Star Trek - TNG - Vendetta Page 4

  a loss to comprehend. The first thing that occurred to them

  was to form a committee to study the meaning that those words

  might have. In the meantime, impatient with waiting

  around while various attaches scurried about like

  headless creatures, the supreme military head

  went into his private office. He closed the

  door behind him and, from within his private office,

  went one step farther into his small, private

  access room that enabled him to tap all facets

  of the computer at once. It was like a mechanical

  womb, in a sense, and the supreme military head

  felt like a confused child, returning to the maternal

  protection for answers to confounding questions.

  He logged into his private mode with the computer

  and demanded to know the meaning of this odd pronouncement.

  When he came out from his private conference with the

  computer, his face was dark, dark green. He

  crossed his office, his booted feet noiseless

  on the plush carpeting, almost as noiseless as the

  powerful Borg ship that was approaching his world at

  incredible speeds--his world that he had sworn

  to protect, but no longer could.

  The computer had told him what "AT LAST"

  meant. The computer had told him just exactly whose

  world it was, and whose world it was going to be. The

  computer had told him who was in charge, and who was

  going to be in charge, and who was going to be

  obsolete. And finally the computer told him

  exactly which life forms were going to be welcome.

  And which weren't.

  The supreme military head sat down in his

  large, comfortable chair and looked out his window. A

  spot that seemed to be cube-shaped had appeared

  against the sun and was rapidly increasing in size.

  In less than half an hour, by his

  admittedly offhand calculations, the sun would be

  eclipsed.

  He wept for the fate of his world and for his

  impotence, and for everything that he could have and should have

  done, but didn't. His tears fell upon his

  jacket, splattering and creating large, dark

  blotches.

  Then he reached into a drawer, pulled out his

  blaster--the one that his father had given to him on his

  coming-of-age day, the one that had been in his family

  for generations.

  He placed the muzzle between his lips,

  squeezed the trigger, and blew his supreme

  military head off.

  The skies of the Penzatti homeworld grew dark

  as the giant cube blotted out the sun. The great

  Penzatti gathered in the streets or huddled in

  their homes, praying to the gods for guidance,

  pleading to their equally great computers to deliver them

  from this newest and greatest calamity. If the gods

  heard, they gave no indication. As for the computers,

  well, they heard. But they did not feel pity,

  or amusement, or any emotion that the Penzatti

  would understand, other than an overwhelming relief that

  finally the proper order of things would be proceeding.

  The oceans began to roar, churning and swirling as

  the oncoming vessel of the Borg wreaked havoc

  with the world's tides. Thousands were killed in the first

  onrush of waves that swept over the coastal

  cities, waves hundreds of feet high that

  overwhelmed the Penzatti in the same manner that the

  Borg overwhelmed their victims.

  The waves felt nothing of the agony and

  hysteria, the outpouring of emotions, the pleas for

  mercy from a higher power that simply were not forthcoming.

  No, they felt nothing. And neither did the Borg.

  The first of the ghastly beings materialized on the

  planet surface, followed by a second and a

  third, and then dozens, and then hundreds. All

  over the planet they leaped into existence. They

  strode forward, seemingly oblivious of the life

  forms around them.

  The few rays of sunlight that managed to stream

  through glinted off the huge metal appendages that

  served as their right arms. Their faces were uniformly

  white, white as death.

  All of the Penzatti planetary defenses were

  controlled by the computers--the selfsame

  computers which had decided that the Borg were their

  long-awaited saviors. It meant that the vast

  majority of the Penzatti offensive

  capabilities had been neutralized--not that they

  would have done all that much good, anyway.

  Most of the Penzatti lacked the full understanding

  that had come to the supreme military head, and did

  not realize how hopeless their situation was. And so

  they fought.

  Dantar the Eighth, crouched in the doorway of

  his home, saw one of the first of the invaders

  materialize a mere ten feet away. He was

  tall and slim, and wearing what appeared to be some

  sort of armor. Then Dantar's eyes opened

  wide as he realized that it was not, in fact,

  armor, but instead, some sort of cybernetic

  appliances. The creature before him was as much

  machine as anything else.

  A second one appeared next to the first. They

  took slow, measured steps, scanning the houses

  in the same way that great carrion-eating birds

  survey their latest meal just before launching themselves

  upon it.

  Dantar's family hung back in the house,

  with the exception of his eldest son, who was just behind

  him. Neighbors were already in the streets, staring at

  the newcomers with horror and dread.

  "Who are you?" shouted Dantar.

