Kellin was halfway through a sentence about shield modulation when his voice trailed off to nothing.  The content of his words had been statements of fact, yet the upward lilt to his inflection made it all sound like a rambling question.  The runabout’s conference compartment became quiet, except for the hiss of the life support systems.

The way Kellin’s gaze had locked onto the row of aft viewports, it looked like his mind had gone blank as soon as he saw the dense thicket outside.  As much as Kellin was tall for a Trill –his build thickset, if muscular– the rainforest beyond was made up of massive trees, those of ancient growth.  Compared to those wide tree trunks, Kellin’s form looked minuscule, little more than a cuddly marsupial in the woods.

The view through the windows was obscured momentarily.  It may have been heat haze from the tropical climate where the runabout Estéron was nestled or a visual distortion from the holographic shell that was camouflaging the Danube-class runabout.  Even when the shimmering passed, the clear view of the rainforest evoked unexpected dread in Ensign Addae Danbo.  

For many centuries before Addae had been born, nothing green had grown in Ffmanni city on Barzan II.  Tall grasses and flowering trees hadn’t factored into his youth.  Aging, industrial city complexes were what felt comforting to him; little wonder he had chosen to study engineering over and over again.  A planet growing wildly to its own design felt unsteady and unsafe.  Unfamiliar.

Addae made an effort to swallow that feeling down.  Forget it.  It wasn’t becoming of a Starfleet officer.

When Kellin finally looked at Addae again, he smiled.  The expression changed his entire face, even wrinkled slightly in the corners beside his blue-grey eyes.  That’s where Addae saw the only reflection of his homeworld.  Despite that genuine smile, there was something tired and vacant behind Kellin’s eyes.  A common expression in Ffmanni city.  The Changeling who had replaced Kellin, early in the year, had even managed to offer warmer smiles than the man standing before him.  For all Kellin’s affable small talk over lunch, the ache of something missing in him was plainly visible.

Hoping to join in on whatever pleasant thought had captured Kellin’s attention, Addae asked, “Would you rather be out there, commander?”

Kellin tightened his jaw and hooked a finger under the high collar of his own shirt.  He tugged at the collar, adjusting his uniform in an apparent search for comfort.

“Wouldn’t we all?” Kellin asked back.  Despite the hardness in his eyes, he sounded more like a defiant child sneaking out of school rather than Constellation’s executive officer.

Addae touched the small discs affixed to the corners of his mouth.  The breather devices provided Addae the Barzan gasses he required to survive in M-class environments like the runabout and the planet where they had landed.  Lowering his hands, Addae could feel the discs move as he offered Kellin a wicked smile.

“I have my breathers on,” Addae remarked.  Looking up at Kellin, Addae tilted his head playfully to ask, “Are you inviting me to jog in the woods with you?”

Kellin winced.

“According to Doctor Nelli’s scouting excursion,” Kellin ruefully said, “this planet’s sentient beings have never even seen mammalian bodies like ours.  They’re a species of mobile sentient plans, like Nelli.”

Reaching a tentative hand to the side of Addae’s face, Kellin tapped one of the breathers with a single index finger.

Kellin said, “They’ve never seen constructed technology.  Never even heard of warp drive.  One look at you could amount to a prime directive violation.”

“Come on,” Addae said, appealing to Kellin’s sense of adventure.  “I’m not suggesting we interfere with their natural evolution as a species, but I can’t imagine we came all the way to the Delta Quadrant to hide on a runabout and overeat Bajoran food.  Anything the size of a civilization would never notice if we took three minutes in the sun.  …They might notice five minutes, but certainly not four.”

Now, Kellin smirked.  Whatever had been hiding behind his eyes looked forgotten.

Kellin said, “I’ve never risked my career for a suntan before.”

Raising a hand to his brow, Addae offered Kellin a sloppy salute.

“I don’t think I can truly call myself a Starfleet officer until I’ve at least bent the prime directive once,” Addae said. “As a little treat.”

Nodding to a viewport, Kellin remarked, “Nelli suspects they’ve evolved in lockstep with their natural environment.  They’ve never needed to manipulate their environment for their betterment or comfort.  There’s no need for constraints like general orders out there.”

“No obligations,” Addae said.

“No bad dreams,” Kellin said.

“No uniforms,” Addae added.

“No Changelings,” Kellin said.  His time as a captive of the rogue Changelings was no secret.  Half the crew was rumbling about how they always suspected something had been off with the Changeling that had posed as Kellin for weeks.

“No Borg programming,” Addae said in turn.  It hadn’t been long since Lieutenant Pagaloa had removed the Borg DNA that Kellin’s Changeling imposter had managed to secretly implant in Addae, and other young officers, every time they used a transporter before Frontier Day.

Soberly, Kellin started to ask, “When I was missing, did you ever–“

A chirrup sounded out from a communications node in the overhead.  Over the comm system, the voice of Ensign Dolan said, “Commander, have I just triangulated the location of the Borg energy signature?“

Kellin blinked several times and then said, “Ensign, I’m confused.  Are you asking me or are you telling me?”

“Oh wait, what did I say?” Dolan replied.

Addae sighed.  “Okay, maybe there’s some Borg out there.  Just a little.”

Constellation was configured with a far smaller gymnasium than the laboratory city of Taes’ last command.  The use of space aboard a Constitution III-class starship had been strictly optimised for deep space exploration, and yet Taes had insisted on a couple of lap pools for the gym.  Captain’s prerogative.  Awaking with that same single-mindedness, Taes had started her day by challenging Doctor Nelli to time trials in the pools.  Worse, that decision had proven an act of hubris when Nelli had thoroughly trounced Taes, beating her in every race.  In her moment of defeat, Taes’ competitiveness had risen up, and she’d proudly demanded rematches.

Sitting on the lip of one of the pools afterwards, Taes dangled her legs in the water, those demands long forgotten.  She cinched a white robe over her swimsuit and laughed at Nelli’s retelling of their victory.  Nelli’s plant-like Phylosian form remained wading in the pool, the water up to their midsection.  Each of Nelli’s ten vines flapped vigorously –splashing the water’s surface– in an approximation of Taes’ swimming technique.

Shaking her bald head, Taes admitted, “I cherish this heartbeat and the sensation of the water, but I would be lying if I said my thoughts weren’t with the away team.  Even when cramped in a makeshift duck blind, a prolonged observation assignment can inspire… such great clarity.”

Shaking their head-like bulb from side to side, Nelli said, “The wisdom of Starfleet protocol escapes me.  Restraining a captain to the starship when the away team would benefit from her substantial experience?  It impedes the away team’s success, no?”

Taes shrugged at Nelli.  “I don’t follow that regulation in every circumstance.  This time, we’re skin-deep in Borg territory.  My place is undoubtedly on the bridge.”

The vocoder that synthesized Nelli’s auditory voice made a rumbling sound that Taes recognised as an expression of pause and consideration.

“The crew would benefit from visibility to you,” Nelli said in what sounded like a concession to Taes.  Then Nelli went on to say, “You retreated from them for too many weeks in your resentment of Yuulik and your sorrow for thinking Kellin Rayco lost.”

Leaning back momentarily, Taes sputtered out an aghast cough.

“Ah, yes,” Taes said, suddenly stricken with shame.  “Yes, yes, it hurts to hear that said out loud, but I suppose it’s fitting–“

“I was jealous of the closeness between the three of you,” Nelli said.  Their artificially generated voice’s monotone was a stark contrast to such a vulnerable admission.  “For a time, this one felt excluded from your senior staff.  The deepest connection between Phylosians are formed biologically: a symbiotic exchange through mycorrhiza.  Humanoids lack this ability.  My first motivation for leaving my diplomatic corps, and joining Starfleet, was to discover that level of closeness in the outer galaxy.”

“There are other ways to connect,” Taes said, taking on a reassuring tone.  Taes held her hands out, palms up.  Nelli draped a vine over each palm, which bolstered Taes’ empathic sense of the intention behind Nelli’s universally-translated words.

Taes said, “I’ve read your scouting reports three times since you returned from the planet.  I’ve gathered all I can from your xeno-anthropologic assessment of the sentient plant beings.  They live in a warm and humid environment with frequent precipitation.  They display a vast diversity of body plans, some with radial symmetric, others asymmetrical.  You fit right in.  I understand you found little evidence of them living together in permanent communities…

“Would you do me the favour,” Taes asked, “of telling me: what else?  What minutia did you leave out of the reports because it seemed irrelevant?”

