Lt Colonel Sean
Elliott McIntyre and a squad of his Starfleet Marines, all heavily armed,
silently rushed down the corridor on deck 9.
They paused as they neared an intersection in the corridor. Using silent hand signals, McIntyre deployed
his troops, one Marine holding a hand phaser and tricorder moving closest to the corner of the intersection
and taking readings, looking back at the colonel grimly and nodding.
“Captain Mendez
and Bravo Squad are in position, Colonel, sir,” whispered Gunnery Sergeant Christopher
Alan O’Laughlin quietly. McIntyre nodded acknowledgement, then on his
fingers started counting down from five to one.
On zero, the entire squad – weapons drawn, armed, and ready – rounded
the corner. At the same moment, Captain
April Mendez and Bravo Squad appeared at the opposite end of the corridor,
weapons trained on the intruder standing in front of one of the main computer
core access panels.
“FREEZE!” McIntyre shouted, his
compression rifle aimed directly in the intruder’s face. Wyatt Cerilli, the
former Borg drone also known as Five of Twelve, stood wide-eyed and motionless
except for raising his hands in surrender.
McIntyre noted that the teenaged boy’s nanoprobe
tubules had been extended and slowly retreated back under the skin of his wrist
as he stared at all the weapons emitters aimed in his direction.
Space,
the Final Frontier…
These
are the voyages of the starship Dauntless!
Star Trek:
Dauntless
“Virus” By PJK
One Week Earlier…
“Entering
standard orbit,” reported Lt(JG) Carter Breitling.
“Very well, Helm,” responded Fleet Captain Peter J. Koester. “Mister Wallace, what can you tell me about this planet?”
Commander
Alasdair Wallace, his walrus-like mustache bristling beneath his nose,
consulted his instruments, then reported, “NGC7072-IV is class M,
oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere – though higher in carbon dioxide concentration than
our usual mix – temperate climate o’er th’ majority
o’ the planet’s surface. Three major continents and myriad smaller subcontinents an’ islands. It t’would make an
excellent colony world, if no’ for one thing.”
“And what’s
that?” Koester asked, concerned.
“It appears
someone’s already established a colony on th’
eastern continent,” Wallace replied.
“I’m readin’ structures o’ some sort. Evidence o’ industrial
activity. Bu’…” Wallace looked up at his commanding officer,
continuing, “Bu’ I’m not detectin’ any higher
life-form readin’s.”
Chief Pono R. Kyman, who was sitting in
his seat at mission ops, stood up and walked over toward the captain’s
seat. “Could whoever built this colony
here have abandoned it for some reason?” he asked.
“Only one way to
find out, COB,” Koester replied before looking at the Vulcan/Efrosian/Human man sitting in the XO’s
chair to his right. “Care to take an
away team down to investigate, Exec?”
“Looking forward
to it, Skipper,” Commander Setton To’Lock Arbelo
replied, standing and heading toward the turbolift. “Colonel McIntyre? COB?”
Both men nodded
and joined the first officer in the turbolift as
Arbelo ordered, “Transporter room one.”
* * * *
Several minutes
later, Arbelo, McIntyre, and Kyman, joined by Marine
platoon sergeant Gunny O’Laughlin, science officer T’Pan, and engineer John Smith, materialized not far
outside the colony Wallace had detected from orbit. Immediately, both the Vulcan T’Pan and the human Smith pulled out and activated tricorders while the two Marines stood ready, though
relaxed, holding type II hand phasers.
“No higher
life-form readings,” T’Pan said, confirming Wallace’s
earlier evaluation.
“I’m detecting
power readings coming from thirty meters in that direction,” Smith added,
pointing in the direction where several small buildings could be seen through
the sparse brush. “
“How so?” Arbelo asked.
“The power levels
are too low to be indicating any kind of working machinery or computer
equipment. More like solar storage
batteries.”