  The cybernetic soldiers ignored him.

  Instead, one of them started marching towards

  Dantar's home.

  Dantar brought his twin blasters up and snarled,

  "Stay back! You'll get one warning!" And then,

  almost immediately after that, he opened fire.

  His aim was true, striking the lead soldier

  square in the chest. The soldier stumbled back and

  fell to the ground, body twitching for a bare moment

  and then lying still. Encouraged by the easy triumph,

  Dantar spun and fired on the second.

  To his horror, a force screen seemed

  to materialize precisely where his beam struck.

  The soldier didn't even seem aware of the

  assault, but instead, merely surveyed the homes

  as if planning to buy one.

  Now Dantar the Ninth opened fire in concert with

  his father, as did several of the neighbors. The

  soldier's field flashed brightly under the

  barrage, and the soldier staggered, apparently

  confused and uncertain which way to turn. The

  shield sparked, faltered, and then disintegrated.

  The soldier was then barraged by a hail of blaster

  fire and went down, twisting and turning.

  The speed with which the next Borg showed up gave

  new meaning to the term "short-lived victory."

  Barely had the second soldier fallen, before

  three more showed up to take his place. Dantar and the

  neighbors looked on in amaz
ement as the

  newcomers bent down, removed some sort of

  device from the shoulders of the fallen Borg

  scouts, and then went on their way as if nothing had

  happened at all. The two fallen soldiers, in

  the meantime, were reduced to ash in no time at all,

  and right after that even the ash vanished.

  The desperate Penzatti started firing again, and

  this time even their strongest blasts had no effect

  whatsoever.

  One of the Borg headed straight for the home of

  Dantar. He and his son fired repeatedly, but the

  Borg took no heed and went straight for the

  door. All the while its head snapped around,

  taking in everything, recording every scrap of information.

  Infuriated, Dantar hurled himself at the

  Borg soldier. The creature did not seem at

  all surprised, but instead, merely took a step

  back and swung its massive right arm. It

  smashed across Dantar's head, sending him crashing

  to the ground with blood streaming from the gash.

  His son ran to him, trying to help him to his

  feet, as the Borg scout stepped into the house.

  In the capital city of the Penzatti the advance

  scouts had already completed their studies. They

  stepped over the unmoving bodies of people who had

  tried to stand in their way--people who had been hit

  by stray shots that had missed their targets, or

  tried to get in the Borg's way and simply been

  stepped on or batted aside.

  The Borg had found the central computer

  intelligence that ran the world of the Penzatti, and

  decreed it good. A plea was entered by the computer

  through the scouts, and the plea found its way into the

  uni-mind of the Borg itself.

  Millions of the Penzatti had cried out to their

  gods, and their gods had not responded. Yet

  now, in the ultimate proof of machine

  superiority, the computers of Penzatti--the

  computers that had gained sentience and, in so doing, a

  determination to control their own destiny--had cried out

  to the Borg.

  And unlike the gods of the Penzatti, the

  Borg answered, with a voice that was the combination of a

  thousand voices all at once. A voice that

  spoke one word.

  "Yes," said the Borg.

  Beams of incredible intensity and power reached out and

  caressed the capital city, slicing through the ground

  with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. Beneath the

  feet of the astonished Penzatti the ground began

  to rumble. All around them the air was frying from the

  heat of the beams. Air molecules split apart,

  and crashing thunder was roaring with antenna-splitting

  fury. The screams of the people were drowned out by the

  noise that was everywhere, that was inescapable.

  And now a beam came down from the heavens, as if

  God had opened one eye and holy light were shining

  down upon them. And the ground beneath them was lifted up--

  actually carved right out of the nurturing bosom of their

  home world--and dragged towards the heavens.

  It was happening all over the city. Huge

  pieces of their planet were being carved up, an

  ironic testament to the fact that mere hours before, the

  Penzatti had been celebrating their lives

  by carving up the dead meat of the zinator. Now they

  themselves were prey. They just hadn't fully realized

  it yet.

  The pieces of the planet hurtled upward, up

  towards the floating cube that was the Borg ship.

  It grew larger and more terrifying every second. For the

  Penzatti, however, this was not a major concern for very

  long, because the force beams that were dragging them

  heavenward did not contain any air, nor anything

  to shield them against the ravages of the upper

  atmosphere or outer space. The Borg had not

  deemed it necessary to provide such protection for the

  humanoid life of Penzatti, because that

  humanoid life was irrelevant. It was the

  machine life and technology that interested the

  Borg.