Nelli paused for a time and then replied, “Many of them sing spontaneously when the sun rises to its peak.  Their song is composed from a cadence of ultrasonic popping sounds.  My official report did not mention their song sounds like… the noise a phoretic analyser makes when you misalign the sample tray and try to activate the scanner.”

“Song of the phoretic analyser,” Taes exuberantly remarked and she gently released Nelli’s vines.  “There’s a beauty in that.”

Nelli’s vocoder made a crackling sound, and then they said, “You have a wicked sense of humour.”

“I don’t believe I told a joke?” Taes said in mild confusion.

“Even funnier,” Nelli affirmed.

Compelled by her own curiosity, Taes asked, “How many different languages did you hear?”

“A dozen, mayhap,” Nelli said.  “Many retreated from me in fear.  When they fear, their aroma becomes sharp and fresh, almost antiseptic.  Those who came near enough to communicate did so through the ultrasonic popping and transmitting electrical signals by touch.  The signals from my touch were familiar enough to them –if a unique dialect– and the universal translator in my disguised vocoder adapted my speech.”

Taes asked, “You wrote about observing an easy harmony between the lifeforms and their environment, but not with one another?”

“My humble assumption, unfounded by science,” Nelli answered, “regards their cultures as being defined by independence.  If they spoke Federation Standard, they would call themselves Solusians.  From what I was told by the ones I met, even their family structures are small and impermanent.”

“A natural antithesis to collective,” Taes supposed.

Nelli’s eyestalks jerked in Taes’ direction when they said, “I asked about the Borg as obliquely as possible.  None I spoke to had any understanding of technology or bipedal animals.”

“What a gift that would be,” Taes said, “to have no awareness of the Borg, no fear of assimilation.”

Bounding into the runabout’s cockpit was the only exhilaration he’d felt in days.  Leading an away team on a duck-blind mission had required far too much sitting and static standing for Kellin Rayco’s liking.  In his days gone by as a security officer, Kellin had been well accustomed to keeping watch, but he felt a certain resolve when he was looking out for danger.  As an executive officer on a science expedition, observation for the sake of observation had a tendency to leave him yawning.

The call from Ensign Dolan had given Kellin a revived sense of purpose. Even the simple act of moving his body, striding into the forward compartment, offered him a sharper mental acuity.  That acuity prompted him to stop short and avoid running into Yuulik.  The entire away team crowded into the cockpit: Science Chief Yuulik, Science Officer Dolan, Nurse Rals, Security Officer Jurij and Engineer Addae Danbo by Kellin’s side.  After clearing his throat, Kellin raised his voice to be heard above the ruckus of conflicting questions and status reports coming from each of them.

“We’ve been here for days and you haven’t been able to locate the Borg energy signature any more clearly than Constellation’s probe or orbital scans,” Kellin said.  Cheekily, he asked, “What fortune has smiled on Ensign Dolan to locate it now?”

Seated at the science station, Dolan visibly shrunk into his chair.

“Aye, commander,” Dolan affirmed.  “I understand why you would doubt me.”

Ruefully, Kellin blurted out, “That’s not what I–“

“It has been days.  I won’t deny that, commander,” Dolan sternly went on.  “The energy readings have only become weaker since we landed on the surface.  Whatever piece of Borg technology is hidden on this planet, its micro-fusion reactor must be failing, going cold.  We suspect it’s beneath the surface, but I couldn’t quite–“

Squeezing between Yuulik and multi-limbed Jurij, Nurse Rals shuffled closer to Dolan.  Before Dolan could say anything further, Rals clapped Dolan on the shoulder in a supportive gesture.  They had all spent long hours in close quarters since their arrival.  It affirmed Kellin to see the team coming together rather than picking at each other’s seams.

“C’mon, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Rals said encouragingly.  “Anyone would have been fooled by those sensor ghosts last time.”

“And the two times before that,” Addae chimed in.  It sounded like encouragement and it was factual but was perhaps less helpful in the team-building sense.  As he spoke, Addae sidled up to Rals, his husband, and placed a hand on Rals’s lower back.

Kellin raised his voice again, seeking some semblance of control over the evolving situation.  He asked, “If you think you’ve located the energy source now, Mister Dolan, what’s changed?“

Five seconds and then ten seconds passed without anyone in the cockpit speaking.  Only the LCARS telltales chimed as Dolan urgently tapped through the controls on the sensor panel.

Predictably, Lieutenant Commander Yuulik was the one to break the silence.  She spoke to Kellin in a semblance of a whisper, but her voice was so naturally loud it carried across the entire cockpit.

“Dolan did nothing but warm a chair, commander,” Yuulik said.  “We debated this with Captain Taes.  You were there.  I told you.  This away team should have been automated with probes.“

“The computer has located the Borg technology because that technology is emitting a new transmission,” Yuulik said. Then, she continued in more of a gossipy timbre: “Dolan was just sitting there, like a drone in an alcove.  Just as sedate as he was on Frontier Day.  The poor boy didn’t even kill anyone when he was assimilated.  Sad.  Can you believe?”

Kellin threw his palms up in surrender through Yuulik’s barrage of sardonic disdain.

Furrowing his brow, Kellin spat, “Wait, wait, you said transmission?  What is the Borg device saying?“

The self-satisfied sneer on Yuulik’s face faded in a single blink.

“It’s a homing beacon,” she said.

“Ensign Danbo,” Kellin called out to Addae, their discussion of a quick jog around the runabout at the top of his mind.  The prime directive only permitted the away team on the planet as long as their runabout was disguised as an unremarkably rocky outcropping.  Kellin asked, “Status of our holographic shell?”

Addae tapped at an engineering panel set into the bulkhead before he answered, “The Borg transmission is having no disruption effects on the holographic emitters we mounted on the hull.”

With a note of distress tightening his voice, Rals asked, “Uhh, whatever Borg probe or data node is buried out there… If it’s transmitting a homing beacon, will our holo-emitters hide us from a Borg ship?”

Lieutenant Jurij quickly offered his security analysis with a “No.  Their sensors would easily penetrate our disguise.  Constellation’s long-range sensors have detected no Borg ships in the vicinity, but we remain within the trailing edge of what we understand to be Borg territory.  Given the increased activity of Borg ship movements since we arrived in the Delta Quadrant, we have to assume the homing beacon will be answered.”

Defiantly, Yuulik posed the question, “So what if they do?”  She cocked her head to the left and jutted her chin out at Jurij.

Yuulik declared, “Every Starfleet encounter with the Borg has found them debilitated by the neurolytic pathogen.  Starfleet defeated them on Frontier Day and destroyed a Queen Cube.  We could outwit a single Borg cube with the crew members on this runabout alone.  And if that cube crossed Captain Taes too?  We would massacre them.”

Jurij’s response was dry.  “I wouldn’t be so sure, commander,” he said.

Scoffing, Yuulik said, “Nurse Rals held your guts in place when the Jem’Hadar blew up your torpedo bay.  We wouldn’t have even made it to the Battle of Farpoint without Ensign Danbo keeping the deuterium flowing through a twisted injector.  Even sweet, simple Dolan was essential in tracking down the coordinates of the lost fleet’s origin point.  You don’t get to underestimate them.”

“But you do?” Jurij asked.

Yuulik disengaged, behaving as if Jurij had said nothing more.  Scurrying over to Dolan, Yuulik clapped him on the shoulder.  Her body language appeared awkward –as if she were mimicking Rals’s earlier gesture– and Dolan’s recoil suggested she hit him far too firmly.

“You’ve been an ensign for years, D,” Yuulik said to Dolan.  “Didn’t ol’ Flavia ever recommend you for promotion?”

“N-uh, no she didn’t,” Dolan replied.

Hesitantly, Yuulik asked, “Have I ever recommended you for promotion?”

“No, commander,” Dolan said, “You haven’t.”

Speaking as saccharine as a jumja stick, Yuulik asked, “Don’t you wish I would?”

Kellin regarded Jurij and ordered, “We have to deactivate the homing beacon.”

“Agreed,” Juried replied.

“Contact Captain Taes on Constellation,” Kellin went on.  “I’m formally requesting authority to take a small scouting mission into the woods.  We have to protect our crew and the inhabitants of this planet, whether they know we’re here or not.  Let’s go kill that homing signal.”