“Shall we go
knock on a door or two and introduce ourselves to the new neighbors, Commander,
sir?” Gunny O’Laughlin asked.
“Lead the way,
Gunny,” Arbelo replied.
The away team
quickly entered a clearing where several small pre-fabricated buildings had
been erected. Each looked about the size
of a small Starfleet one-man survival shelter, barely big enough for a single
person to live in comfortably for a short period, no less use as a permanent
home. Immediately Chief Kyman became agitated, as if recognizing the design.
“I’ve got a very
bad feeling about this, Commander,” the COB remarked as he glanced around
nervously, like he was expecting the bogie-man to jump out of the surrounding
brush.
“You recognize
these structures?” Arbelo asked as both Smith and T’Pan
started taking detailed readings with their tricorders.
“Yes, sir,
unfortunately I do,” the El-Aurian man replied. “They’re Borg.”
“Borg?!” McIntyre exclaimed, both
he and O’Laughlin suddenly on heightened alert.
“Confirmed,
Commander,” Smith added, showing the first officer his tricorder
display. “Definitely
Borg technology. I’m also
detecting several regeneration alcoves located on the far side of these
structures.
“Away team to Dauntless,” Arbelo said after tapping
his combadge.
“Go ahead, Exec,”
Koester’s voice responded.
“Skipper, it
appears we have discovered a Borg colony on the planet’s surface.”
“Borg!?! Do you need
an immediate emergency beam-up?” Koester asked, concerned.
“Negative,
Captain,” Smith called out. “There
doesn’t appear to be any actual Borg in the vicinity. If this is an abandoned colony of some sort,
this could provide us an excellent opportunity to study intact Borg
technology.”
“Very well,”
Koester said cautiously. “Continue to
investigate, Exec. But be careful. One former Borg aboard my starship is enough. I want the away team back aboard immediately
if you come across as much as a single drone with a limp.”
“Aye, sir. And
speaking of Mister Cerilli, perhaps he should beam
down to join the away team. He and Chief
Kyman are the closest things we have to Borg experts
among the crew,” Arbelo requested.
“Good idea. I’ll have Five beam
down with a couple more engineers and science officers. Stay alert, Monster. Dauntless, out.”
* * * *
An hour later,
Wyatt ‘Five of Twelve’ Cerilli and almost a
half-dozen science and engineering officers had joined the away team. During that time, the team had come across
the remains of nearly twenty dead Borg scattered around the colony, while the Dauntless had detected from orbit the
crashed remains of a Borg probe ship which, based on trajectory and debris
pattern, seemed to have fallen out of orbit, powerless.
Several of the
engineers, under the supervision of assistant chief engineer Amanda Windsor,
were in the process of dismantling and packing various pieces of Borg equipment
and beaming it up to the Dauntless,
to be distributed between several engineering and science teams for study.
“We’ve managed to
salvage four Borg regeneration alcoves and their computer console and have
beamed it up to cargo bay four,” Lt Commander Smith was telling Arbelo, T’Pan, Kyman, and Five.
“Any idea what
happened here?” Arbelo asked.
“Well, we can’t
be sure until we study the equipment we’ve salvaged in more depth, but it
appears the entire colony died off pretty quickly about five years ago,”
answered Smith.
“It reminds me of
an incident in the Delta Quadrant that I downloaded the details of when I was
still a drone,” Five remarked. “An
entire Cube was infected with a pathogen that killed all the adult drones. The only survivors were several children who
were isolated in maturation chambers when the infection occurred. The Cube was abandoned by the Collective.”
“I must admit,”
commented Chief Kyman. “I never considered the idea of the Borg
colonizing uninhabited planets. I
thought they only assimilated civilizations and conquered what they needed.”
“The Borg are not
simply relentless killing machines, Chief,” Five said to the COB. “Assimilation is merely the method by which
we attempt to improve ourselves and the other species we encounter.”
