Star Trek: The Next Generation: Vendetta Read online

  The guards paused, and for one brief glorious moment, the Daimon thought they were about to obey him. Then he realized that they were merely stopping to chortle, to enjoy the pathetic state that he had been brought down to.

  “Please,” whispered Turane, staring down the barrel of their weapons. “Please…”

  It was at that moment that three Borg soldiers converged on the area.

  They ignored Turane, for he was lying inoffensively on the floor. For that matter, the guards simply assumed that the semi-mechanical beings were just going to bypass them as well. So it caught them completely flatfooted when the foremost Borg soldier reached out and grabbed the nearest of the guards with the clawed grabbing end of its mechanical appendage.

  The Ferengi guard tried to bring his blaster up to defend himself but he was too slow. A bolt of blue electricity ripped from the Borg’s arm, lancing through the Ferengi’s, causing him to quiver and shake in the creature’s grasp. His skin charred and he opened his mouth, but no scream managed to escape from him. His eyes widened, and the corridor filled with the unpleasant odor of burning flesh.

  With perfect precision the Borg dropped the Ferengi the moment the guard had become a lifeless sack of flesh instead of a living being, and turned towards the second guard, trapping him between the other two oncoming Borg. The Ferengi whirled and fired, and his blast caught one of the other two Borg square in the chest. The Borg went down without a sound and, hopes momentarily buoyed, the Ferengi fired on the second one. This time, though, the blaster bolt cascaded harmlessly off a personal shield.

  The Ferengi tried to readjust, kicking the power level up, but was too slow. One of the Borg swung its metal arm with incredible force and, with one blow, crushed the delicate cartilage of the Ferengi skull. The guard went down, blood trickling from his nose and large ears, moaning softly for a moment before his voice became a rattle in his throat.

  Daimon Turane looked from one dead guard to the other and wondered bleakly how long it would be before he followed them into oblivion. The standing Borg soldiers turned and Turane braced himself, waiting for some sort of attack, for those awful metal appendages to reach out and destroy him.

  And the Borg ignored him.

  For one insane moment he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted. After all, they’d spent time and energy dispatching lowly guards. Was he, the Daimon, worthy of less consideration than that? Then he realized that such thinking might indeed be indicative of someone who had lost his mind.

  The Borg, for their part, set about their work, and Daimon Turane realized that they were repairing the shattered power units that the guards had destroyed. It was then that he realized what had happened. The Borg hadn’t shown up for the purpose of protecting him, or even just attacking potential threats. Instead, they had eliminated the aggressive guards for the simple reason that they were disrupting the smooth functioning of the Borg ship. Once the disruption was gone, there was no need—as far as they were concerned—to pursue any further action.

  “Listen to me,” said Turane quickly, trying not to stumble over the words. “Listen. I am Daimon Turane of the Ferengi. I want to speak to your leader. I…I believe that we can do some business together.”

  One of the Borg soldiers had picked up the fallen one and walked over to some sort of horizontal wall receptacle. The insensate Borg soldier was placed into the receptacle, which slid noiselessly shut. The Borg soldier then paused, its clawed appendage clicking for a moment, the servos on its head swivelling, as if in thought.

  “I have a great deal to offer you,” said Turane. By now he had pulled himself to his feet, trying to assemble some measure of his shattered confidence. He was aware that he was in an extremely bad bargaining position, which was never a good way for a Ferengi to begin a deal. He couldn’t very well return to his ship, considering the reception that he would probably get. The last thing that one ever wanted to admit to a potential customer, though, was that the customer had the upper hand in any way. “A great deal,” he said again. He cleared his throat and said, rather pompously, “I am a Daimon, you know. Daimon Turane of the Ferengi. In addition to my own rank and station, I have a brother who is on the council itself. That, I tend to think, gives you an idea of my importance.”

  He stood there with arms folded, waiting for a response. He got nothing. One of the Borg soldiers simply turned and walked away. The other remained in its place, relays still clicking, as if receiving a transmission from somewhere.

  “I said,” repeated Turane a bit more impatiently, “that I have a great deal to offer you.”

  There was a long, awkward silence, and Turane wasn’t sure what he was going to do if the Borg just left the way the previous one had. Would he simply wander the ship for the rest of his life, ignored, frustrated? Relegated to some sort of non-person status? Unable to get a response other than to be destroyed when interfering with some sort of ship function? What sort of destiny was this? He, Daimon Turane, was intended for greater things.

  “Answer me, damn you!” shouted Turane. “I am a Daimon of the Ferengi, and live or die, I will not be ignored! Do you hear me? I will not!”

  And for the first time, the Borg soldier actually fixed him with a glassy stare. There was no sound of acknowledgment, no verbal greeting, but it was clear that, for the first time, the Borg was actually aware of his presence as an individual. All of a sudden he wasn’t sure that that awareness was necessarily a good thing.

  The Borg turned and started to walk away. Turane remained where he was, uncertain of how best to proceed. Then the Borg stopped in its tracks, turned, and faced Turane once more. This time the message was unmistakable. The Ferengi was to follow.