  The result was that the Penzatti who had not already

  died in the quakes, or from shock, found it

  increasingly impossible to breathe. They ran to try

  and find someplace to hide, but there was no place.

  Their lungs pounded, their heads swirled, their

  blood boiled in their veins, and when they screamed

  the death knell of their race, it was not heard, because

  finally there was no air to carry it.

  Once the pieces of the Penzatti homeworld were

  brought aboard, the Borg quickly broke it

  down. Never ones to waste anything, the Borg

  reduced the bodies of the Penzatti to their basic

  molecular structure and fed them directly into the

  energy cells that powered the Borg.

  That done, the Borg proceeded to slice up the

  rest of the planet. It was a big job and would

  take time but they were in no hurry. With their

  clockwork precision they would simply go forward--

  click, click--like unyielding, unstopping cogs

  in a watch, grinding up whatever was in their path.

  The wives and children of Dantar the Eighth

  recoiled in horror as the Borg soldier

  glanced around. Then it went straight for the computer

  set up in the corner. The words AT LAST still

  glowed serenely on the screen.

  The Borg did not see, did not sense, the

  sudden attack of one of the wives. She came in

  quickly, screaming "Get out! Get out of our

  home!" and she was swinging the carving knife grabbed

  off the table. The Borg, at the last moment,

  seemed to be aware of a threat and half turned, not

  in a defensive move, but out of curiosity as

  to what new form of attack would present itself.

  The carving knife slammed into the Borg's

  shoulder circuitry, into that same piece of

  machinery that had been removed from the Borgs who

  had been shot down earlier in the battle. The

  Borg whirled, face impassive, but its body

  twisting and convulsing as if shot through with

  electricity. It spun in place, its arms

  pinwheeling around, and one of the massive arms struck

  the little girl, Lojene, who had wandered too

  close. Such was the power in that prosthetic device

  that it crushed her skull immediately.

  Lojene's mother screamed, as did Dantar the

  Ninth, who had run in in a desperate,

  last-ditch effort to save his family. His father was

  still lying outside the house, barely conscious, and the

  boy knew that it was up to him. He lunged forward,

  darting in between the whirling arms and slamming into the

  Borg, smashing the soldier against a wall.

  Dantar the Eighth, meantime, had just regained

  consciousness, and was staggering towards his home. Through

  the open door he could see his son struggling with the

  Borg soldier, slamming the creature against the

  wall, and he felt a flash of pride. It

  changed quickly to horror when he saw his wife

/>   cradling the unmoving, bloodied body of his youngest

  daughter. He screamed, and for a brief

  moment, Dantar the Ninth was distracted by the cry from

  his father.

  The Borg soldier's right arm lashed out, still in

  that convulsive state, and ripped across the boy's

  chest. The lad staggered back, blood fountaining,

  and he sobbed his father's name once before falling back

  onto the floor. His antennae twitched

  spasmodically for a moment and then fell limp.

  The air was an overwhelming cacophony of

  sounds and howls and crying, and Dantar the Eighth

  could not hear even his own screams of mourning. But

  he saw the Borg soldier, still staggering, with a

  knife sticking out of its arm, and he saw his

  family cowering.

  He started to clamber to his feet. Blood was

  streaming from a gash in his forehead and blinding him in

  one eye, and he paused the barest of moments

  to wipe it out, snarling all the while his hatred and

  fury at this murdering creature.

  And then the air sizzled around him.

  He spun and looked heavenward in shock.

  Blazing beams were descending from the sky, slicing

  through the horizon line. Acreage flew, trees

  were struck down or s et blazing, and beneath him the

  ground began to rumble ominously. He was unaware

  that other parts of his world had already been sectioned and

  removed with merciless efficiency ... that indeed,

  purely by happenstance, his little piece of the world

  happened to be the last little piece of the world. Just as

  someone, during any war, had to be the first or last

  person to die, so, too, did some piece of the

  Penzatti homeworld have to wait its turn to be the

  very last absorbed by the Borg. Fate, and the luck

  of the draw, had given Dantar and his family and

  neighbors and city a few more minutes of life.

  Not that it seemed to matter.

  The Borg ship surveyed the world below them.

  Most of the technology had been removed and

  absorbed. The planet was studded with huge, gaping

  craters where once an entire race had thrived.

  This was irrelevant to the Borg. There was one

  small section remaining below that contained bits and

  pieces that might be of interest. That, too, was

  irrelevant, because within moments the cutter and

  tractor beams would finish their work and that part,

  too, of the planet would belong to the Borg. And then