“I don’t know
which is more disturbing, Five,” Kyman said, looking
at his part-time holodeck caddy and golf student with
a look of disappointment. “That you seem
to approve of this method of ‘improvement’ or that you used the word ‘we’ when
referring to the Borg.”
“Did I?” Five
replied, sounding surprised.
* * * *
Captain’s log, stardate
63690.2:
The crew have
completed salvaging as much of the Borg technology we discovered as Commanders
Bloom and Wallace consider feasible.
Most of the larger equipment will be turned over to Starfleet R&D at
Starbase 719 for their
analysis. But I already have several of
our science labs examining the smaller pieces of technology with the help of
Five of Twelve, Mister Cerilli, while several away
teams continue to explore the planet below.
They will gather as much data about the planet as they can since, in
spite of its ideal conditions and location, I am reluctant to recommend the
Federation establish a colony on or near a planet we’re sure the Borg
Collective is aware exists.
Koester,
commanding Dauntless, out.
In science lab
two, Five of Twelve was helping to unpack a cube-shaped device with several
interface connections on its surface, talking with the rat-like science officer
Aroe Euwess as they worked.
“You know, when
you really consider all the good the Borg have done…,” the teenaged former
drone started to remark.
“Good?!” Euwess squeaked
incredulously as she hooked a cable connected to one of the lab computers to
the Borg device.
“Yes,” Five
insisted. “For
example, rescuing several species from extinction. Take Species 3405, for example. When the Collective discovered them in a
system near the border between the Delta and Beta Quadrants, there were less than two hundred of the population remaining, not
enough to maintain a viable gene pool.
But since they were assimilated twenty years ago, they have become a
part of the Collective. Their knowledge,
history, and genetic makeup are now part of the Collective for eternity. Or another example, the El-Aurians, which the Borg call
Species…”
“Look, Wyatt,” Euwess started to say, deliberately using the boy’s human
name and starting to sound annoyed.
“Five, Ensign,”
the boy insisted.
“…Wyatt,” Euwess emphasized. “I’m sure being a drone was simply great, but
this conversation is getting tiresome.
How about we just concentrate on figuring out just what this thing is,
okay?”
“As you wish,”
Five replied, sounding disappointed. “It
appears to be a Borg data node.”
Euwess activated the lab computer. Almost immediately the Borg device lit up an
eerie green, Borg script appearing on a small monitor screen built into one
face of the device. “What’s a data
node?” she asked.
“A storage device.
Each drone, when they enter regeneration, download
all their information and experiences since their last regeneration into the
node, which buffers and analyzes it, retaining certain information like a
backup copy in case of a problem and uploading all of it to the central
computer aboard the drone’s ship for later assimilation by the Collective.”
“Like an isolinear optical data chip!” Euwess
remarked.
“Yes, essentially, but much faster and millions of times larger in
storage capacity.”
“Imagine if we
could install something like this into our computer core! It would increase the computer’s
computational capacity by thousands-fold.”
Five picked up a
nearby tricorder and started scanning the node.
“What are you
doing?” the Roden female asked.
“Attempting to
access the node, to determine if there is any relevant data contained within
that we should be made aware of.”
As Five continued
to scan, he suddenly frowned as if encountering something completely
unexpected, rescanning several sectors of the node’s memory core. He then glanced at Euwess,
who was talking to one of the lab technicians as she installed a testing device
on a large scanner to study another piece of the Borg technology that had been
beamed aboard, before putting down the tricorder and
grabbing the interface cable and ripping it out of the node, sending sparks shooting
across the lab table.
“Wyatt! What are you doing?!” Euwess
squeaked as Five started to lift the node off the
table, looking like he was planning to smash the device on the deck. In spite of her small stature, almost half of
the teenaged boy’s height, Euwess grabbed the node
and held it away from the former drone.
“But I only wish
to help!” Five insisted.
“You’ve helped
quite enough,” Euwess scolded. “Get out!”
“But…!”
