Captain Ejoma Nushif prided herself on her keen ability to understand social cues, navigate precarious conversations, and not stick her foot in her mouth. Tonight, due to a particularly grueling hike, and a tired body and mind, she’d accepted an invitation from Admiral Niana Tondro to have drinks in the ship’s lounge, and she’d done exactly what she’d told herself never to do: ask an El-Aurian about the Borg.

Admiral Tondro, to her credit, had leaned back in her chair, took a sip of her cocktail, and looked out the window with a sad sigh.

“A Borg cube, Ejoma, is unmistakable as anything else, on the sensors. It creates a lot of noise, so to speak, generates its own local system of gravity. Has its own satellites. That’s hyperbole, but you get the image. You’ve seen Romulan Warbirds, massive ships unto their own right. Shit, even the Ride is massive compared to most ships. A cube would dwarf her, handily.”

“I apologize Admiral, I didn’t…”

“And they’re coming, and coming, and then they’re there,” she interrupted. “They’re there, bringing ego death and annihilation in their wake. They flood every communication channel with that awful, droning cacophony of theirs. A thousand thousand voices that could be lifted in beautiful chorus, instead spelling out the ways they’ll destroy you utterly, wholly, and forever. Then they cut.” She emphasized the word by slamming her drink onto the table. “A hundred beams of light, tearing apart your hull to get to the people you’ve served with, grown with…loved…the screams, the crying, the smell of blood and oil and ichor all at the same time overwhelming your senses as your friends undergo the change.”

She turned her gaze toward the (now cowed) Bajoran woman, her eyes red. “I would say they aren’t a fate I would wish upon my worst enemy. But they are my worst enemy, Ejoma. They are the enemy of sentience and free will. And if Starfleet would authorize it, I would take every ship from every fleet to the Delta Quadrant tomorrow. I would hunt down every Unimatrix, every cube, every probe. I would destroy them, permanently, brutally, and with great malice.”

Standing, she gulped down the last of her drink, and said, “That, Captain, is what the Borg are like,” before exiting the Lounge.