Captains Log, Stardate 78426.3,

 

Since our transit through the Barzan wormhole, we’ve received inconsistent and apocryphal reports of Borg movements across the Gradin Belt.  While some in the DEI fear this to be an act of aggression, Constellation passed by the coordinates of a known Borg transwarp aperture and… it was no more. Our best analysis could not determine if another galactic power destroyed the aperture or if it was dismantled by the Borg themselves.  After the failure of the Borg Queen’s plot on Frontier Day, we have no way to know what malignant inspiration is growing within the Borg Collective next.

 

Constellation has been ordered on a survey mission into the edges of Borg space –those nearest to the Markonian Outpost– to investigate the state of the Collective.  Our initial probes found little but open space.  Only a faint Borg energy signature was located in System D-515.  Travelling deeper into Borg space, we traced that energy source to a planet.

 

Doctor Nelli has taken to calling the planet Solus.  Our orbital survey discovered the world populated by a sentient, mobile plant-life.  Aside from the diminishing Borg energy source, we have found no evidence of technological development on the planet.  Nor could we identify any evidence of Borg devastation to the planet or its people.  Being a pre-warp civilization, the prime directive forbids us from interfering in their development.

 

Given Doctor Nelli’s physiological similarities to the sentient plant-life, I permitted a scouting mission by Nelli alone to locate the Borg energy source on the planet.  In her tentative dialogue with the indigenous Solusians, they have shared no knowledge of any creatures resembling the Borg.  By the accounts of their oral histories, there have been no attempts by the Borg to assimilate them or their natural resources, despite their close proximity to the collective.

 

Because Nelli was unsuccessful in locating the source of the Borg energy signature, I have ordered the establishment of a disguised duck blind to monitor the Borg energy source and observe the Solusions.  Whatever intrinsic ability has enabled them to avoid the attention of the Borg Collective could prove a boon to the rest of the galaxy.

Seated at the expansive Operations console on the starboard side of the bridge, Lieutenant Nova DeVoglaer was favoured with a direct line of sight to the captain’s ready room.  Even amid the tension of yellow alert, it only took the length of a heartbeat for Nova to glance at the opening doorway.  It took her less time than that to assess the captain’s mood.  Through the open warfare of the Dominion’s incursion and the Borg-maneuvered civil war of Frontier Day, Taes had practiced isolation as a leader, her temperament brittle.  It had been written all over her body language every time she graced the bridge with her presence.

The return of Commander Kellin Rayco had changed all of that.

On this day, Taes stepped out of the ready room with an open posture and eyes wide with curiosity.  Crossing the bridge to the command platform, Taes carried herself with a disrespectful beauty.  In the melody of her Deltan accent, Taes asked for a “status report?” before she settled herself into the captain’s chair.

“Our starship remains alone in System D-515, captain.  No other vessels detected on long-range sensors,” answered Lieutenant (Junior Grade) T’Kaal from the science station that mirrored Nova’s console.  “However, we are picking up a new transmission from the planet.”  

Watching T’Kaal check the sensor readings on her panel served as a reminder that a civilian Romulan scientist was usually posted to that station.  None of the Romulan Free State scientists assigned to Constellation had returned to the ship after the Dominion incursion.  To survive a Dominion attack wing, the previous Chief Science Officer, RFS Doctor Flavia, had been left behind on a Federation outpost.  By all accounts, the Dominion had overtaken the outpost, but no eyewitnesses survived.  Since then, Captain Taes had provided no update to the crew regarding the fate of Flavia, nor if their Romulan compatriots would ever be returning to their joint mission of exploration.

Nova interjected, “We’re being hailed by the runabout Estéron, captain.”

“On screen,” Taes ordered, maintaining her gaze at the forward viewscreen.  An orbital view of the planet was visible through the transparent bulkheads, and then the holographic visage of Kellin Rayco was projected overtop.

“Captain, we’ve identified the underground location of the Borg device, but its purpose and design escape us,” Kellin reported.  “All we know is that it’s begun transmitting a homing beacon.“

Taes offered a single nod of acknowledgement, and then her brow furrowed. 

“I was just speaking with Captain Anand,” Taes shared.  “USS Babylon has also detected a Borg homing signal from a planet with no apparent Borg infrastructure.  There are reports of others, too.  Scattered Borg technology screaming out for…”

Trailing off, Taes finished that sentence with a helpless shrug.

Speaking up, Nova asked, “Could it be screaming into the void?  Doctor Nelli and the away team have found no other indication of the Borg showing interest in this world.  This planet is on the doorstep of the Borg and was never assimilated, never drained of its resources.  Why would the Borg care now?”

T’Kaal swivelled her chair to face both Nova and Taes between them.  She said, “Respectfully, lieutenant, you are working too hard to apply logical motives to the Borg.” –Of the bridge crew on duty, T’Kaal was the only one who had been tele-assimilated by the Borg on Frontier Day– “The Borg hunger.  This is the only truth.”

“Thank you both,” Taes said, offering each of them a restrained smile.  Returning her gaze to the viewscreen, Taes asked, “What do you think, Commander Rayco?  Leaving orbit is an option.  We have more star systems to survey before we loop back to the Markonian Outpost.  Our orders are to retreat if we encounter a Borg vessel.  The Avalon Fleet Yards were deeply restorative to our crew and warp engines.  Is it time we test their maximum speed limits?”

On the viewscreen, Kellin’s chest visibly rose and fell with the intake and release of a deep breath.  His eyebrows rose on his forehead as if he were mustering something up.

“There’s still much we can learn about why the Borg has mostly ignored this society,” Kellin said over the comms.  “With your blessing, captain, we need to send a scouting party to the source of the Borg signal.  Only three in the team: a scientist, an engineer, and myself.  Disguised in our stealth isolation suits, we phaser drill down to where the Borg device is buried.  Either we destroy the homing signal, or we create interference to block its transmission.“

“No phaser drills,” Taes said, her timbre matter of fact.  “The opportunity for cultural contamination is too great.”

“I hear you; it’s a risk,” Kellin said patiently, “And the team is fully briefed on first contact training.  We will monitor the movements of all life forms in the area.  We don’t act until our line-of-site is clear.  We can dig for the homing beacon at an angle if–“

“No phaser drills,” Taes repeated with more finality.  “One type-2 phaser.  Only one tricorder between your team.  Only take what can be obscured by the holographic fields of your isolation suits.  These life forms are as likely to smell you as see you.”

“Ensigns Dolan and Danbo, break out the isolation suits,” Kellin said.  He looked left and right, speaking to members of the away team who weren’t within range of the visual sensors.  He added, “Commander Yuulik, continue work on interfering with the homing signal from here.“

Posing an alternative view, Nova asked, “Captain, wouldn’t the act of protecting this planet from the Borg still be a prime directive interference?  We’re within the Borg’s sphere of influence.”  Feeling the eyes of the bridge crew on her, Nova was mindful to lead with curiosity in her voice; she offered no pointed tone of challenge.  She even nodded at T’Kaal.

“The Borg hunger,” Nova said, echoing T’Kaal’s words to emphasize her point.  “Assimilation is the natural progression in this space we’ve, essentially, invaded.”

After nodding at Nova’s assertions, Taes said, “We don’t know if the Borg still claim this space.  Finding out is our purpose.  The Federation has signed no treaties with the hurricanes.”  Taes spoke slowly, demonstrating great care with every word.

Taes said, “This world is pre-warp, and the Borg interfered first by burying a secret beneath them.  I have some manner of leeway and legal precedence to remove that interference.”

Nodding at the hologram of Kellin, Taes tacked on, “Quietly.“

“They’ll never know we were ever here,” Kellin promised.

May 2401

While raising an aperitif glass, Taes said, “Now listen closely.”  

She took a sip of something viscous and fuchsia from the glass while she waited for their rapt attention.  Her senior staff were gathered around her, all of them seated closely on a clutch of geometric sofas and armchairs.  In the privacy of the parlour off the rec deck, their collective manenr was informal.  Most of their uniform jackets were loosened.  There were pairs of boots scattered on the floor.  Only once she held their eyes, and Nelli’s eye-stalks, did Taes feel like a salonnière of old.

“For this round,” Taes said, looking to each of them in turn, “I would ask you all to tell me something you’ve hit with a starship.  Judgement begins.”