  “All right,” said Turane, with some measure of satisfaction. “This is the sort of cooperation that can only be profitable for all of us.”

  He followed the Borg soldier, who preceded him with a stiff-limbed walk. Turane looked around him as they went farther and farther into the heart of the Borg ship. The place was a complete maze. If he needed to find his way back, he never would be able to. And he sensed that every square inch of the ship was being used for some specific purpose. Absolutely nothing was being left to waste. There was no need for pictures or sculptures to break up the decor, or for differently colored walls, or for anything other than total machine-precision. There was a certain…inevitability about it all. As if anything caught up in the great gears of the Borg mentality would be unceasingly, irrevocably ground up and pulped into its essence.

  There was a steady humming in front of him that was getting louder and louder as he approached it. A power source, perhaps? Or something more? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything, really, except that matters were spiralling out beyond his ability to control them.

  First officer Martok drummed his fingers impatiently on the arms of the command chair. The rest of the bridge crew waited for some sort of move on his part, some indication of his intentions.

  “Raise them,” he said finally. “They’ve been silent for too long.”

  “No response, sir,” said the tactical officer after a moment. “Not from Daimon Turane, nor Darr, nor any of the guards.”

  Martok nodded slowly.

  “I was afraid of that,” he said. “It may be that Daimon Turane has met with a…mishap.”

  It seemed to stretch out forever.

  Turane stood on a ledge that overlooked what appeared to be some sort of massive power core. The angles were confusing, the depth difficult to register, but he was certain that he was perceiving something that was miles wide and miles deep. There were Ferengi legends of a great pit that led to a netherworld, down to which all Ferengi would be hurled at the end of their lives. Waiting in that pit was a great entity which would study the amount of business conducted in the recently deceased’s lifetime, and whether that life had ended on the profit or debit side. The fate for all eternity would then be determined. Turane had the hideous feeling that he was facing that judgment prematurely…o
r perhaps it wasn’t premature. Maybe he was dead and just hadn’t acknowledged it yet.

  Borg soldiers now stood on either side of him, facing the great presence. Yes, definitely, there was some sort of presence there.

  And when it spoke to him, it seemed to echo not only in his ears, but in his mind.

  “We are the Borg,” it announced. It wasn’t one voice. It was the voice of thousands combined. And it seemed to speak, not just from within the ship, but from somewhere beyond that, as if the ship were channeling only some sort of greater intelligence.

  Turane nodded slowly. In this, the most incredible situation he’d ever been in, he found his thoughts spinning back to the most elementary lessons he’d ever had in business dealings. Never let them see you’re uncertain. Never act as if you’ve been caught unawares. Always act as if you’re two steps ahead of the proceedings, even if you’re three steps behind. Confidence is everything. Arrogance is everything. Any deal can be consummated if you act as if any deal can be walked away from.

  “And ‘we’,” said Turane, drawing himself up, “are Daimon Turane of the Ferengi. If you want expertise on the science of the deal, and are interested in chatting with one of the most accomplished negotiators in the Ferengi empire, then I can be of use to you. If you are interested in discussing some sort of deal—”

  “Deal is irrelevant,” boomed the voice of the Borg. Turane tilted his head slightly. “I hardly think that the science of the deal—”

  “Deal is irrelevant,” came the implacable voice. “Science is irrelevant. What you think is irrelevant. We will use you.”

  “Use me?” said Turane.

  “We had a voice,” said the Borg. “A link to humans. That link was severed. We will use another link. A voice to speak for the Borg. The previous link was too strong-willed. We will use someone more easily controlled.”

  “Who was your link?” asked Turane. Somehow he wasn’t really expecting an answer.

  To his surprise, he got one. “The link was Locutus. Before he was Locutus, he was Picard.”

  “Picard?” gasped Turane. “Jean-Luc Picard…of the Enterprise? And he was your spokesman?”

  “He malfunctioned. He will now be replaced.”

  “Spokesman,” said Turane thoughtfully. “Yes, I rather like the sound of that. To return to the Ferengi, with your might behind me…yes. Yes, I think we can do business together.” A slow smile spread across his face as he contemplated the reaction of his accursed brother when he, the despised Turane returned, backed up by the power of the all-powerful Borg. “Of course, we have to discuss terms…”

  “Terms are irrelevant.”

  “Now wait a—”

  “Discussion is irrelevant. You will be our voice. You will ‘sell,’ as you phrased it. You will tell humanoids that they must bow to the Borg. That they must surrender to the Borg. That the way of the Borg is the only way.”

  “That’s all fine,” said Daimon Turane. “But there has to be something in it for me. As long as we come to an understanding about—”

  “Understanding is irrelevant.”

  “But I have needs—”

  “Needs are irrelevant.”

  With mounting fury driven by rapidly spiralling fear, Turane said, “All you’ve discussed is what you want. What about me?”

  The response was not altogether unexpected; however, that made it no less chilling.

  “You are irrelevant.”

  Chapter Six

  “My God,” whispered Deanna. “Look at it.”

