Resistance is Futile

Posted on Fri Mar 24th, 2023 @ 3:15am by Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Ashix Zirda & Five of Eight

1,920 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Chapter VII: Into the Storm
Location: Engineering, Ourainavassa
Timeline: 238704.19

Newly minted Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Ashix Zirda stood staring at herself in the holographic mirror of her quarters. Brushing a hair away from her forehead she was amazed how far she had come. Not long ago she had been a Borg Drone trapped on the remnants of a fallen sphere and hunted for the nanoprobes and technology that made up her body. It was overwhelming.

Just like the ship's name. If only she could pronounce its name she'd be a bit better off she supposed.

"Mirror off," she ordered as she crossed her arms and turned to the unfamiliar stars through the window. She grew up on the opposite side of the galaxy, deep within the Delta Quadrant. She supposed that she should have expected that one day the Borg would come for her species for their technologies. It was only logical to come to that conclusion.

"Alert. Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Ashix Zirda is scheduled to complete a maintenance cycle in five minutes."

The new Chief Systems Control Officer sighed. One good thing about being a Drone was everything was highly automated. She would have been automatically directed to her assignment. Instead, she would now have to learn to punch a time clock again.

Entering the corridor she was amazed to see such a diaspora of people throughout the ship. What was more amazing was not being able to hear any of them. The sphere she had been on had over 11,000 drones aboard, each of them deeply ingrained in the Collective. She could still remember how it sounded, the forced uniformity. The Sikarian woman had never imagined how happy she would be to be in silence.

As she approached her destination something changed deep inside of her. She could feel a coolness, a feeling that she had not had in a long time. It was not too dissimilar to what she had felt when she first entered the clinic that helped her to remove what enhancements they could. It was the feeling of a Borg, or, rather, an ex-Borg.

Five of Eight was working as usual in engineering when he was suddenly aware he wasn't alone, its proximity transceiver went off, meaning another drone, real or liberated was in the same general vicinity as he was.

Five of Eight turned around to face the new arrival, a female of a species he didn't recognize, who looked more Borg than it was female of her original species "Hello, are you here to take me back to the Collective, cause if you are I won't go quietly?" he asked.

Ashix looked at the other cautiously, waiting for the attack to come. It was normal for the Borg. Do not act until you perceive a threat, but any former Drone that escaped the Collective was a threat that needed to be addressed and recovered. It was also built in as a failsafe. Even as much as she feared being taken back to the Collective there was a longing, a desire to return there. It was a double edged sword.

"I was going to ask the same thing," the former Borg answered. "How are you here, away from the Collective?"

Five of Eight relaxed somewhat "I was cut off from the Hive and the Collective, have been for some time, and you?" he asked Ashix.

"Submatrix Collapse," she answered, "and I didn't stay locked in a state of regenestasis. What do they call you anyway?"

"Five of Eight, it's all I've known as a name/designation, as I was assimilated as a child," he told Ashix "What is your name and or designation?" he asked.

That was a good question. She could share her Borg designation, probably scare the drone when she went through just which unimatrix she'd been attached to, but that just didn't feel right anymore. It didn't feel like it was her anymore. "Ashix," she said, "Ashix Zirda. I'm a Sikarian, from the other side of the galaxy even. Guess we both found ourselves with nowhere else to go and ended up here on the voyage of the damned."

Five of Eight nodded "Anywhere outside of the Collective has to be better than in the Collective," he said to Ashix.

"Sometimes that is true," the Chief Systems Control Officer answered the other Borg. "You would think at least. There were times after the submatrix collapse that we wanted nothing more than to rejoin the Collective, to have them return and restore our Sphere to operation so that we could continue on our way. Being trapped on a derelict Sphere with thousands of others who were ripped, pulled away from perfection wasn't a friendly experience. Those that didn't return to regenestasis were not very friendly."

"Do you recall how you well became Borg?" Five of Eight asked Ashix "I was taken aboard my father's freighter," he added.

That seemed to be one of the most popular questions that a former Borg received. She wondered, briefly, if Locutus or Seven of Nine had been asked such questions when they encountered others. The chilling thought of Bjayzl invaded her thoughts momentarily, she having been so friendly initially before she tried to harvest the nanoprobes that made up Ashix. Though she kept thinking about her people as she processed her own story to share. Her native species, the Sikarians, were born storytellers that loved to spin yarns. Her tale wasn't a friendly one, actually it made most think less of her.

"It's a long, long story, but it involves the Federation causing my people to gain the attention of the Borg."