Kellin was slurping from a tankard of synthale when she asked the question.  He blinked a couple of times, and then his body sunk deeper into the sofa, his shoulders curling inward.  When he spoke, his words came out in hushed tones of shame.

“Regulan eel-bird,” Kellin said.  His nose scrunched, and there was a heaviness to his gaze.  “I missed it on sensors during a landing approach when I first took shuttle lessons on Berengaria.”

Taes raised her glass to Kellin and cooly said, “Punishment.”

“Training hours,” Ache said next.  Sitting beside Kellin, her posture looked all the more rigid and purposeful.  Beside her, Kellin slumped down further and draped a leg over the side of the sofa.

Ache explained, “I hit my mandatory training hours in the academy simulator.  That’s all I’ve ever hit.”

Nodding at Ache sagely, Taes said, “Punishment.”

“Century Storm,” was Yuulik’s answer.  She over-enunciated the words, dragging out the vowels.  The whole time, she was smirking like she had a secret in her heart.

Looking to Nova as the newest member of the senior staff, Yuulik explained, “It was my turn to pilot the USS Nestus when it grazed the gust front of an ion storm.”

Taes squinted at Yuulik.  “What was your answer then?”

Solidly, Yuulik replied, “Century Storm.”

Taes breathed out a “Hmmm,” and she frowned.  Raising the glass to her lips, Taes took a leisurely sip that would leave Yuulik waiting.  She watched Yuulik twitching the whole time.

When Yuulik looked about ready to protest, Taes granted an “Acquittal.”

“You saw it coming,” Kellin blurt out at Yuulik, chuckling as he did.

In an oddly helpless tone, Yuulik retorted, “It was moving very quickly.”

“There was still time to change course,” Kellin affirmed, “and then you charged it.”

“I’m not an expert pilot!  Okay?” Yuulik said, sighing defensively.

“Our warp field coils were shredded,” Kellin added.

While they bickered like siblings, Taes interrupted them by drawing in the others: “Nelli?  Nova?  What’s something you’ve hit with a starship?”

Shrugging twice, Nova shook her head and said, “I can’t think of anything?”

“Really?” Taes remarked with an edge of sardonic incredulousness.  She fixed Nova with a look that said far more than the single word.

Nova downed a sip of coffee and then shook her head again.

“Babe, c’mon…” Yuulik whispered.  Yuulik looked at Nova –looked right at her– and her eyes were practically bulging out of her head in disbelief.

“…Oh,” Nova said.  The sound that came out of her was reluctant and pained.  “Oh no,” she muttered, hiding her eyes behind her hands.  “I forgot…”

Keeping her face obscured, Nova took a breath and said, “Subspace fold.  I pushed a subspace fold into the USS Sarek.  That one time.”

Taes raised her free hand, reaching out for Nova.

“Acquittal,” Taes said.

“Now it’s your turn, captain!” Yuulik shrieked.  “What have you hit with a starship?”

June 2401

Somewhere between Constellation and planet four, a perverse flickering of light heralded transwarp deceleration.  One last staccato flashing of light snuffed out in the arrival of a Borg cube.  A single looming facet of the cube filled the panorama visible through the viewcreen.  The position of the Borg cube in space, and its sheer mass, obscured any view of the planet or light from the sun.

Captain Taes’s first reaction was disbelief.  Her ship’s state-of-the-art sensors had not warned of the cube’s arrival.  Through the transparent bulkhead, all she could see was exposed mechanics and twisted charcoal-black metal.  More engineered components were splayed out on that one side of the cube than what gave life to Constellation.  Every coil and antenna appeared to have some function, yet the purpose of many remained a mystery to Starfleet.  A mystery that would be left for another day.

Gasping for breath, Taes ordered, “Evasive action!”

Promptly, Cellar Door confirmed “Reverse thrusters” from the flight control station.

Sitting in the centre chair, Taes elongated her spine and rolled her shoulders back.  She could feel the gentle vibrations of the ship’s movement in the armrest of her chair.  Although she could see more of the Borg cube, the cube continued to fill the entire viewscreen.  Its sheer mass had such gravity Taes could imagine time slowing, as if she were being dragged into a black hole.

“Raising shields,” Lieutenant Commander Ache announced.  She was already stabbing commands into the freestanding tactical station that flanked flight control.  “All hands go to red alert!”

“Belay that order,” Taes said firmly.  “Lower shields, commander.”  Sensitive to open dissension during a red alert, Taes spoke slowly to ensure she was understood.

Her rising dread bled into Taes’s next order as vocal urgency.  She swept a hand towards the operations station.  “Lieutenant Nova, maintain a transporter lock on every away team member,” she said.  “We’re not leaving them.  Signal the Estéron to prepare for launch.”

When Ache and Nova acknowledged the orders, Taes watched the visual depiction of Constellation on the transparent tactical panel change.  The thick lines signifying the shields faded out.

“Tactical analysis” was Taes’s subsequent request.

Ache said, “Detecting no power to the cube’s weapons arrays.  No sign of raised shields either.”

From the science station to Taes’ left, T’Kaal impassively replied, “The cube is scanning the planet.  It has directed no sensor probes at Constellation.  Based on the movement of their active sensors, I theorise the cube is tracking the homing beacon.”

Returning her attention to Nova, Taes ordered, “Contact Commander Rayco.  Order his team to find cover for immediate beam-up.  Find a bush or a cave or jump off a cliff; find anything.  Prepare for emergency beam-up.”

“Captain,” Ache declared with an uncommon panic in her voice.  “The cube is powering their high-energy laser cutters!”

“Tell the transporter room to energise,” Taes instructed Nova.  “Prime directive be damned.”

Constellation had reversed far enough from the cube to see an entire array of pinpoint red particle beams slash out into the planet.  Soon after, a green projection of wide-dispersal beams danced in concert with the cutting beams.

Simultaneously, Ache reported, “The cube is firing on the planet and activating multiple tractor beams.”

T’Kaal quickly added, “The Borg’s attack is hyperionizing the planet’s ionosphere.  All electromagnetic and subspace carriers are being dispersed.”

“Do we have the away team?” Taes asked, looking to Nova..

Nova didn’t answer, already speaking at a companel on her station: “Transporter room, boost the gain on the energizing coils!”

Raising her voice, Taes asked, “Do we have the away team?”

T’Kaal reported, “They’ve scooped out a large tract of the planet, including their homing beacon and our runabout.”

Visible through the viewscreen, a large chunk of the planet was dragged impossibly into orbit by the tractor beams.  A circular opening in the cube irised open wide as the tractor beams maneuvered its prize inside the cube ship.

“We have the team from the runabout onboard,” Nova said, but her voice cracked at the end.

“What about the scouting team?” Taes asked insistently.

As soon as the circular opening in the Borg cube sealed itself again, the cube vanished in a transwarp flash.

“…We lost the transporter lock through the scattering field.”

Materialising in mid-air, Dolan reached out desperately for whatever source of stability he could find.  His limbs flailed recklessly as soon as the annular confinement beam had released him.  Before he hit the ground, all his fist could grasp was a splattering of water.  The sky had opened up, and it drenched Dolan in tears.  Warm, angry tears.

The Borg had come.

The Borg had come, and the sky was crying.

Gravity claimed him and his body trampled through the shubbery, shoulder first.  His tumble down the hill felt unending.  Before long, a faint sense of acceptance washed over him.  This would be his life now, he supposed.  His entire existence became rolling and somersaulting, end over end.  He would know no relief or rest, only falling.

Suddenly, he fell still.

Dolan rolled onto his back, groaning at the myriad aches that were scattered through his body.  He lay in the long grass; the wet early felt comfortingly soft beneath him.  He couldn’t find the strength to shield his eyes from the rain, so he blinked heavily.  His eyes opened, and they closed, and when they opened again, Kellin was standing over him.

“Dee?” Kellin asked, worry resounding in the words.  “Dee?  Are you still with us?”

Dolan didn’t know how to answer.

In that moment, Kellin personified paradox.  He possessed the stature of a paragon, but he was looking haggard: There was blood on Kellin’s cheek.  His blond pompadour was soaked through and hanging over his eyes.  Worse, his isolation suit had been tattered, much like Dolan’s.  The holographic stealth gear was falling off them, revealing the standard Starfleet uniforms beneath.