“Get out of here
before I call security to lock you up in the brig!”
Five stared at Euwess for several seconds, mouth hanging open yet silent,
his eyes moving back and forth between the science officer’s
angrily twitching whiskers and the node she held in her claw-like hands. Finally, looking dejected, he turned and left
the lab. Euwess
looked at two technicians who had been silently watching the whole exchange and
said, “I don’t like the ideas that have somehow gotten into that kid’s head
since we found that Borg colony.”
* * * *
Captain’s log, supplemental:
Having collected as much data as we could
from NGC7072-IV, the Dauntless has departed the system and is heading at
warp five toward our next assignment.
However, it has come to my attention that not all the crew have mentally left the dead Borg colony behind.
“I’m not sure
what’s going on with him, Cap’n,” Chief Kyman was
saying to Captain Koester as he stood near the center seat on the bridge. “Five cancelled out on our weekly golf game on
the holodeck the other day, no explanation. I thought perhaps it was just that he was
starting to get bored by golf, so I offered to share a program I’ve been
writing to show him what my life among the Cherokee tribe was like 550 years
ago, but it seems like he’s become obsessed with all the Borg stuff we
salvaged. He’s even been barred from
several labs for trying to destroy a few items.”
“Has he told you
why he’s doing this?” Koester asked, looking up at the El-Aurian
man. Kyman
simply shook his head.
“Seems mum’s the
word with him right now. Doesn’t even want to talk to me.”
“I hope being in
proximity to so much Collective technology hasn’t somehow woken up the drone
within, if you know what I mean,” Koester remarked, only half-kidding. “I’d hate to find out too late he’d already
assimilated half the ship.”
“I’ll check on
him again after watch, Skip…,” Kyman was saying when
he was suddenly interrupted by an alarm on Lt. Riker’s ops console.
“Captain, I’m
reading power fluctuations in several key systems,” the bearded ‘transporter
clone’ reported.
“What kind of fluct…?” Koester started to ask when unexpectedly the lights
on the bridge dimmed and the Dauntless
dropped out of warp. “Report?” the
captain shouted.
“I’ve lost all
helm control except for maneuvering thrusters,” said Breitling.
“Weapons,
shields, external communication systems, and warp drive are down,” Riker added.
“Engineering to
bridge,” interrupted the voice of Chief Engineer Jeffery Bloom with
urgency. “Warp drive is off-line,
impulse speed is limited to less than one-third. We almost just lost anti-matter containment
down here. I’m re-routing emergency
power to maintain the magnetic bottles, but I don’t know how long I can hold
them!”
“This could be a
prelude to some kind of attack,” Koester said.
“Sound red alert!” But before the
alert could be sounded, another alarm emerged from McIntyre’s tactical console.
“Captain, I’m
detecting an unauthorized attempt to access the main computer core,” the Marine
security chief reported.
“Location?” Koester demanded to know.
Kyman had already rushed back to his console at mission ops
and quickly accessed the ship’s internal sensor logs. “Deck 9, section A-9. Confirmed, we have an intruder!”
“Colonel!” Koester said, turning toward his security chief.
“I’m on it,”
McIntyre said, tapping his combadge as he quickly
entered the turbolift. “I need security squads to converge on deck
9, section A-9. Intruder alert!”
“Understood,”
replied the voice of April Mendez.
“Squads Alpha and Bravo responding!”
* * * *
Five had spent
the last several hours trying to track his quarry, having started near the labs
on deck 4. Now, as he scanned with his tricorder, he started to believe he was nearing his goal.
The turbolift opened onto deck 9, and Five
stepped out, continuing his scan. He
looked up, noticing the flicker of the corridor lights above. He frowned, then
continued following the path his scan laid before him. A few meters down the corridor his scans led
him to an LCARS interface, the blank screen occasionally flashing a green alien
script for a millisecond at a time.