"Ah okay, my father was working for the Federation when the Borg assimilates us," Five of Eight told Ashix "So tell me what happened?" he asked her.

"My people encountered a Federation vessel that was lost in space, you may've heard of it it was called Voyager," she said as an aside. "Anyway, our government chose not to help them with their plight, but my family had a shipping concern, and we were very interested in obtaining their records. We made a deal, the equipment didn't work, and we nearly destroyed Voyager, and the government was none too happy with any of us. I used a special technology that my people possessed called a Spatial Projector to transport myself 30,000 light-years from our home world. Problem was that a Borg ship wasn't far away and detected my signal. It led the Borg right to my people."

Five of Eight nodded glumly "The Borg are nothing if not overly efficient when it comes to that, we used our warp core way too close to a Borg transwarp conduit and paid the price, for me it meant a Maturation Chamber then service, my father and the crew obedient service from assimilation."

Ashix frowned, "I'm sorry that happened. I can't imagine what that would be like."

"Thank you, I never knew much about it until I was cut off from the Hive Mind," Five of Eight told Ashix "What was it like for you to be cut off from the Hive?" he asked Ashix.

That was a bit harder to describe. She turned away, for a moment, as she thought about the feelings that she felt in that moment. It had been a whirlwind of emotion, but the one that she was most reminded of scared her the most. While she had a life, a family, friends before she was assimilated, the billions of voices she heard as part of the Collective were the closest that she had ever felt to any. As much as people feared the Borg, as much as they ran from them, for those assimilated the Borg were insidious at making you never want to lose that feeling. To lose perfection.

"I was alone," she answered with sadness.

Five of Eight understood Ashix's response all too well "How did you end up here?" he asked "I was taken in by bad people and used, til I escaped," he added.

Ashix thought a lot about that and her story. Sikarians were storytellers, often using them to make a point about the galaxy or life in general. Since the Borg she didn't feel up for many stories anymore. Actually, the thought of stories often made her skin crawl because of the tumultuous history of the Borg assimilation of so many worlds and her part in it. She now had so many stories in her head. Too many stories.

"I was hunted," she answered after a long moment. "Ever since I had escaped the Sphere. A mercenary group, probably wanting to salvage its technologies, found the Sphere and captured many of us. I was taken Vergessen, an inhabited planet in the Hypatia system. There was a facility controlled by a woman named Bjayzl on the planet where ex-Borg were dismembered for parts. I was about to be one of their next victims when a Fenris Ranger raided the site and killed many of the technicians there. I was able to escape during the melee."

"I heard rumours of such a place, never thought much of them, but it seems they were true," Five of Eight commented "A lot has changed since the USS Voyager exited the Delta Quadrant and did so much damage to the Collective, and were merely a small part of the grander scheme of what it left behind when Janeway escaped," it added.

Ashix nodded, "I have to wonder what exactly has happened to the Collective. My ship, the Artifact, each had a Submatrix Collapse. Those weren't exactly a common thing."

"I am unsure of what happened," Five of Eight admitted "I can only assume the Queen was killed, leading to disharmony and chaos, and if there is a new Queen she is ineffective as head of the Collective," he added.

"If there is one at all," the former drone added. "Strange to think about, but what if something happened and the new Queen was never activated?"

"Then there'd be total chaos within the Collective, vessels away from the Unicomplex would revert to their default programming and then when that was complete, either shut down totally or I fear carry on unchecked. If the Hive Mind collapsed, then there would be more chaos, drones would regain their former selves and go their own ways," Five of Eight suggested shuddering at the mere thought.

"It would certainly explain everything that's going on with the drones though, wouldn't it? The Artifact that the Romulans possess, Sphere 618 that I escaped, who knows how many others. Certainly a scary thought," she could feel the cold overtake her body. She sighed, fearful of what could come. "Well that's enough fear for one day. So what do you do here again?"

"Engineer, general engineering is what I do," Five of Eight replied "What do you do?" he asked Ashix.

She processed her own role, "I am the Chief Systems Control Officer aboard this vessel. I suppose that means we will be working together from time to time."

"Yes it is quite likely that we'll be working together from time to time," Five of Eight conceded "It is also likely we'll run into one another from time to time," he added.

She snickered, "It's not really that big a ship now is it?" She noticed the time, "I really have to be running off to my station. I'm late as it is. It was nice meeting you, Five of Eight."

"It was nice to meet you to," Five of Eight replied, before he returning his focus to what he'd been doing.

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