Even without a symbiont, Kellin was a Trill containing multitudes.  To Dolan, Kellin was still the precocious security officer whom Dolan had idolized from afar on Starbase 72.  He was still the Changeling masquerading as a himbo who claimed Dolan’s trust, all of his trust and affection.  And Kellin was still this grinning husk that had returned to Constellation; a shell hiding something new inside.  Although Dolan didn’t know which one awaited him, Kellin’s arm looked strong, and the rain was still in Dolan’s eyes.

Dolan took Kellin’s hand and Kellin hoisted him to his feet.

“For better or worse,” Dolan said, “I’m still with you.”

Addae Danbo was kneeling in the grass a dozen paces away, looking just as dishevelled as the other two.  His chin-length purple hair was matted to his head, and the Barzan appeared to have no difficulty breathing.  Even at a distance, Dolan could see that the breathers on Addae’s jaw seemed intact.

“What is that marvel?” Addae asked, pointing to the sky.

Impossibly, an island was being thrust into the upper atmosphere by bilious green light.  It looked scooped out of the ground and heaved through the air.  That chunk of the planet, the size of a small town, was stolen into orbit.

Kellin tapped the combadge on his chest and it made a blurp sound.  Dolan was all too familiar with that sound.  That sound recurred in his nightmares.  It meant the combadge could locate no friendly subspace networks or communication nodes.  Reacting quickly, Dolan patted down the side of his thigh, tearing a hole in his isolation suit open wider.  As his hand clasped around it, Dolan was exhilarated to find his tricorder secured in the holster on his hip.

Flipping open the tricorder, Dolan activated its scanning function.  He used the side of his hand to swipe rain  off the display.  The very first second Dolan reached a conclusion from what he read, he shared it aloud.

“This tricorder’s range is shit,” Dolan said.  “There’s a particle scattering field dispersing through the atmosphere.  It’s interfering with sensors, communication…”

“Oh, that’s why they left us here,” Kellin remarked, looking upwards.

“What other reason did you think?” Dolan asked incredulously.  And then sheepishly, he said, “…What other reason did you think, sir?  Sorry.”

Rising to his feet, Addae said, “They won’t be able to locate us from orbit.”

“They will find us,” Kellin affirmed, standing taller.  “We’re going to find shelter until the scattering field passes.  It’s getting dark, and Doctor Nelli reported fewer Solusians to the north.  If we look for shelter that way–“

“Oh no,” Dolan spat.

“What’s wrong?” Kellin anxiously asked.

“You’re using that voice,” Dolan said.

“What voice?” Kellin asked.  He flicked his head to the left, trying to whip the wet fringe out of his eyes.

“You’re pretending everything is normal,” Dolan insisted, feeling patronised by the behaviour.  “We’re stranded and you don’t want us to worry so that you can do all the worrying yourself.”

Scoffing, Addae looked Dolan in the eyes and said, “That’s a lot of emotion over some bravado.”

Kellin slapped a hand on his hip holster and growled, “Dammit!”  He snapped his head in Dolan’s direction, his grey eyes wide.  Dolan expected escalating heat, and maybe some anger, but Kellin deflated when he spoke.

“You don’t know me like that, ensign.”

Dolan crossed his arms over his chest.  

“I knew someone very much like you,” Dolan remarked.

“Not that much like me,” Kellin said as he marched away.  “I was never going to date you.”

Wait.

Listen.

Shuffling through the forest alone, Dolan stopped.  He leaned against a tree trunk and closed his eyes.  He allowed his awareness to expand.  All he could hear was the trickle of water moving through a creek and the sound of his own heavy breathing.  That he could hear little else was promising, he supposed.  That had to mean no sentient creatures were approaching him from somewhere out of sight.  He really was alone.

Moving without leaving a trace had been easier for Dolan in the dark and the rain, but the sun was rising now.  The rain clouds had dispersed.  Although it was getting brighter, Dolan was favoured by little direct sunlight because the tree canopy of leaves was layered thickly overhead.  The humidity was quickly rising, though, putting the all-weather material of his Starfleet uniform to the test.

Dolan consulted his tricorder.  The particle scattering field was still limiting the sensor range, but he noticed the scattering field had lessened in the past hour.  He could identify no signs of sentient plant-life within a kilometre radius.

Muttering to himself, Dolan repeated his mantra: “Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.”

Although he had refreshed his first contact training in preparation for the duck blind, Dolan’s xeno-zoology training served him at this moment.  Well before he had fallen into the orbit of archaeology, he had joined Starfleet for the opportunity to visit industry-free planets such as this one to silently observe the animal life.  The muscle memory from a dozen holo-simulations returned to him as he followed the creek and fuzzy sensor readings to the source of the only two humanoid life signs on the planet.

“You won’t believe it,” Dolan said as he swatted small branches from his eye-line.  “I think I saw a large cat made entirely of tangled vines.  I hid in a bush so that it wouldn’t see me.”

“Oh,” Dolan said in crisp realization.  

Addae and Kellin looked at him.

Thinking aloud, Dolan remarked, “…I hope the bush wasn’t sentient.”

As he said that, Dolan slowly approached the pond where Addae and Kellin were wading, waist-deep.  Upon turning to acknowledge Dolan, the two of them padded towards him, comfortable in their nudity.  Silently, Dolan questioned why he was the fool parading around in layers of Starfleet uniform and his tattered isolation jumpsuit, careful not to leave behind even a scrap of the damaged holographic lattice.

“You found a tree-cat, but did you find the phaser?” Addae asked.  His tone was as casual as his stride, making his way out of the water and stepping into the trouser legs of his uniform.

“No,” Dolan said, shaking his head.

“We couldn’t find it either,” Kellin said.  The way he continued to wallow in the pond made Dolan question just how intently Kellin had looked.  When Kellin discovered his phaser was missing the night before, their initial search had been in vain.  The transporter had tossed them across the landscape, and Kellin’s charcoal-tinted hand phaser had proven impossible to find in the dark.  They had initiated three search patterns at dawn to ensure they found it before any of the planet’s lifeforms.

Somewhere along the way, Kellin and Addae had found each other.

Excitedly, Kellin raised his arms above his head and said, “But we found fresh water!”

“How did you test the safety of the water?” Dolan asked in no small alarm.  “I had our tricorder.”

“Yuulik beamed a water sample aboard the runabout,” Addae replied as he yanked up his trousers.  He followed Dolan with his eyes, watching Dolan unblinkingly.  “She tested the water two days ago.”

Scoffing, Dolan said, “She tested one water sample.  We don’t know she tested that water.”

“It’s fine,” Kellin said in that condescending timbre again, play-acting nonchalantly.  Kellin would likely defend his behaviour, claiming it to be kindness, but it came across as selfish to Dolan.  Kellin seemed discomfited by Dolan’s reaction, and his dismissal came across as suppression.  

Kellin did it again, reaffirming, “We’re fine.  Why don’t you get in the water, too?  We’ll see who can hold his breath the longest?”

“How can you just stand there?” Dolan asked, waving a hand at Kellin in the water and Addae lazily shrugging on his uniform jacket.  “Every minute we’re exposed here, we’re at greater risk of–“

“I hear you,” Kellin said, “This isn’t what any of us wanted, but we can’t do anything about it until Constellation finds us.  This is where we find ourselves.”

In the span of a blink, Addae disappeared.  He didn’t pivot and run.  There was no shimmer of an annular confinement beam.  Dolan’s mind couldn’t process what had happened.  In one moment, Addae was straightening the combadge on his chest, and the next, he wasn’t there anymore.  He had become an absence.

All Dolan could comprehend was the difference between himself and Kellin.  The truth.  Their verbal disagreement had been petty; Dolan knew that.  It didn’t mean anything.  The real difference was that Kellin broke into a sprint.  He ran toward the spot where Addae had been standing.  Dolan, instead, ran in the opposite direction, scrambling to escape whatever had happened to Addae.

That proved to be a mistake when everything went black for him too.

Dolan tried to speak, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was soil.  

At least, he hoped it was soil, judging by the texture of it.  Dragged this far underground, he couldn’t see what had come out of his mouth.  He couldn’t see anything.  The light wouldn’t penetrate this down deep.  The prehensile graspers and palps that had wrapped around his limbs had only stopped dragging him through a warren of tunnels to deposit him in an underground burrow.  The burrow’s opening was so tight that Dolan had no space to stand.  He could just about kneel in a slumped-down position.  Even then, he still had to drop his chin to his chest, and his head was touching the overhead.

