outer edges, long tendrils of energetic orange plasma could be seen arcing and swaying against the black backdrop. It almost looked like a tear in the very fabric of space.
“It’s some kind of subspace anomaly,” Kim called from behind, his attention fixed on his console’s readouts. “I’m picking up high graviton emissions and intermittent tachyon bursts.”
“A wormhole?” Janeway posed, looking back at the young ensign.
“No, it’s more like an interspatial rift. Similar…” Kim’s voice trailed off as he made a sudden realization. “Similar to the singularities used by Species 8472,” he stammered, unable to subdue the anxiety in his voice.
“Tuvok, scan for bio-ships!” the captain snapped, quickly taking a seat in her command chair.
“Back us off, Tom,” Chakotay ordered. “Nice and slow.”
At the conn station, Paris’ attempts to move the ship were met with more negative chirping from his console. “The helm’s not responding.”
“Captain,” Tuvok called from tactical. “Sensors are registering transwarp signatures. A conduit is approaching.”
“Shields to maximum! All hands to battle stations!” the captain commanded, a determined scowl plastered across her face. It seemed as if their Borg guest had indeed been able to get a message through to the Collective. Now they were coming to collect her and, no doubt, assimilate the entire crew in the process.
In a green flash the Borg sphere re-entered normal space, taking up position between Voyager and the strange anomaly. The vessel was massive; easily three times Voyager’s length in diameter. Its dark grey metallic surface was covered in uneven asymmetrical plating, all at right angles to one another. The bridge crew’s undivided attention was now fixed on the sphere hanging in the center of the main view screen.
“We are being hailed,” Tuvok stated.
The captain took a deep breath. “Open a channel.” They all knew what the Collective would say, but Janeway felt keeping them talking might buy her some time to figure a way out of this mess. The comm crackled with static, a sign of a bad connection between two vessels so close together.
“We… …the Borg. You… …assimilated. Resistance is-.” The Borg communication was abruptly silenced.
“Harry?” Chakotay inquired, looking back at the ops station once more.
“There are intense gravimetric distortions coming from the anomaly,” Kim answered. “They’re interfering with all the ship’s systems.”
“Captain!” Paris shouted, drawing all eyes back to the front of the room. On the view screen the Borg sphere could be seen drifting towards the churning mass of yellow and orange. Without warning a tendril of orange plasma arced out from the anomaly and struck the sphere. The energy discharge licked across the surface of the sphere, tearing at the hull and rending entire sections of its plating apart. Small explosions could be seen emanating from within the ship as a second wave of energy ripped across the opposite side of the vessel. Just as the ship’s hull began to buckle and collapse in on itself, the ship was enveloped in the yellow light at the center of the anomaly and in a flash was gone with naught but a few scattered fragments of its hull remaining.
On the bridge the officers watched in silence, unable to believe what they had just witnessed. Anything capable of destroying a Borg ship was something to be respected – and feared.
Vibrations began to rattle the bridge as Kim’s console began beeping a warning. “The gravimetric distortions are increasing!” he called.
“We’re being pulled in!” Paris yelled, still unable to make any change to the ships course.
Janeway tapped the communications terminal on the arm of her chair. “Bridge to engineering, we need warp power now!”
“The plasma injectors are still blocked. It’s just not happening,” Torres’ voice sounded through the bridge’s speakers. “The impulse engines are running at a hundred and twelve percent of normal, it’s all I’ve got.”
“It’s not enough!” the helmsman cried.
Voyager plummeted towards the swirling mass of energy. As the ship fell closer, an energy discharge struck its side, dancing across the exterior, rending sections of the primary and secondary hulls before passing through the port nacelle. Heavily damaged and venting atmosphere, Voyager passed the mass’ bright yellow threshold, disappearing in a flash of light, along with the anomaly itself, leaving nothing in its wake save a few pieces of debris floating against the blackness of space.