“Up until now, I wondered who was working for whom.” The possessed station and the Andorian colonists appeared to be in cahoots, but Dr. Brooks hadn’t been sure who was the puppet and who was the master. “I think we now have the answer.” The results on his tricorder were quite clear. “You should take a look at this.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never been much for biology,” Commander Lee admitted as she accepted the tricorder reluctantly. She’d helped with the autopsy, but mostly just by handing him various instruments from his pack as he asked for them. For her own part, she’d mostly been focused on not vomiting as they stood over the cadaver of the Andorian that Dr. Brooks had killed. “I much prefer inorganic material. It operates in a far more deterministic fashion.”

“Then you’ll find yourself quite at home with this.”

The moment she glanced at the results, she saw what he meant. “These readings, are you sure… are you sure these are from him?” They looked more like what you’d expect to find within the memory engrams of a synth, and in fact, they looked oddly reminiscent of the pattern they’d lifted from the C300 synth that had assaulted them in the laboratory.

“From a scan of his remnant neural pathways, yes.”

“But they look…”

“Like a Borg neural net? Yes, they do,” nodded Dr. Brooks knowingly. “I stripped away the pathways you’d expect to see from the regular course of neurological development, and that was what was left.”

“Are you suggesting he’s been rewired?”

“No,” Dr. Brooks shook his head. “That’s what our autopsy is suggesting.”

“How?”

“Long-term potentiation can strengthen, or even alter, specific synaptic pathways over time,” Dr. Brooks explained. It was the foundation of repetition-based pedagogies. “Starfleet Medical reported similar, albeit lesser, impacts to neuroplasticity in those who were assimilated on Frontier Day.” Dr. Brooks began to walk around the central plexus as if looking for something. He came to a stop in front of a large enclosure where it looked like something had been ripped out. “There used to be a vinculum here. At first, I assumed our people must have ripped it out and taken it back for further study, but now I’m wondering if it’s actually the root of all this.”

“Even if you and I were exposed to an active vinculum for a long period of time, it wouldn’t do anything to us though…” Commander Lee began to say, but Dr. Brooks didn’t respond. He was deep in thought, and that caused doubt to creep into her thoughts. “It wouldn’t… Would it? I mean, the changelings went to extreme lengths to modify our transporter systems to imprint the genetic modifications to allow the assimilation signal to work against us on Frontier Day.”

“That is our traditional understanding, yes,” Dr. Brooks concurred. “But when evidence suggests an alternate understanding, such as the neural pathways we see of this Andorian here, we must be open to the possibility we may not have a full understanding.” A good scientist understood the fundamental bases that underwrote their theories. A great one recognized that those bases could change. “I think we need to call the Ingenuity again.”

Down on the surface of Beta Serpentis III, the team from the USS Ingenuity was now in control of the colony’s central administration building. Administrator Thoss and his co-conspirators had been shackled with flex cuffs, and they sat shoulder-to-shoulder in varying degrees of consciousness along one wall of the reception room. Two security officers stood over the colonists, keeping a close watch, and a third headed for the roof to set up overwatch.

“Take up defensive positions around the facility,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz ordered as he handed out phasers to the officers they’d just freed from captivity. “In case of a counterattack.”

Admiral Reyes and Lieutenant Balan stayed there in the middle of the room with him, while his two remaining security officers and the rest of the away team peeled away to secure doors and windows. When he was satisfied they had appropriate coverage, he tapped his combadge, calling the security officer that had gone up to the roof. “Ensign, you got eyes on anyone from up there?”

“No sir,” reported the ensign from the roof. “Totally quiet from what I can see.” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz could hear the winds howling in the background. “With the storm for cover, and the speed we hit the building,” the ensign elaborated. “I don’t think the colonists have any idea we’re even here.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz replied with concern in his eyes. In their initial attack, they’d had the advantage of surprise, plus a bit of luck as far as the enemy’s number went, but if the colonists realized what had happened, they could storm the facility with overwhelming numbers. “Call us back if there’s any chance whatsoever.” He tapped his combadge off and then turned to Admiral Reyes. “How’re you doing, ma’am?”

“Better now, thanks to you and your team,” Admiral Reyes smiled. She’d been worried about how the young crew of the Ingenuity would manage the situation, but she was pleased to see they’d risen to the call. She had no idea that originally they had planned simply to comply with the hostage takers, and that it was only a call from Commander Lee and Dr. Brooks that finally kicked them into action. “What do we know so far?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” admitted Lieutenant J.G. Cruz. “After they took you and your team hostage, Administrator Thoss called the Ingenuity and leveled a set of demands.”

“For what?”

“For equipment and supplies,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz explained, drawing a surprised look from Admiral Reyes. There was no need to have taken her team hostage for such things. When they first arrived in orbit, she’d literally offered the colony anything it needed. “It’s all pretty innocuous stuff, if we’re being honest. The engineers back on the Ingenuity have been pouring over the entire list, trying to piece together what they’re up to, but so far, no idea.”

“And what about Commander Lee and Dr. Brooks?” asked Admiral Reyes. “Have they returned from their trip?” Right before heading for the colony, she’d sent the pair to check up on the classified research facility hidden deep within the gaseous atmosphere of Beta Serpentis IV.

“There’s been a… a development.”

“How so?”