  They had seen examples of the Borg’s handiwork before, but it never failed to be an impressive and totally horrifying sight. There, in front of them, was a planet that once had been home to a sprawling civilization. Now it sat there, looking lifeless, gutted and pitted as if a giant ice cream scoop had come down and served out huge dollops of the planet.

  “The rescue ship Curie is in orbit around Penzatti, sir,” Worf said. “Receiving an incoming transmission from Dr. Terman.”

  “On screen.”

  Picard was familiar with Terman’s work, and with Terman himself. Although Terman carried the flag rank of Commodore, he rarely used the rank (except when forced to pull it) himself and always preferred to be addressed as “Doctor.”

  “The rank was given me,” Picard had heard him quoted as saying once, “but I had to work for the damned doctoring degree.”

  Whenever there was immediate need for rescue services, Terman and his people seem to appear with almost preternatural timing. Some said Terman had a low-grade telepathic ability that unconsciously tipped him to trouble spots. He simply called it dumb luck.

  The screen flickered a moment, wiping away the hideous spectacle of the Penzatti and replacing it with the lined, graying face of Doctor Terman. Picard knew immediately what was going through the man’s mind. Terman was too much the veteran to allow any outward display of emotion, but the haunted expression in his eyes upon coming face to face with the horrific power of the Borg…

  Picard knew that haunted look. It was in the eyes of the image that stared at him every morning from the mirror when he shaved.

  He forced himself into his full business mode. “Doctor, what is your review of the situation?”

  Terman nodded his head in the general direction of the planet below. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “Twice,” said Picard. “Two more times than I would have liked.”

  “This planet has had it,” said Terman. “I’ve had my people run a projection.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if to physically shove his brain into operational mode. Picard suspected the man hadn’t slept in days. “The amount of mass removed from the planet has irrevocably altered the orbit, not to mention the fact that chunks of its atmosphere were ripped away. This place is going to go from vacation spot to frozen snowball.”

  “Shall we commence emergency evacuation procedures?” asked Picard. Numerically it would not be a problem. The Enterprise, in a pinch, could handle as many as nine thousand evacuees.

  “If you recommend it.”

  Picard gave it a moment’s thought. “How long before the orbital changes impact on the climate?”

  “Oh,” Terman gave a dismissive wave, “months yet. Their years are 579 solar days long. I’d give it at least six solar months before this place really begins to freeze over.”

  “Then I would be inclined to wait awhile,” said Picard. He saw from the corner of his eye Riker giving him a surprised look, but he continued calmly, “If the Borg are in the area, or return shortly, we will doubtlessly be engaging them.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard they’re most engaging fellows,” said Terman dryly. It was the sort of gallows humor tossed around when people were faced with situations too hideous to contemplate. An understandable defensive device, if somewhat inappropriate, and Picard let the comment pass unremarked.

  “If that occurs, then being on the Enterprise may well be the equivalent of stepping from the frying pan into the fire,” continued Picard. “However, if your medical facilities are—”

  “Crammed,” said Dr. Terman. “We’re small and wiry on the Curie, but we’ve got our limits, and this is exceeding them. I’ll tell you, Captain, before this we helped patch things together on Tri Epsilon Delta, after a Tholian raid. That was a cakewalk, compared to this.”

  “We’ll be more than happy to pitch in. In the meantime, the Chekov is on her way as well. Within a few days you’ll have more help than you can handle.”

  “Ain’t no such animal,” said Terman. “I can use all the help I can get. Look, Captain, I can’t tell you how much I’d rather be chatting here with you than overseeing this sweep-up operation, but—”

  “Understood, Doctor. We’ll be down presently to assist. Enterprise out.”

  The frowning image of Terman vanished to be replaced by, once again, the cratered surface of Penzatti. Picard stared at it a moment more and then said, “Number One, prepare an away team. Full medical personnel complemen
t, all shifts. We don’t have a moment to lose.”

  “You want to accomplish as much as possible in the event the Borg return?” said Riker.

  Picard gave him a signifcant glance. “That is in the back of my mind.”

  “And moving up fast.”

  “Warp speed,” affirmed Picard. “Mr. Chafin,” he addressed the lieutenant at conn. “Standard orbit.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Chafin, and within moments the Enterprise was in a graceful synchronous orbit, 35,000 kilometers above the scarred surface of the planet. “Standard orbit, sir.”

  From the tactical display, Worf was scanning the area. “Sir,” he said, “sensors are detecting high traces of the types of weapons that were discharged.”

  “Borg weaponry?” asked Picard. It seemed self-evident somehow. The Romulans didn’t exactly go around gutting planets. Who the hell else could it be?

  “Some trace of Borg, sir…but something else. I am also detecting some debris that is definitely from the Borg ship.”

  “Debris,” said Riker. “Then, it’s true.”

  “The Borg have apparently met their match,” agreed Picard. “Spectral analysis of the debris, Mr. Worf. Cause of destruction?”

  Worf looked up with a look of disbelief on his face, his eyes wide. If there was one thing Worf understood, even worshipped, it was power. Yet here was something that gave even the Klingon pause. “A beam composed of pure anti-proton.”