441 A Borganizing Operation
Agent Keyla loved her new uniform and the equipment she had access to. She felt like a real soldier that had the job of saving the United Federation of Planets from their enemies, both foreign and domestic. Her troops looked identical to her and she had to admit that they all looked sexy and deadly.
“Now remember. As long as you don't attack anyone or cause damage to the ship, the Borg will completely ignore you. You are not a threat to them until you make yourself into a threat.” Tom told them and they nodded. “However, you must keep an eye on them. Make sure that if they do discover you or turn to attack you, hit your personal transporters and get back here to the ship.”
“Aye, sir.” Keyla and the Chappels responded and saluted.
Tom tapped his comm badge. “Riker to bridge.”
“Commander Chappel here, go ahead.”
“What's our ETA to leave the transwarp tube?” Tom asked.
“We're taking a longer route to keep our path from being discovered.” Chappel answered. “We're currently shadowing a Borg Cube that's skirting their territory.”
“No attempts to hack into it?” Tom asked.
“No, sir. Even cloaked like we are, they would detect the signal as soon as it was generated.” Chappel responded. “We've switched targets three times to keep from being detected, assuming they scan in any other spectrum than the ones we have on file.”
Tom smiled. “That's great, Commander. As soon as the Borg drops out of transwarp or you see an exit near another cube or infected planet, let us know and drop us out of transwarp.”
“Yes, sir. I expect another fifteen minutes. Bridge out.”
“All right, we'll be deploying you and your strike team soon.” Tom told Keyla and she gripped her gun's grip a little tighter. “You have almost a hundred hours in Borg ship simulations, Keyla. Stay on guard and let your knowledge and your team guide you.”
“Yes, tense and not stiff.” Chappel said and reached over and patted Keyla's shoulder. “The Borg don't feel fear, remorse, or camaraderie. We can slip a few drones away from them without them noticing the first few times. After that, we need to be a little more careful.”
Keyla nodded and took a breath, then let it out. Her heart was beating a little faster and she didn't bother trying to calm it down. She needed her adrenaline flowing to get her though the mission and she was not going to disappoint herself by not keeping her wits about her when in enemy territory.
“Bridge to Riker.” Chappel's voice came out of Tom's comm badge.
Tom tapped it. “Riker here. Go ahead, Commander.”
“We're diverting from the cube to an exit. Long range sensors detected a planet and a moon covered in Borg technology in the next system. We're leaving transwarp in 3, 2, we're out.”
Keyla saw Tom's head twitch, even though she didn't feel the ship transition. It took her a moment to realize why when she remembered Lwaxana's debriefing. Now she knew why she was allowed to sit in on that meeting and she also knew that Tom had just detected however many millions of connected minds that were close by.
“Your main mission is the same, since the Borg don't build different buildings to handle different things. They are all the same, just like their cubes.” Tom said and the Chappels nodded. He looked at Keyla and smiled. “Good luck and stay safe.”
“Yes, sir. I have no problems following that order, sir.” Keyla said and returned the smile.
Chappel beside her chuckled and clapped her shoulder briefly.
Keyla nodded to her and looked at the others. “Move out! We have Borg to liberate.”
The Chappels saluted her, saluted Tom, then marched out of the armory.
Keyla gave Tom one last look and then followed her squad of trained guards down the hallway to the crew transporter. She knew the ship would phase and enter the closest atmosphere, either the small moon or the planet, and it would become their launching platform.
Beverly Crusher was in sickbay and was ready to start working on the people Keyla's team would send back to the ship and the large medical team. There wasn't much they could do with the vat grown drones, though. They had no inherent knowledge or could function without the Hive Mind of the Borg, so they would be deactivated and their mechanical parts recycled inside an industrial replicator.
The team beamed down into what looked like an industrial complex. Since all the building were the same, it didn't matter what one they chose to infiltrate. They picked the closest one and waited for the group of Borg walking around to pass before they entered. The group was too large and too closely grouped together for them to isolate one to send back to the ship.
One of the Chappels took out a silent tricorder and scanned the door. Nothing appeared, like a defensive shield or small phaser banks, and she nodded at Keyla. Keyla nodded back and she used the tricorder to simulate a Borg's neural implant's signature. The door opened and the whole team entered and Chappel stepped through with the signal.
