The drone’s dispassionate gaze swept over the bridge, then settled on RJ. 

“I am Two of…” he paused, frowned, then shook his head. The lights in the implants on the side of his face flickered. “Doctor Two… no… Twelve. I am Two of twelve. Lower your shields and surrender your records… your biological and technological distinctiveness will be analysed.”

“Which is it… Doctor? Or two?” 

RJ held position, his expression unchanging. He’d seen Borg drones, both during Frontier day and the more traditional drones in the holodeck training programs he’d put himself through so that if he ever hit a situation like this, then he wouldn’t freeze immediately. 

“Two of Twelve,” the old drone replied in a clipped voice. “Whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

RJ smiled. O… kay, either he’d slipped into a parallel reality where borg drones all sounded like they were on the verge of inviting him for high tea in the vicar’s parlor or… this guy wasn’t a drone. 

He looked like a drone. Implants, check. Mottled grey skin, not check. 

His skin was a little pale, but if RJ didn’t miss his guess, it was the papery, crepey skin of advanced old age rather than drone pale. 

“I’m Captain Reese-Riggs, of the USS Resolute,” he replied. “And the pleasure is all mine. May I ask,” he carried on, since there was no harm while they were all being pleasant. “Why you want us to surrender our records?”

Instead of just beaming aboard and trying to assimilate the whole crew, for example.

That little speech was different to the normal borg spiel as well. Usually it was all ‘assimilate, assimilate, assimilate’… not a request to see records. Someone moved in the background behind two. RJ blinked. For a moment there he could swear that looked like—

He shook his head. No, that couldn’t have been what he thought it was.

“We will analyse your records,” Two continued. “And ensure you and your crew are in compliance.”

“Compliance?” That did break RJ’s poker face for a second before he managed to get it under control, crossing his arms over his chest. His uniform was getting a bit too tight, he’d have to calm it down in the gym a little. Not like he was trying to compete with Mason in the muscle-bound stakes. “Compliance in what way?”

Two didn’t answer him, a look of irritation crossing over his face. “That is not relevant,” he snapped. “You have one hour to comply.”

The comm cut off abruptly, leaving him looking at a blank screen, then, a second later, a view of the system and and RJ rubbed his hand over his face tiredly. Yeah, that had definitely been a sink plunger in the background. He knew the borg scavenged a lot of parts, but using cleaning supplies was taking it a little too far.

“Okay,” he said to the bridge as a whole. “Did anyone else think that was as weird as fuck? I’m going to need the senior staff in the briefing room and someone get me Thane on that ship!”