‘This has to end
here,’ Five thought to himself just before the
corridor lights went dark. It took
several seconds before lighting resumed at a more subdued level. Five looked back and forth along the
corridor, then touched the interface panel. The screen came to life, showing a mixture of
Starfleet LCARS and Borg script. A look
of determination on his face, Five extended the assimilation
tubules from his wrist and reached for the interface just as he started to hear
running feet approaching from both sides.
“FREEZE!” shouted
Lt Colonel McIntyre as ten weapons were aimed at Five. Shocked and frightened, Five
slowly raised his hands in surrender, the tubules withdrawing under the skin of
his arm.
Gunny O’Laughlin stepped over, forcing the boy down on his knees
as he placed Five’s hands behind his head.
Then, after a Marine corporal frisked him, O’Laughlin
brought each arm down behind Five’s back and cuffed them together with plastisteel straps.
“Take Mister Cerilli to the brig,” McIntyre ordered.
* * * *
The lights were
still at only half intensity when the heavy outer door of the brig slowly
opened to admit Chief Kyman. The COB checked in with the Marine stationed
at the security console in the center of the room, then walked over to the
glowing force field behind which Five of Twelve sat.
“Why’d you do it,
Five?” Kyman asked, drawing
the prisoner’s attention. Five, looking
hopeful for the first time since his arrest, rushed over to stand as close as
he could to the forcefield without touching it.
“It wasn’t me,
Chief!”
“Commander Bloom
and his engineers have been detecting modified nanoprobes
infecting every key system that has shut down, and you were found at a computer
core access with your assimilation tubules extended! Who else could have done it?” Kyman demanded to know.
“I was trying to
stop the spread of the infection, Chief,” Five insisted. “I figured out what killed the Borg colony on
NGC7072-IV. The probe ship was infected
with an anti-Borg computer virus, a virus designed to alter the Borg’s own nanoprobes, to turn their own technology against them! When I realized the infection originated in
several of the devices the crew were studying, I tried
to prevent it from spreading to the ship’s computer because I feared we would
suffer the same fate as the Borg, but I was too late!”
Kyman looked at Five, a dubious
expression on his bearded face. “Why
didn’t you just tell the Captain and the senior staff about your suspicions?”
he asked.
Five looked down
toward his feet, embarrassed, as he replied, “I’ve never felt like the crew
completely trusted me, like they do each other, and I was afraid my recent
behavior only reduced that trust.”
The chief
realized he could not argue that assessment, having developed some doubts of
his own about Five in recent days. As the teen looked up again, Kyman looked him directly in the eyes with a fatherly
expression and said, “Well, why didn’t you come to me then?”
Five looked back
at the chief with an expression that implied Kyman
should already have known the answer to his own question.
“Chief, you’re
El-Aurian.
With your past experience with the Borg, both personal and on a cultural
level, I…” Five hesitated for a moment
before finally concluding, “I didn’t think you would believe me.”
As Kyman looked at Five, speechless
and unsure what to say, the forcefield flickered
slightly before resuming.
“Brig to bridge,”
the Marine guard at the console said into the intercom. “Brig security systems just shifted over to
battery back-up. I’m reading only two
hours of power remaining.”
“We’re working on
it,” replied the voice of Lt Commander John Smith just as the brig door again opened, half the speed of when Kyman
entered, admitting Fleet Captain Koester, Lt Colonel McIntyre, and Captain
Mendez.
“I want to know
what you’ve done to my ship?” Koester demanded of Five. “And why? Systems are shutting down all over the ship,
one after the other, like light switches being turned off.” Five merely looked back at the captain, a
worried expression on his face.
“Come on, Five,” Kyman implored. “You’ve
got to tell them!”
“Tell us what,
COB?” Koester asked.
“I know what is
shutting down our systems, Captain,” Five finally said. “A computer virus from the equipment we
brought aboard has infected our systems.
I can isolate and eliminate this virus.”
“How?”
