The low hum of the deck plating faded as the Gel-Mann’s helmsman killed the impulse drive. The little Nova-class science cruiser was just compact enough to feel that sort of thing.
The planet drifted onto the main viewer, looking pristine and almost Earthlike. Ensign Robert Sparrow began working his science console. Captain Normandy didn’t need to give the order to start the scanning sequence; it had been an anxious weight on everyone’s mind since the mission began.
Sparrow’s thin hands practically shook with anticipation, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He was twenty-three years old, a mere ensign with almost no field experience and precisely zero combat experience. Somehow it felt wrong that he should be the one in charge of determining the presence or absence of the Federation’s most terrible nemesis.
The results of the preliminary scans began to flow down his monitor. At least he could be the first to let out a sigh of relief.
“The footprint’s there. They were here. But I’m not reading any life signs or active energy signatures indicative of technology.”
A wave of relief washed over the bridge. It was like someone had turned the temperature down five degrees.
Captain Normandy, an oddly grandiose man for a science officer, stood up and turned to Sparrow. “Thank you, Ensign. How long ago were they here?”
He quickly ran the footprint scans through the degradation algorithms. “The vanished cities have been gone for over twenty years. A few settlements are still standing, but—”
“No signs of sentient life,” Normandy finished. “Anywhere on the entire planet. They might have wiped out a whole species here.”
“Or we did,” said Gorski, the Gel-Mann’s wiry chief engineer. He was leaning against the wall at the far right side of the bridge.
Normandy scowled at him. “What do you mean by that, Lieutenant?”
“Well, if the entire species was assimilated, Captain, there’s a good chance they didn’t go extinct until the Janeway purge.”
“Borg are Borg, Mr. Gorski. The person a drone was before assimilation dies in the process.”
“All due respect, Sir, but you know that’s not true. Look at Seven of Nine. Look at Captain Picard. Look at—”
“Excuse me,” Sparrow said, realizing a moment too late that he had interrupted a superior. All eyes were on him. “I’m sorry, Sir. I just thought I’d point out that, um, all the evidence of civilization on this planet, destroyed or otherwise, is confined to one small region, there on the large continent. This was probably just a colony.”
“Oh,” said Gorski, nodding apologetically to his captain.
“In that case,” Normandy said, “we should send an away team to survey the intact ruins. Maybe we can determine who these people were.” Then he turned sharply to Sparrow. “And scan the surrounding space for derelicts or debris. Since the Borg never beamed from planet to planet, I think we can assume these people came here on a ship.”
“Aye, sir.” He called up the long-range sensor controls. His main science console allowed him to scan for a range of materials and other signatures that the ops and tactical stations weren’t programmed for. At first nothing seemed to stand out—nothing in the adjacent sectors but a planetless red giant and some dust. Except— “Captain, I think there’s something nearby.”
“Debris? Borg?”
“There’s a red giant a few light-years from here. Nothing around it but an asteroid belt, but I’m reading magnetic signatures of several artificial alloys somewhere in it.”
Gorski scoffed. “In the star?”
“What? No, in the asteroid belt.”
“What kind of alloys?” Normandy demanded.
“Tritanium, mostly. Consistent with Borg construction.”
“Well, it seems we’ll have to forego the survey of the ruins. Lieutenant, bring us into orbit around that red giant. Warp eight.”
It took only seconds for the ship to bank into the proper orientation, then the stars on the view screen blurred away from the center as the warp field solidified. The trip was minutes long, and soon the stars settled into normal stillness and a massive dim red spot filled the screen.
“Locate the source of the tritanium signatures. Tactical, stand by.”
“Working, sir,” Sparrow said. “It’s … it’s not a ship.”
“Debris?”
“No, I don’t think … Sir, it’s an asteroid. It’s big – three kilometres across, and it’s surface is crawling with Borg installations.”
“You’re sure it’s Borg?”
He nodded furiously. “It’s unmistakable at this range.”
“Damn,” said Gorski. “The Dominion intel was right.”
“Ensign, can you confirm that the installations are inactive?”
After a quick scan Sparrow said, “Yes, Captain. No life signs and no active machinery. There may be some computers running at low power, but it shouldn’t represent any danger; Borg electronics can’t function independently.”
There was another collective sigh of relief. Realizing there were no Borg in the area just never seemed to get old. Gorski spoke up after a moment.
“What is it?”
“What?” said Normandy.
“‘We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own,’” Gorski quoted. “Why would the Borg assimilate an asteroid? Where’s the distinctiveness there?”
“Run a more detailed scan, Sparrow. I want to know if there’s anything else of note in that rock.”
“Whoa,” Sparrow said.
“What is it?”
“Captain, there’s … something … something big in there.”
“What is it and why didn’t we detect it before?”
The readouts were erratic – nonsensical. Sparrow manipulated a few keys to resolve the statistics into an image. It was blurry to say the least.
“I have no idea. Whatever it is, it’s scrambling the sensors somehow.”
“What can you tell me about it?”
“It’s a roughly spherical area – or at least the disruptive field is – about 400 metres in diameter. It’s inside a cavern in the middle of the asteroid, like an air pocket. Without the air, I mean.”