The door closed behind her and they moved off through the tight hallways that a single Borg would have trouble navigating, if it didn't have ingrained instructions on how to move around. They made their way towards the closest Borg signal and found one standing inside an alcove. It was in charge mode and Chappel checked it to see it was halfway through its charging cycle.
She motioned for them to move on to the next target, since pulling a Borg out before they finished charging would alert the Hive Mind that something was wrong with an interrupted cycle. It didn't take long before they found another Borg walking around by itself. A signal check let them know it didn't have any specific instructions and Chappel nodded. They now had their first customer.
They didn't block its way and only walked with it until it was out of sight of the many monitoring devices, then they placed a beacon onto its back. It disappeared in a swirl of teleportation energy and the team exchanged smiles. One down, several hundred in the building to go. Once they had one building sufficiently reduced in numbers, they would move on to another one to continue their mission.
*
Beverly Crusher missed this aspect of her last job. Saving people. She knew she had a dauntless project ahead of her, since there were billions upon billions of Borg to save; but, she took Tom's advice. She wasn't trying to save all of them, she was only trying to save the one in front of her. As long as she did that, something she considered a simple task, she would be happy with what she was doing.
She relaxed and the Chappels around her and the medical doctor from the Hera noticed the difference. She shared Tom's words with them and they all gave her happy smiles. It was such a neat way to look at their nearly impossible task that they all soon lost themselves in their work of removing components, growing new parts or regenerating missing parts, then closing up their patients.
They only worked for two hours and the away team was beamed back for an hour rest and to relax from being inside such a hostile environment. Some used the holodeck, some visited friends, some had specific fun, and some ate and chatted with others. That seemed to make the whole experience into a normal occurrence and it quickly became a routine that they fell into and enjoyed, even Agent Keyla.
She hadn't realized that a specialized mission could be done like that. Breaking it up into many smaller incursions, made it a much less terrifying prospect and she started looking forward to moving to the next building to start whittling down the Borg even more. She was really doing something important and she thanked her luck and her foresight for allowing her to meet up with Thomas Riker.
*
Starfleet Command's upper officers, Admirals, Rear Admirals, and Vice Admirals, met in a not so secret meeting room and brought many mission reports and incident reports with them. They had a lot to discuss about recent events, which consisted of Thomas Riker and the many events he was causing, just from his existence.
“I call this meeting to order.” A grizzled old man said and rapped his knuckle onto the large conference table. “Are we all ready to tackle this mess?”
The Vice Admiral running the Starfleet Shipyard Operations let out a sigh. “My people have been screaming at me to somehow get that ship that shouldn't exist to come here to Earth.”
The Rear Admiral from the Engineering Corps nodded. “These reports are both ridiculous and have my own people salivating over getting their hands on such advanced technology. Just observing it has given them many ideas...”
“I want that ablative armor.” The Admiral from Starfleet Material Supply Command stated. “Whoever added it into our tech database is a goddamned genius. A solid energy construct that aborbs energy to absorb damage? It's both unheard of and revolutionary.”
“The emitters alone could advance our tech base by a few decades.” Engineering said. “Replicators, holodecks, hell, even our normal material production.” He lifted the report from the Hekaras Sector's brand new starbase that none of them knew about. “The industrial replicators they have can handle an insane amount of energy to produce entire hull plates that can be floated out into space and easily attached.”
“They've already finished the outside of the station?” Shipyard asked.
“Yes, Mr. Data's estimation of how long the thing took to build was a gross exaggeration.” The Admiral at the head of the table said and turned on the large viewscreen at the end of the room. “This is the accelerated scans edited together to show the progress of the station's construction.”
Everyone in the room stared at the Stardate marked in the upper right corner and watched as the entire superstructure was build in a fast forward motion, then the upper mushroom part was sealed and covered in hull plates.
“Those dates have to be faked! It's not possible to build that much of a spacedock in only a week!” Shipyard exclaimed.
“It's not faked. I checked. These scans are confirmed by several federation scientists on the planet's surface and corroborated by a few smaller inter-system ships. The navigation beacons registered the thing's initial construction phase right away and after another week, the station is finished on the outside.”
“Wait, did you say just the outside is done?” Engineering asked.
“Yes, the inside was left as bare bones with everything wired up and essential consoles in place. The station was passed into the Hekaras people's authority and they were told to decorate it however they wanted, since the plans were left inside the industrial replicators.”
