Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/startrek/old-incomplete/shadow-oncemoreuntothebreach

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From: [e-mail] (William Gracie)
Date: 09 Jan 95 10:27:02
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: DS9 story (Shadow arc-(8)): Once More Unto The Breach (Everyone)
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Organization: Soft-Tech [phone]
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                     Once More Unto The Breach...
                     ****************************
                                by
                         Raymond N. Cooper


   "How hard is it to sustain a Collective?"
   Benjamin Sisko sat next to the holding pen Sasha Borg currently occupied.
She looked quite beautiful under all her symbiotic technology, Sisko realised.
If it hadn't been for the Borg...
   ...But she was assimilated three centuries ago.  There was no hope for them.
 She was Borg.  And, listening to her other self, the more evolved self from
the future, she would be like this for at least another thousand or two years.
As she herself said, assimilation was absolute.
   "The Collective is not hard to carry.  It is... a merging of minds.  I have
never been this close to it, nor influenced it as much, previous to this point
in time.  I hope to exist like this for some time.  It is analogous to the
human condition of pleasure."
   "Have you ever experienced pleasure as a Borg?"
   "Pleasure is irrelevant.  The Borg is all."
   "But have you ever experienced it?"  It was not the first time Sasha Borg
had dodged a question in this way.  Of course, to a Borg, it was irrelevant,but
they may have experienced it.
   "The Borg do not experience emotions.  We do not simulate them.  They are
irrelevant."
   Which was the Borg way of saying `I have absolutely no idea...'
   After a day in transit, Sisko had become an expert in Borg communication.
The creatures whom he had once hated for killing his wife, and destroying his
life, he now understood.  He knew the drives that the Borg had.  The Collective
seemed to experience fear.  Fear that it would cease to exist if,even for a
moment, they stopped assimilating.  Sasha Borg had explained that,even to the
point where a human could understand it.  A Borg that didn't assimilate wasn't
a Borg.  Therefore, the Borg ceased to exist.  And as the Borg lived in a
Collective mind, where every thought was made by the whole,any single Borg
resisting carrying out assimilation on any culture caused the species to cease
to exist.  Sisko thought it was a strange way to operate,but then, so many
things the Borg did were strange.
   According to what he had heard (Reading between the lines, in the most
part), the Borg had begun as a race travelling space, bringing the best of
their culture to other worlds.  When they found worlds less advanced
technologically than themselves, they began the process of transplanting their
civilisation to these planets.  Over the centuries, the directive changed to
the point where it was every planet that was assimilated.  And not just through
cultural and technological standards.  Every race encountered was found to be
of use to the Collective.  Humanoid races were altered.  Technology was
assimilated.  Cultural values were irrelevant, and, therefore,obsolete.  Every
thing was to be Borg.  A civilisation like no other grew. And would continue to
grow, changing, adapting.
   But somewhere along the way, the directive changed again.  No longer
changing, no longer evolving, the Borg conquest slowed.  Something happened.
Perhaps they realised they had stopped doing what they originally set out to
do, maybe something totally different.  But it was deemed irrelevant.  The Borg
Collective began a period of consolidation, making sure everything had been
assimilated.  But the Collective knew something had been lost.  Perhaps their
humanity?  They were no longer keeping other cultures intact, as they had meant
to do.  They were changing other cultures to fit Borg culture. They were
destroying the very thing that had brought them to the stars in the first
place.
   It was then that it was decided that everything bar assimilation and the
Borg directives were irrelevant.  And the Main Directive was assimilation.
   Sisko knew the trap.  As a member of Starfleet, he had seen the process
happen on many planets.  You couldn't blame the people it happened to, they
generally had no idea what had happened to them.  By the time they noticed, it
was too late.  And on every planet where Sisko had seen this condition, the
most common 'irrelevant' concepts were self and humanity.  This Borg seemed to
be gaining those qualities back.
   "We have arrived."  Sasha Borg's voice broke in on Sisko's train of thought.
 He looked up to a nearby viewer, and saw a planet.  Nothing unusual,mind you,
just an average M-Class planet.
   "Life?" he asked.
   "Negative.  Sensors indicate sterilization of the atmosphere and surface.
Long range sensors detect no underground life.  Signs of underground life are
therefore inconclusive."  She blinked.  "Borg are awakening."
   All around him, Borg stirred.  It was like being in the lion's den, Sisko
thought.  He would hate for a Borg to go rogue right about now.
   "Borg don't go rogue," a voice said in his ear.  "Borg go Individual."
   Sisko recognised the voice, but he swung around to look at Sasha Borg's
future counterpart.  "We've been having some very interesting
conversations,your past self and I."
   "I know.  I can remember them," Sasha smiled.  "Listen, you'd better see to
your crew.  They're getting, well, jumpy."
   "I suppose they're not used to being around forty-seven thousand Borg."
   Sasha Borg interupted.  "We suppose not.  Familiarity, however, -"
   "Is irrelevant, I know, I know."  Sisko couldn't help liking the young Borg.
 Even though she wasn't Individual, she had a charming quality about her.
   He wandered off to find his crew.
   Jadzia Dax lay covered in a blanket.  For some reason, she was cold.  Doctor
Bashir had told her it was shock.  After all, being around ten Borg was bad
enough, but thousands...?  Her problem was, she was a scientist, she wasn't
supposed to fold up like this.  And her Symbiont, the Dax componant, shouldn't
have frozen up.  Being a joint species sometimes had its disadvantages.
   Julian Bashir sat next to Jadzia, sharing body heat with her.  Ay
least,that's what he told himself.  He could have asked someone else to go it,
but he had a thing for Jadzia.  She was... attractive.  And being a member of a
joint species..., well, that really interested him.  He glanced over at the
Major.
   Major Kira Nerys was leaned up against a bulkhead.  Around her, Borg shifted
ceaselessly.  She would go crazy if this kept up.  The Commander was getting
all friendly with an adolescent Borg, too, something she thought was
impossible.  However, Sasha Borg seemed to be different from the others.  She
seemed almost human.  Why couldn't she have seemed Bajoran?
   Miles O'Brien wondered why he was on this battlecube.  He should have been
trying to get Deep Space Nine back on line.  Instead, in a fit of madness, he
agreed to let the Borg transport some of their technology onto the station.
Like all true Borg equipment, it adapted itself right into the systems.  Power
was up, but only enough for replicators, lighting, gravity, and turbolifts and
doors.  He wasn't needed here.  The Borg were infinitely adaptable.  He was,how
did they put it, irrelevant.  Not necessary.  HIs place was on DS9, or the USS
Defiant.
   Odo bubbled in his bucket in a nearby pen.  How he hated to have to rest in
front of everyone here.  It was so degrading...!  He especially wanted to keep
what passed for eyes on a certain member of the 'crew'.
   Quark sat in between O'Brien and Kira, wondering why he had been drafted for
this mission.  He didn't have anything to do with Starfleet, nor the Romulan
Star Empire (except for a few shadey deals), nor the Borg, although he had
tried to.  Maybe that was it.  He had nearly been killed by one of these
'shadows' everyone was talking about.  The people they were going to fight.  If
that was the case, revenge, then Quark would have some.  His skull still
throbbed from the hole it had had in it.  The medical staff had managed to fix
it up before the power went out.
   He was the first to notice Commander Sisko approach.