After a couple more coughs, Dolan hissed, “Kellin?  Addae?  Are you still with me?”  He tried not to think about how many of Kellin’s turns of phrase were still second nature to his vocabulary.

Through a couple of choking coughs, a voice said, “I’m here.”  It was only Addae who responded, the source of his voice much closer than Dolan expected.  

Dolan crawled towards Addae on his hands and knees, but he quickly lost his balance.  The proverbial floor of the burrow was angled deeper.  Only by dropping his chest down did Dolan avoid tumbling further beneath.

“Can you move?” Dolan asked.

“Not when you’re laying on top of me,” Addae answered tartly.

Reaching a hand out experimentally, Dolan’s palm connected with something that felt the size and shape of Addae’s shoulder.  The texture against his skin felt very much like the material of a Starfleet uniform.  Gliding his palm down Addae’s firm arm, past the elbow, Dolan instinctively recoiled when his grasp was filled by something clammy and spongy.

“…That’s not me,” Dolan whispered.

“That… uh… that should be distressing,” Addae said in a philosophical manner, the same way one might assess a case study in training.  He asked, “Do I sound uneasy?  I can’t… I can’t hear myself properly.”

After sucking in a deep breath, Dolan continued his physical examination of Addae.  Palpating below Addae’s chest, Dolan found the spongy material firm yet giving.  It reminded him of fungus he’d seen growing out of trees in holo-simulations.  The spongy material encased Addae’s hands and lower chest.  It felt like it had engulfed Addae down to the feet.

“You sound uncannily calm.  I don’t like it,” Dolan said; his own timbre was matter-of-fact.  “I’ve heard you panic in the Avalon mess hall if Rals so much as went for seconds without you.  Could you be… concussed?”

Dolan recoiled again –with a “Gah!”– when he felt the fungal matter moving beneath his touch.

Addae remarked, “I don’t feel dizzy?  I feel clear.  I feel– I feel– I feel cozy?  Like I’m back in my parents’s apartment?”

The fungus rippled further across Addae’s chest.  Beneath Dolan’s grasp, the fungus was expanding over Addae or it was sucking Addae deeper within itself.  In the dark, Dolan had too little perspective to judge the difference.  The fungus emitted high-pitched popping sounds, and its flesh undulated in a way that captured pockets of air and angrily spat them back out.  Dolan clasped Addae under his left armpit and tugged at him, but the body wouldn’t give.  Crouched over in the burrow, Dolan couldn’t manage any leverage.  He helplessly pulled again and again.

Addae’s combadge made a muffled chirping sound from beneath the fungal matter.  

A stilted voice spoke from the combadge, saying, “Give.”  The voice had a feminine lilt.  Only when it repeated the word, “Give,” did Dolan recognize it as the simulated voice of a Starfleet computer.

“What?” Dolan sputtered out through a groan as he fitfully yanked at Addae again.  “Who’s there?” Dolan asked.  “What do you want to give us?”

The popping sounds from the fungus came faster, rising to a higher pitch.

“Give back home,” the combadge said.

Scoffing, Dolan muttered, “You have taken us.  We have nothing to give?“

“Give back home,” the combadge repeated.

“Home?” Dolan echoed.  Then he groaned sympathetically, muttering, “Oh… oh…  your home?  We didn’t scoop a great big hole out of your forest.  That was the Borg!”

“Lies,” the comadge said.

Gasping, Addae protested, “Dee, the prime directive!”

“Don’t,” Dolan insisted.  “It’s literally communicating through your universal translator.  It’s eating you, dummy!  This is first contact.”

Dolan coughed again and then asserted his best impression of Captain Taes’ formal timbre.

“I am Ensign Melchor Dolan of the United Federation of Planets,” he said.  “I represent the starship USS Constellation.  Our crew is on a peaceful mission of friendship and exploration.”

“Lies,” the combadge said.

“I’m Starfleet!” Dolan said in defence of himself.  Recalling his academy squadron’s mantra, he declared, “We don’t lie.”

“Give,” the combadge said, more loudly this time.

“We don’t have your patch of forest!” Dolan shouted.  “The Borg stole it.  I would give it back if I could!”

“Then do,” the combadge said.  “Give me your legs.”

Huddled together in the underground burrow, Ensigns Dolan and Addae had grown quiet.  Shortly after the mushroom creature had stopped speaking to them through Addae’s combadge, they had run out of anything else to say.  Addae had sighed fitfully and closed his eyes while Dolan struggled to boost the range of his tricorder.  The remnants of the Borg’s signal-scattering field across the planet continued to disperse, but the tricorder hadn’t regained its full capacity.  

Case in point: Dolan could scan the amorphous mushroom creature that had enrobed Addae up to the shoulders, but the tricorder couldn’t determine the mushroom’s full size.  Sensor readings told Dolan the mushroom stretched for dozens of decimetres beneath their burrow, but its full dimensions exceeded the tricorder’s current scanner range.  Dolan swiped a thumb through the tricorder’s calibration settings but became distracted by an unexpected noise.

It was Addae who broke the silence abruptly.  He spoke plainly with no preamble.

“Why do you keep chiding Kellin as if he were a child?” Addae asked.  

Illuminated by the tricorder’s dim light, Addae’s facial expression remained impassive, his eyes closed.  His hair was still mussed from their treacherous journey, dragged through tunnels by the mushroom beast.

Dolan appreciated the bluntness.  Addae didn’t typically pantomime the social graces that disgusted Dolan.  Perhaps it was because he spent his days talking to the ship’s engines rather than people.  Addae had also shared stories over synthale about growing up in an educational system that valued outcomes and results over process.  In either event, even though Dolan welcomed Addae’s speaking his mind, it didn’t mean Dolan agreed with him.

“I’ve done no such thing,” Dolan replied.

“You do.  You come across as critical in most everything you say,” Addae affirmed.  Although he was reiterating his point, there remained little more than passive resignation in his voice.  “Nothing he does– nothing we do is ever good enough for you.”

Dolan scoffed softly and said, “Your insecurity is showing.  I don’t think less of you.  Or him.  Maybe you’re projecting that on me?  Don’t presume to know my thoughts anymore.  Our Constellation collective is gone.  That Borg DNA has been safely removed from our bodies.”

“How can you say that with such certainty?” Addae asked.  “We didn’t notice it when the Kellin-imposter Changeling changed our DNA in the first place.  I still feel something.  Almost… a kind of intuition I never experienced before?  Don’t you feel it?”

“Then apply your intuition to your duty, ensign,” Dolan insisted.  “You’re just laying there.  Your duty is to survive and– and– I’m sorry.  I don’t know how to get you out of this.”

In futile frustration, Dolan slapped the tricorder into his other palm.

“I don’t know what this fungus wants with me, but let’s not pretend,” Addae said far more firmly.  “You don’t have Rals’s bedside manner, and I don’t expect that from you.”

Addae took a deep breath.

“I’m never getting out of here,” Addae said, resolute.  “That’s why it’s so important you resolve your tension with Kellin.  I see it every day, but I can’t work out if you resent Kellin for being a lesser man than the Changeling or if you resent Kellin for choosing not to show you the same affection you received from a deranged, hateful Changeling.”

“And what?” Dolan asked rhetorically.  “As if I know what I feel?  I don’t know.  If anything, I’m em–“

Dolan saw movement in his peripheral vision and unthinkingly shouted out in shock.  The mushroom creature began to undulate again, its spongy, fungal flesh rippling over Addae’s form.  Dolan jerked back from it but couldn’t move far in the tightly enclosed burrow.

In whatever ways the mushroom communicated, the universal translator in Addae’s combadge presented it through the voice of a Starfleet computer.

“Borg,” they said.  “You said Borg.  What is Borg.“

Defensive, Dolan asked, “Who am I speaking to?  What do you call yourself?”

The mushroom creature said again, “What is Borg.“

Huffing, Dolan answered, “The Borg are beings of unified thoughts and words.  They live among the stars in your night sky.”

“You fell from the sky,” they accused.  “You sound aloud many words.“

“No, but the Borg speak through corpses,” Dolan said in frustration.  “They armour the dead in ore and use them to conquer.”