Everyone at the table looked at each other. None of them, especially the people in the Engineering department, ever thought about only doing just the essentials to get the station functional and to let the next set of engineering and design teams worry about making the thing look pretty. It was such a simple way to look at it that they wondered why none of them ever thought about doing it that way before.
“Have we sent them a request to borrow one of those replicators?” Shipyard asked.
The head Admiral chuckled. “Everyone's sent them a similar request, and by everyone, I mean everyone.”
A few of the other admirals let out groans.
“They've already had several unofficial visits from several major powers.” Operations told them and showed the small list on the viewscreen.
“The Ferengi and the Romulans? Really?” Command asked.
“The Romulans only sent a scout ship, almost like a test of the station's response. They were suckered into the Hekaras Corridor deception as well, just like the USS Enterprise was.” Ops answered.
The same admirals sighed at being reminded of that. It was embarrassing to have such a small ship handle their flagship so easily and they used Starfleet's procedures against them.
“Like all of you, I'm sorry Captain Picard's ploy didn't work.” The head Admiral said. “We could have had access to that ship and the wealth of knowledge it contains.”
“The android's paperwork went through without anyone flagging it.” The Admiral from Starfleet Personnel commented. “Why no one made note of the thing's exception to our laws, is beyond me.”
“Your predecessor did note it, only with him retiring, all of his standing policies were set aside because they weren't official.” The head Admiral responded. “As the situation currently stands, he's treated as a normal member of the Federation and Starfleet and has all rights and privileges thereof.”
“He should have been given the same treatment as Thomas Riker, their appearance being their birth date, despite the body they're in.” Personnel said.
“He was.” Command said. “His childhood was very short and then he went to the academy. He stayed for the full term and then was shuffled off to several ships that treated him like a novelty and not a Starfleet officer.”
Personnel sighed as the Command Admiral hit several buttons to show the many reports of Data complaining about his treatment that Personnel's predecessor ignored. He didn't need the reminder.
“According to records, he was found and activated in 2338 and it is now 2369, almost 2370. Data is, by all accounts, an adult.” Command said.
“It's a machine, even if it's not considered Starfleet property.” Personnel grumbled.
The head Admiral sighed. “We're not going to get anywhere if this keeps coming up.”
“Thomas Riker's records have been fixed, even if they are only addendums and not reversals of the decisions made in his case.” Command added. “All he has to do is report in at any Starfleet starbase to take the command exam to prove he has what it takes to lead, and he'll be granted a Commodore rank.”
“That's against my filed protest.” Personnel said.
“Your predecessor made a mistake by not taking the transporter clone's existing memories into account.” Engineering put his opinion in.
“Again, we're not getting anywhere if we keep repeating ourselves. That was resolved and you will all drop it.” The head Admiral said and gave Personnel a glare. “Am I understood?”
Personnel clamped his mouth shut on his retort to Engineering and nodded.
The head Admiral relaxed slightly and nodded, then turned to the only admiral that hadn't spoken yet. “Special Operations are your specialty, Admiral. Since we all agree that Tomas Riker is a special case, what do you have to say about the starbase development?”
“By how it was handled, this is not the first time it's been done.” Special Ops responded and hit several buttons in front of him to change the viewscreen. “It's also not the only thing he's doing.”
Everyone turned to look at the screen and caught their breath. On the screen was a very detailed scan of the inside of a Borg Cube ship, the superstructure, the reactors and generators, data nodes, warp cores, and what was consider the central nervous system that connected all of the Borg to each other and to the essential systems inside the cube ship.
“This is a map of something called transwarp conduits that were located at the edge of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants that the Borg used.” The man said and changed the screen to show several ends near federation space where several unexplained attacks had happened.
“The Borg are invading?!?” Personnel gasped and stood, his body shaking.
“No, they aren't.” Special Ops said and the screen changed to show there was only a single conduit left and the rest were all collapsed. “This is what it looks like now.”
“How?” Several of the men asked.
The screen changed and showed the USS Retaliation as it fired odd-colored torpedoes at the junction inside one of the conduits and saw it collapse the end and it looked like there never was one there to begin with.
“We need that ship.” The head Admiral said and everyone nodded. “We will be very diplomatic about it as we send out every available ship we have to search for them to deliver a message that we'll spread as far as possible through subspace.”
“And what's the message?” Personnel couldn't stop himself from asking.
“We sincerely apologize for everything. Please come home.” The Admiral for Special Operations said and every other head in the room nodded.
Personnel knew he was outvoted, so he sighed and nodded, too.