The lights of the transporter faded as each officer on the away team rapidly filled their hands with phasers and tricorders in equal measure.  The Hazard team had moved through the initial cargo bay and secured the area.  They waited for the next move from the ranking officer of the away team that had appeared.  Commander Thasaz had her tricorder out and was moving a short distance away and back in a circling manner.  Her science background would be helpful, but it was her sixth sense that was tingling.  “The bay is clear of any phasing or mechanical signatures.  The rest of the ship is a scramble.”  She turned to the Chief Engineer, Commander Okada, “It feels like…something’s off.  I can’t quantify it.”

Okada hefted her heavier engineering scanner, “The systems are a mess – something’s modified the gravity, environmental, and dampener systems. It’s still livable, but that uncomfortable feeling…it’s a place meant for something else.”

Doctor Henry Longfellow came from the rear, his medical tricorder beeping as he looked from it to the PADD in his other hand, “It will come as no surprise that the settings are a baseline for Borg…it matches the readings from the files, and recent engagements.  Long-term exposure will cause some harm, but I don’t think we’re here for a long time.”  He muttered, “I don’t want to be here for a long time.”

The Chief Engineer ignored his comment and said, “Let’s move towards the bridge.”

The corridor is where the lighting faded into darkness.  Flashlights clicked on, filling the hallway with a stark white light as the aches and pains of the shifting deck groaned underneath them.  The lack of an engine or power system created a vacuum of sound as they walked – everything they shuffled over, kicked, or bumped into sent a shock through the group, their senses balanced on the edge of concern.

“Goddamn it.”  Longfellow groused as he slowed, “We’re never going to get to the bridge at this rate.”

The group halted with a shout from Lieutenant Horace Krato at the front.  A body was lying across the corridor intersection.  Krato, the Hazard Team Lead, motioned Longfellow forward, and the doctor soon saw why they had stopped.

The body was that of a young man halfway assimilated, twitching with soft moans.  Longfellow gave the Hazard team an annoyed look, “If he moves to take me out, you can shoot him…but we need to figure out his condition.”  Henry knelt, moving his medical tricorder over the man, “Parts of him are still human…as if they got so far and gave up.  This wasn’t interrupted artificially…this assimilation was stopped by the collective.”  He increased the detail and location focus on the tricorder, “His mind is split between the human and Borg consciousness.  It’s as if he suddenly had a conjoined twin attached to him.”  The body jerked loudly at that, and the rest jumped back, shocked.  Longfellow remained, his eyes trained on the tricorder and his patient, “He’s not connected to the collective – that link has been severed permanently.”

Thasaz stared at the eyes of the young man.  There was a deep emptiness in his stare, broken only by sporadic blinking and muttering incoherent babble from his trembling lips.  “Can he be saved?”

Longfellow completed his scans, “No.  Too much damage has been done to the cognitive parts of the brain as well as the brainstem, not to mention most of his major organs…he wouldn’t live through any removal surgery.”  A quiet moment of repose passed between the team before Henry continued, “We will need to bring him aboard the Mack for study – whatever they were up to here…we need to find out as much as we can.” He stood and glanced at the away team leader, Okada.  She stared at the body, her face falling as she realized he would never live again.  He would die in their care.  She brushed the tightness in her throat away and gave a nod.  The body was tagged and transported to an isolation chamber under guard until Longfellow could return.  They moved on in silence.

They made it to the bridge.  The lights flickered over a gruesome scene.  Borg drones had been ripped apart with great force while human and alien bodies lay in morbid stages of partial assimilation.  Longfellow shook his head in disgust.  He moved from body to body, scanning with the help of his science counterpart, Thasaz.  At each, they reported the percentage of assimilation and the body’s condition.  Unlike the discovery in the corridor, there was nothing left alive here. A rank smell of death and decay floated above the command center.

Okada felt her stomach churning as she tried to look everywhere but at the dull red blood that arrayed the floor.  She managed to compose herself and ask, “I suppose we’ll need to examine them as well, Doctor Longfellow.”  He gave a sad nod.  They tagged the bodies and watched as the bright lights took them as if to transport their spirits to a better place.  A garbled message came through the communicators, “We’ve made entry into the back of the ship…you need to see this.”

“What the….” Longfellow faded off as they entered the rear cargo bay that had been sealed and locked.  Bodies were piled high, all empty-eyed, and none assimilated.  He scanned lightly, “There’s more than the crew numbers for this transport ship.  I suspect these are the crews from the others.”  He stepped closer, his eyes searching the pile, “They fought…hard.  Every single one of them has burns from Borg weapons…when you attack a Borg…you become a threat.”

Thasaz was using a larger sensor unit, “Wait…there’s…someone alive in there.”  Longfellow bounded over and glanced at the readings.

“Shit…she’s right.  Tricorder couldn’t get through the piles…Hazard Team, need a hand here.”  It was gentle work as they removed the bodies slowly at Thasaz’s guidance to locate the one life sign signal she’d found. Nobody spoke in the silence broken by the sound of hands delicately gripping arms and legs and the footfalls as they respectfully laid the bodies to the side.

Suddenly, there was a shout, “Get me out! GET ME OUT!”  The pace picked up as they moved more bodies until a flash of an arm waving wildly jumped out of the pile, shouting for help.  It took them mere moments to clear the remaining bodies around the teen girl and help pull her to stand amongst them.  Longfellow went to scan her, “You’re safe.”  He gave her their ship name as he gently guided her to sit away from the bodies, “What is your name?”

She looked at them in a new light, “You said the USS Mackenzie…is Captain Harris still your captain?”  Longfellow felt a shiver as he gently explained that he had died in the line of duty and that they had a new captain.  Her face fell in sadness at the news.  She whispered, “He was kind to my people when he was here.  We know your ship. Doctor.”  She looked around the bay, misery filling her face, “You couldn’t have stood a chance against this.  My name is Eileen Strickland…and I think I am the last of my people.”  She sobbed as her face fell into her hands.

Longfellow stood, “We need to get her to the Mackenzie – we try and debrief here; it’ll make it worse.”  He leaned down, “Eileen, I need to take you to my ship and help you…is that ok?” Through the shuddering sobs, she nodded, inconsolable.  He placed a tag on her and soon disappeared in the bright lights.

Thasaz turned to the team, “Let’s get through the rest of this ship…see what we can pull from the computers and systems.  There’s gotta be an answer here somewhere.”  As they moved about the ship in teams, she wondered if they would ever find an answer to such brutality.  What do you do in the face of a stoppable, monstrous mechanical nightmare?

What could you do?

She kept asking herself that question.