“You do not smell of life,” they said.  “You smell of them.  You smell of other.  You smell of water and ore and rot.  You came before.  Many of many seasons before.  You warned against resistance.  Some fell and forgot.  We still resist.“

Dolan swallowed his response.  He heard a high-pitched whining sound in the distance.  As the sound grew louder, he threw his body over Addae’s head, risking contact with the mushroom creature if it meant protecting his crewmate.  From above, Dolan saw a shimmer of red light that expanded until it vaporised a massive hole through the overhead.  Sunlight shone in.  Dolan blinked up through the hole.

Kellin shouted down, “I found my phaser.”

Chief Science Officer’s Log, supplemental…

 

Doctor Nelli, Lieutenant Jurij, Ensign Door and I have successfully rescued our wayward away team.  Although the transporters still aren’t safe to use through the scattering field, Cellar Door was able to pilot the shuttle through to a safe landing.  We believe the jury-rigged holographic projectors were satisfactory in masking our arrival and our only interaction was with the massive fungus creature that was holding Ensign Danbo captive.  Danbo’s release was manufactured by little more than my own cunning.  Our escape to the shuttle and back to Constellation is complete.

Quickly cocooned in over a dozen holographic LCARS panes, Yuulik settled into the med bay’s nursing station for the long haul.  

She changed the height of the charge nurse’s chair and increased the brightness settings on the holographic projections.  Simultaneously, Yuulik reviewed Dolan’s tricorder readings of the mushroom lifeform on the planet, the Estéron’s sensor readings of other sentient plant beings, her tricorder readings during the rescue mission, and Addae’s current vital signs.  When Nurse Rals attempted to access another patient record from the far edge of the station, Yuulik shooed him off.  She would need that space later.

Addae and Dolan had reported on their experiences on the planet, but Yuulik felt confident there was more to learn about the mushroom’s strange dominating behaviour.  It presented as vastly different from the other plantlife Nelli had met on their undercover survey of the planet.  Yuulik wasn’t prepared to allow Dolan nor Addae out of her sight until she had drained every drop of knowledge from their little heads.

Only when Captain Taes strode into the med bay did Yuulik look up from her sensor data.  She made a hand gesture through the air and the holographic displays parted into two columns.  While still scrolling through the data columns, Yuulik watched Taes approaching Addae Danbo in the surgical alcove.

“Doctor Nelli, how is our patient?” Taes asked.  Reaching the foot of the surgical biobed, Taes touched the surgical support frame.  Addae looked up at her and smiled weakly.

A nurse said, “T-cell stimulator has had no effect, doctor.”

“Increase field strength on the protodynoplaser, ensign,” Nelli said to the nurse.

Nelli’s eye-stalks swivelled to monitor the changes on Addae’s biofunction monitor and then turned their trunk to face the captain.

“As you can see, captain,” Nelli reported, “Ensign Danbo is conscious and his vitals are stable.  However, his immune system has been suppressed and is slow to respond to treatment.  The risk is low in the med bay’s sterile environment; there are no indications of infections.”

Taes shook her head and asked, “Then what’s compromising his immune system?”

Swaying their vines to the right, Nelli indicated the tall LCARS panel set into the bulkhead beside Taes.  A sensor composite of RNA helixes rotated on the display.

Nelli said, “The gene expression of his immune cells has been altered by fungal RNA.  Evidently, the sentient fungi on this planet have achieved mycorrhiza symbiosis with humanoids.  On your birth planet, this can only be achieved between fungi hyphae and the root systems of flora.  Fungus provides water to the flora, and the flora provides sugar to the fungus.  Exchanges of RNA to change the immune system of gene expression is far more complex.”

Taes lowered her voice slightly to ask, “As complex as the symbiosis capable on your homeworld.”

Returning their vines to adjust the controls on the surgical support frame, Nelli said, “Phylosian mycorrhiza can achieve exchanges as complex as immune system adjustment and… more.  But never with humanoids.”

“Then how is this possible?” Taes asked.

“When our away team recovered Addae from the planet,” Nelli continued, “Yuulik examined the fungi.  She identified Borg nanoprobes in the cell structure of the fungi.  The nanoprobes had degraded, showing signs of dysfunction.”  Swaying a vine toward Addae, Nelli added, “No nanoprobes were transferred to Ensign Danbo.”

From another biobed, Ensign Dolan added, “The fungus accused us of being Borg drones.  They spoke of the Borg trying to assimilate them ‘seasons of seasons ago.’  Given the state of the nanoprobes, that would have been hundreds of years ago.”

Chiming in from the nurses’ station, Yuulik added, “We detected no nanoprobes among any other plant life.  Our analysis from the duck-blind suspected the eldest were only decades old, not hundreds.  They wouldn’t have been around when the Borg came.  We suspect the fungus is much older and extends for kilometres beneath the forest.  Those nanoprobes must have been the sensor ghosts that delayed our search for the Borg power source.”

On another LCARS panel behind the biobed, Nelli brought up sensor records of neurotransmitters.

“The neuro-electric transmissions within all of the sentients on this planet appear erratic by our understanding,” Nelli said.  “They have more in common with electric storms than the neurotransmitters in even this one’s body.  We suspect the chemistry of their minds was too disruptive for the subspace transceivers that connect Borg to the collective.”

Yuulik surmised, “When the Borg couldn’t assimilate the fungi and others of their generation, they must have abandoned this planet.  But they left the nanoprobes behind in the fungi.  That’s how I rescued Addae.  Once I recognised the nanoprobes in the fungi, I generated an electromagnetic pulse from my tricorder to destroy the nanoprobes, stunning the creature.  In their state of disrepair, the nanoprobes were susceptible to the pulse, but my range was only 10 metres.”

“If it’s utilising the nanoprobes to enhance its ability to trade RNA with other beings,” Yuulik said, “it’s our duty to destroy them all.  The Borg interfered with this planet and then abandoned it.  The prime directive demands that we remove the Borg’s influence and allow these beings to evolve independently without any of us.”

Taes frowned.  “The prime directive allows some leeway in removing an alien influence from this civilisation, but an orbital bombardment of electromagnetic pulses strikes me as… severe.”

Yuulik insisted, “The Borg already came back for whatever probe thing they left behind, captain.  If the collective has become so devastated, they’ll come back for the nanoprobes next and shred the fungi in the process.”

Taes looked at Yuulik, looked right at her.  

“You can begin simulations for orbital EM pulses from the deflector dish,” Taes said.  “I want your recommendations on how short the bursts will be, and what level of the atmosphere to target, to avoid the heating effects and magnetic fields from harming any life on the surface.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Taes said, already moving for the exit, “I must reflect on the implications of your proposal.”

Taes had hardly strode into the corridor when Yuulik was up and clearing the displays on a few biofunction towers.  With their tall screens blanked, Yuulik accessing data about nanoprobes and the fungi instead.

“Dolan,” Yuulik instructed, “contact Nune, T’Kaal and Parze.  I want them down here in five minutes to work the problem!”

Trotting towards Yuulik on their four motor limbs, Nelli said, “Pardon, Yuulik, this is a med bay, not one of your science labs.”

“Look, I’m doing this to respect you,” Yuulik said patiently.  Or at least, in a timbre, she thought sounded patient.  “You want Addae and Dolan on bed rest.  They can stay in their beds, but I still need their insights now.  They know the fungi better than anyone at this point.”

“No, I cannot allow this,” Nelli said.

Shaking her head, Yuulik said, “Just pretend we’re all patients.  Nune has been looking awfully dehydrated.  It just so happens that his engineering know-how is just what we’ll need to murder those geriatric nanoprobes.”

“Yuulik, no,” Nelli said.

“What’re you going to do?” Yuulik asked.

“Computer,” Nelli said, “initiate a level seven quarantine of the med bay.”

“Ah,” Yuulik said.  “That?”

From one end of the med bay to the other, every holographic interface vanished, and every LCARS interface went dark.  A hexagonal light flare of forcefields rippled over every door and Jeffries tube hatch.  Heavy thunks in the overhead, paired with a change in the hissing of air circulation, indicated the med bay had been cut off from the ship’s utility trunks and switched over to its own isolated atmospheric support system.  Only the biobeds remained functioning on their own redundant subprocessors, disconnected from the main computer.