“Weird,” said Gorski. “Very weird.”
“And do we think this is what interested the Borg? What drew them to this region?”
“They were definitely interested, Captain,” Sparrow said. “Most of the Borg installations on the surface extend straight down to the bubble. Maybe they were trying to get it out.”
“If they wanted it out, they would have just blown up the asteroid,” Gorski said. That’s what’s so weird about this. If they wanted to study it or assimilate it or whatever, where’s the sense in leaving it in there and digging down?”
“It does seem inefficient, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t seem like something the Borg would do.”
“We can get to it,” Sparrow said.
The others looked to him expectantly. Suddenly he felt more on the spot than ever.
“This hatch,” he said, highlighting the image of the little orifice on the main viewer. “It’s damaged. Probably in the Purge. We could rip it right off with a tractor beam. A shuttle could fit inside, and it’s basically a tunnel to the center.”
“Borg don’t use shuttles,” Normandy said. “Why would they build a tunnel like that?”
“Maybe they drilled in to get a probe inside.”
“Or maybe,” said Gorski, “they just sealed off a hole they found that came with the place.”
“Well, I suppose this is all academic at this point. Sparrow, Gorski, I want you two on the shuttle that heads in there.”
“Me, sir?” Sparrow said. “I’ve never flown a shuttle before – not outside of simulators.”
“Don’t worry,” Gorski said. “I’ll handle the controls. You just worry about the sensors.”
#
“Wait,” said Sparrow. “Why don’t we send a probe in first?”
“Relax,” said Gorski, as he steered the shuttle toward the open passage. “If anything dangerous was in there, we probably would have detected it when we popped the cork.”
“But whatever’s in there is invisible to sensors—”
“So what good would a probe do? This way we can see it with our own eyes, and maybe board some of the Borg stuff. And besides, the chamber itself is three times as wide as the blurry blob. We should have plenty of room to dodge lasers.”
“What about radiation?”
“One: we’re shielded. Two: we would have detected that.”
Sparrow reclined in his seat, defeated.
“I’ll say it again, kid: relax. It’s probably just a spatial anomaly or something. I’m sure the Borg were just curious.”
The shuttle’s running lights illuminated the tunnel around the little craft. It seemed disconcertingly long – despite Lieutenant Gorski’s disturbingly high speeds.
Finally the tunnel broke off and they emerged into a vast chamber. It was perfectly spherical, and nearly all of the rock walls were covered with dark, chaotic Borg technology.
“Jesus,” said Gorski. “What the fuck is that?”
Sparrow just stared.
Hovering in the center of the immense space, an object loomed, dark and also perfectly spherical. The shuttle’s lights lit the whole thing. Its surface was smooth, matte, yet it had a strange otherworldly sheen to it, almost suggesting transparency. Little grooves crisscrossed its surface, turning at right angles at seemingly random points. Sparrow saw nothing on it resembling writing or any identifying mark.
“What is it?” he finally said. “Is it … a Borg ship? A prototype or something?”
Gorski shook his head. “That material … that’s got to be a neutronium-based alloy. Way beyond Borg technology–unless you count the last five minutes, of course, but I think this place shut down a long time before that.”
“Neutronium? That would explain why we can’t scan it. Compensating for that will be tricky. Do you think the Borg were studying it?”
“If that’s what you call trying to assimilate it. Whoever built this is centuries ahead of us. Centuries ahead of the Borg. Good thing they didn’t manage to crack this eggshell, or we’d all be long since screwed.”
“I don’t see any markings on it. Or any access hatches, for that matter. Or windows, or weapons, or anything.”
“You sound like you’re already sure it’s a ship, Ensign. For all we know, it might just be a solid ball of very intimidating metal. But look at the Borg tech! I’m reading lasers, phasers, disruptors, plasma weapons … there are quantum drilling devices here like nothing I’ve ever seen. The Borg used everything in their arsenal to try to get inside that thing.”
“I guess they gave up on scanning it.”
“There are powerful sensors here, too, but I doubt they did any good.”
Sparrow reclined, defeated once again, this time by the sheer mystery of the scientific marvel before him.
#
When Gorski and Sparrow strode out of the turbolift back onto the Gel-Mann’s main bridge, Normandy and the rest of his bridge crew were already watching the video recorded by the shuttle.
“This thing is incredible,” Normandy said. “I’ve already spoken with Admiral Nechayev at Gamma One. We’re cleared to blow the asteroid to kingdom come and drag that thing back to base for study.”
Sparrow returned to his console. His function on this mission was complete. Now all that remained was to watch the show.
Intellectually he knew that nothing aboard the Gel-Mann, not even a warp core breach, could possibly damage the specimen, but he still had a nagging feeling that they weren’t dealing with it in a scientifically prudent manner. He cringed as the ship’s phasers cracked the asteroid apart, and he breathed a sigh of relief that the alien artifact remained exactly as it was. Gorski took control of the ship’s tractor beams to shepherd the asteroid fragments into the star. They’d been unable to retrieve any data from the Borg computers, so why keep around potentially dangerous technology?
Then the tractor beam was fixed on the mysterious dark grey sphere. And then the nightmare started.