“By injecting
modified nanoprobes into the main computer core. These will seek out the infected systems and
repair them.”
Koester’s
expression grew angrier looking, if possible, as he said, “Mister Bloom and his
staff have reported the computer core is already crawling with Borg nanoprobes! They’re
destroying every system they invade, and Bloom has told me we have only one
hour to repair our systems or I’m going to have to order abandon ship!”
“Captain, this
computer virus was created as an anti-Borg weapon. It’s what destroyed that ship and killed
every drone in the colony we discovered.
I can stop it!” Five insisted.
“But only if you trust me!”
Koester turned
away from the cell door, exchanging looks with McIntyre and Mendez. After several seconds, he ordered, “Colonel,
Captain, escort Chief Kyman and Five of Twelve to
Commander Bloom in the core access room.
I’ll be back up on the bridge.”
“Aye, sir,”
McIntyre replied before nodding to the guard on duty, who lowered Five’s cell forcefield. “Come
on, Five, Chief.”
Several minutes
later, both Five and Kyman were standing with the
emotional Vulcan chief engineer in one of the access rooms of the ship’s main
computer core. Five explained what he
knew and what he wanted to do about it to the engineer.
“What do you
think, Commander?” Kyman asked. “Will it work?”
“Well, I’ve done
everything I can think of, and nothing has worked,” Bloom admitted
reluctantly. “If you think you can save
the ship, I’m willing to let you try,” he directed toward Five.
“I can’t
guarantee anything, Commander,” Five replied.
Bloom then looked over at the blonde woman standing next to him for her
opinion.
“I can’t see how
it could make things any worse, Commander,”
“Go ahead. Give it a try.”
Five smiled
slightly as he asked where the core was infested with the infected nanoprobes worst.
“Commander!”
“It’s working!”
Bloom exclaimed with a smile. “It’s
actually working!”
* * * *
Captain’s log, stardate
63698.4:
It took nearly twenty-four hours to repair
the damage the computer virus caused to the ship’s computer core, but after a
series of tests and simulations, Commander Bloom now assures me all systems are
back up and running at nominal efficiency and the ship is nanite-free,
since the nanoprobes Five of Twelve injected into our
core were programmed to deactivate themselves upon completion of their mission.
We very nearly lost the ship, all over a loss
of trust in several directions.
Koester,
commanding Dauntless, out.
A spontaneous
celebration had broken out in 10-Forward as the Dauntless got back underway, heading at warp for her next
assignment. The ornate wooden doors
opened up, admitting Fleet Captain Koester and Commander Alasdair Wallace. Almost immediately, both officers had tall
glasses of synthale thrust into their hands by a
passing waiter. As Wallace walked over
to the bar to exchange his glass for a hard cider instead, the captain walked
over to where Five of Twelve, Chief Kyman, and
several other members of the crew were seated.
“Good work,
Five,” he said after clinking his glass against that of Chief Kyman in way of a toast.
“Thanks to you, we now know what to look for in the Borg equipment we salvaged. Commander Windsor and Lieutenant Faggio are cleaning all traces of that nanite
virus out of the equipment right now.”
“Thank you,
Captain,” Five replied. “I know it took
a lot for you to trust me to do the right thing.”
Koester pulled
over another chair from a nearby table and sat down facing the teen boy.
“Five,” he
said. “It’s true that the Borg have been
a feared enemy for over twenty years, and that this mission stretched some
feelings to close to the breaking point, but I want to assure you of
something.”
“What’s that,
Captain?” Five asked.
“No matter how
difficult things may get, no matter what adversities we face, this crew does not look upon you as just a Borg
drone.”
“He’s right,” Kyman assured.
“Then what am I,
Captain?” Five asked earnestly.
Koester looked
the boy directly in the eyes as he answered, “A valued member of my crew.” Koester then raised his glass of synthale in another toast, prompting Five to display one of
his rare smiles.
The End
Return to 2386.
Return to Stories Archive.