“Yuulik to bridge!” Yuulik shouted out.  Her combadge blurped at her, which meant it had been disconnected from every communications network node in range.  Yuulik tapped at a darkened LCARS panel and then stabbed at it twice with her index finger.  The smooth surface offered no response.

The level seven quarantine was recently modified to include restraining communication and information technology access.  The Borg had so recently proven they could use biological warfare to assimilate a crew and take control of a starship, as they had done to so many on Frontier Day.

“Please do not panic,” Doctor Nelli said.  The vocoder that translated Nelli’s plant-like ultrasonic pops and electrochemical emissions into a humanoid voice sounded all the more monotone and mechanical than ever.

Nelli clomped into the middle of the med bay, and they raised their vines in a sweeping gesture that had the aesthetic quality of choreography.  Nurses and patients alike turned their eyes to Nelli.  Yuulik did, too.

“The med bay is an emergency shelter designed to keep us safe,” Nelli said.  “This quarantine is temporary.  We need a safe space to pause.  We need to think.”

“Uhhh, doctor?” Nurse Rals called out.  His intonation gave nonchalance, but his eyes darted from side to side in a quiet display of panic.

Rals asked, “Why did you just lock us in here?”

“And lock us out of the computer?” Yuulik added, incensed.  

Nelli said, “As a crew, our decision-making has become compromised by fear.  Fear of the Borg.  We are stronger when we act from a place of love.  We must moderate our speed before we make ill-judged decisions about a lifeform with more experience and wisdom than any of us.”

“The fungus?” Yuulik spat as she stood up from her chair.  “You’re holding us hostage to protect the fungus?”

Elongating her trunk, Nelli stood taller to say, “Are new civilisations only worthy of seeking if they are mammalian, humanoid?”

Stepping in between the two senior officers squaring off against one another, Rals said, “I’m sure that’s not what she–“

Squinting at Rals, Yuulik nodded and said, “Regrettably, it is a little bit what I–“

“You have proposed to impair a sentient being,” Nelli said.  “We hold no claim on this world.  We have no right to choose its fate.  Our understanding of this civilisation is nanoscopic compared to their own.”

“Exactly,” Yuulik insisted.  “Exactly!  Nanoscopic is what we’re talking about.  Borg nanoprobes.  The fungal creature down below did not evolve the nanoprobes in its system.  I’m not suggesting we cause any harm to the fungus or its world, but the Borg nanoprobes must be disabled.  They don’t belong here.”

The volume increased on Nelli’s vocoder when she said, “You are wrong.  It is I who does not belong here.  Your Starfleet ways were not designed for this one’s biology or philosophy, but I adapted to work in symbiosis with you.  …No, not this.  I have assimilated to fit your crew, your priorities.  I don’t– I lost sight of the goals that called me to Starfleet.  Now, I apply stitches.  I prescribe.  I have not… I have not done anything of value.“

“You have!” Rals insisted.  “You really, really have.  You saved Addae’s life.  My husband would be dead and already buried on that planet if not for you.  Does that mean nothing to you?”

Nelli’s vines recoiled towards their trunk, curling like a hukka vine.  In an unbalanced manner, Nelli shuffled on the spot and then planted their limbs heavily, going still.

“Not nothing,” Nelli said.  “But it means little.  You would have done the same in my place.  He did not need me.”

Yuulik scoffed, “Rals is a nurse, and you’re a doctor, Nelli.  You’re perfect as you are, sweetie.  Few of us dedicate our lives to learning everything you’ve learned.”

Lowering the volume of their vocoder, Nelli said, “You cannot understand what I feel, Yuulik.  Your people are terrified of genetic modification.  It stays with you like blood memory.  My people, this is something we naturally express.  It is who we are.  RNA exchange is how we feel and express romantic love.”

“Nelli, we’re suffocating in your feelings in here!” Yuulik thundered.  “You have to let us destroy the nanoprobes.  Safely!”

“It’s you who doesn’t know,” Rals stammered.  He wouldn’t look at Nelli when he spoke up; he wouldn’t look at Addae either.  The tall nurse perched himself on the foot of a biobed, and he stared at the deck.

“You don’t know what it felt like to have the Borg in your head,” Rals said.  “The collective put thoughts in my head that didn’t belong to me.  I didn’t– I couldn’t recognise them.  They told me to do things I would never do, and no amount of mindfulness could protect me from those intrusive thoughts.  Before I was born, the Cardassians only controlled my parents’ bodies.  I thought that was the ultimate evil, but at least my parents’ minds were free!”

Nelli took two steps away from Rals.

“I do not defend the Borg Collective,” Nelli said.  “But you cannot affirm all collective is evil.  This crew is a collective.  Families on Phylos are collective.  We are capable of such greatness; please do not diminish that.”

Rals replied, “Whatever your people can do on Phylos, whatever that fungus can do below us, we cannot allow the Borg to find the fungus and study its abilities.  If that fungus can change gene expression in our brains, it can revert us into assimilation receptors without a transporter.  We cannot permit the Borg to assimilate that power!”

“Nelli,” Yuulik smirked, “do you love someone who isn’t Phylosian?”

Nelli didn’t answer.  They turned their eye-stalks away from Yuulik and puttered over to Addae’s biobed.  Nelli’s vines tapped at the controls on the surgical support frame. They paused to monitor, and then they tapped at the controls again.

Finally, Nelli said, “Addae’s immune system is recovering from treatment.”

And then they said, “Computer, authorisation: Piminellifolia-delta-three.  Lower the quarantine.  The threat has ended.”

When the doors slid open, Taes could see Nelli hadn’t taken her advice.

Looking into Nelli’s quarters, the small compartment remained in its standard configuration.  There was no pictures on the bulkheads nor a single flower in a vase.  Nelli had even volunteered to stay in one of the quarters with no exterior viewport.  The space was barely recognisable as personal quarters, aside from the standard cabinetry set into the bulkheads and Nelli’s bed, which had been customized to be filled with soil rather than a mattress.

Nelli’s back was to the door.  Although Nelli had allowed Taes’s entrance, Nelli continued to fuss with something in a cabinet before closing the cabinet’s panel.

“May I come in?” Taes asked, already stepping over the threshold.

“I’m very tired,” Nelli said, pressing their vines against the cabinet.

Taes froze mid-step.  She took a breath, and then she took a step back.

“I wanted to thank you,” Taes said, “for saving Addae’s life.  I’ve already written too many condolence letters this year.”

“Thank you,” Nelli said, curling their vines inwards.  “Or you’re welcome.  Whichever it is.”

Taes huffed and said, “I heard about what happened in the med bay this morning.”

“Do you require an apology?” Nelli asked.

“No,” Taes said softly.  “I only require your truth.”

Moving towards Taes, Nelli said, “I do not apologize.”

“You don’t have to,” Taes said.  She used a reassuring intonation, even though she didn’t know if the universal translator could truly interpolate that meaning into her words.

Taes remarked, “I understood what it meant to you to learn more about the fungus and its abilities.  More than once, I’ve found myself over-identifying with a new lifeform and pinning all my hopes for deeper self-discovery on their–“

Nelli interjected, “You have induced the electromagnetic pulses?”

Taes cleared her throat.  Then: “I have.”

Nelli said, “It puzzles me.  Starfleet hates the Borg Collective, yet the inverse is also true.  We love our collective.  We say we are nothing like them, and yet extreme individualism is not rewarded in Starfleet.  So then, what’s the difference?”

“Ah, I don’t know if I would put it like that,” Taes said.  “We are a collective, but we don’t need an RNA exchange to bond us.  We form emotional integration by sharing experiences and confiding in one another verbally.  We built a moral trust.”

Nelli didn’t say anything more.  If they could have, Taes felt like Nelli would have blinked heavily at her.

“I should let you rest,” Taes said, and she retreated from Nelli’s quarters.

The doors closed, and it physically pained Nelli to experience a physical barrier between themselves and Taes’s presence.  Nelli needed Taes’s strength more than ever on this night.  As much as it stung to understand that Taes had been the one — Taes had chosen to steal the fungi’s ability to connect — Nelli was not without pragmatism.  They understood the ecosystem of a starship.  They understood Taes made choices for the all sometimes.  Nelli hadn’t pushed Taes away to hide their pain.  Rather, Nelli had emotionally manipulated Taes to hide something else.  

The something in the cabinet.

A vial, a single hypospray vial, filled with grey fungal matter.