“When Commander Lee and Dr. Brooks went aboard Salvage Facility 21-J, they found it crawling with colonists, and just like down here, they found themselves in a firefight.” The look on Lieutenant J.G. Cruz’s face said it all. “And now they’re stranded aboard the station.”

“Are they safe?” Admiral Reyes asked, quickly growing concerned. She knew the horrors contained within Salvage Facility 21-J.

“As much as one can be on a station crawling with angry Andorians, weaponized synths, and a computer core that’s been corrupted with Borg subroutines,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz frowned, his expression matched by the admiral. The station had been corrupted by the contents it contained within? That was a scary thought. “When they last made contact with us, they reported that they’d found the source of the jamming signal…”

“The jamming signal?”

“Yes, the jamming signal,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz nodded. “Around the time the colonists moved against you, massive signal interference began emanating from Beta Serpentis IV. It has completely jammed up our subspace carrier waves and is preventing us from contacting the squadron or Command.”

“I see…” Admiral Reyes mused as she processed the information. She’d missed a lot during her captivity. “And is it safe to assume we believe these things to all be connected?”

“It would be a mighty coincidence if not.”

Admiral Reyes had to agree, and that had her very worried. As she turned thoughts over in her head, the lieutenant’s combadge chirped. He tapped it, fully expecting it to be the ensign on the roof calling to report that the situation had changed. “Cruz, go.”

“Wow, it actually worked…” came the overly excited voice of Ensign Kellan Seltzer over the link.

“Color me surprised,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz admitted. While their short-range communications did not require superluminal channels, real-time communication back to the Ingenuity did. Given that their subspace carrier waves were being jammed by the transceiver array within Salvage Facility 21-J, they were operating from the assumption that they’d be out of contact with the ship until they returned. “How did you manage to pull this one off, Kellan?”

“I didn’t,” Ensign Seltzer replied. “Commander Lee and Dr. Brooks did. They designed a model by which we are able to piggyback over the secondary carrier wave they’re underwriting beneath the jamming signal.” How the prodigious engineer and the seasoned scientist had managed to accomplish that from their tricorders while on the run from an entire station, the ensign had no idea. “And they’re asking to be patched through to you.”

“Ok, yeah…” replied Lieutenant J.G. Cruz, not even bothering to ask for more details as he knew the technobabble would go right over his head. “Patch them through.”

A moment later, Ensign Seltzer had  a three way channel established between the USS Ingenuity, the two officers stranded aboard Salvage Facility 21-J, and the now-freed away team on the surface of Beta Serpentis III. Under normal circumstances, that would have been a wholly unremarkable task, but given the current situation, it was actually a pretty incredible feat.

“Lieutenant, I hear you and your team succeeded,” Commander Lee opened, celebrating the fact that Lieutenant J.G. Cruz and his team had overcome their fears and risen to the task as she knew they could.  “You should be very proud.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Dr. Brooks didn’t waste time with celebratory words though. He recognized the time sensitivity of the present situation, both in terms of the unstable link and in terms of whatever machinations the colonists were up to, so he cut straight to the chase: “Cruz, are you with the Admiral now?”

“I am.”

“Good, because she needs to hear this too. After we got off the call with you guys last, we performed an autopsy of the Andorian,” Dr. Brooks explained, to which Admiral Reyes quirked her brow. An autopsy? What the hell was happening on that decommissioned research station? “I don’t understand exactly how,” Dr. Brooks continued. “But I believe the colonists are under the influence of an active vinculum.”

“Come again, doc?” asked Lieutenant J.G. Cruz, his tone a mix of incredulity at the notion and nervousness at the possibility. “A Borg vinculum communicates with the cortical nodes implanted within each Borg drone. You can’t simply hear it by being around it.”

“Sure, that’s the conventional thinking,” Dr. Brooks countered. “But April 15 rewrote that book, didn’t it?”

The reminder of the horror he’d gone through over Earth sent a shiver down Lieutenant J.G. Cruz’s spine. “But they don’t even have a working transporter pad down here,” he insisted. That was how the Changelings had delivered the modifications to their genome that made them susceptible to the Borg signal. “I don’t see how the changeling modifications could have found them without one.”

“I do,” Admiral Reyes said, speaking for the first time in the conversation as she stared at the Andorians they’d lined up against the wall. “But it wasn’t the changelings that did it.” She thought back to what Administrator Thoss had said earlier. “Many of these colonists were part of the initial team sent here to analyze the debris of Wolf 359, and they’re likely as familiar with Borg tech as anyone.”

That was true. Dr. Brooks and Commander Lee had seen just how comfortable they were as they worked with the Borg technology locked away within Salvage Facility 21-J. But that was still a far cry from hearing the voice of the Collective. Where was Admiral Reyes going with this?

“Dr. Brooks, if you had access to the genomic recipe used on Frontier Day, could you conceive of a way to modify our genome to be susceptible without a transporter?” asked Admiral Reyes insidiously.

“In theory, yes,” Dr. Brooks confirmed. “And the lack of a transporter wouldn’t be the tricky part. The medical field has far more conventional delivery vehicles.” Those mechanisms had been used for generations to cure cancers and other malignant conditions. The transporter was only used by the changelings to implement their plan in secret.

“So what if they did exactly that?”

“I mean, with all the knowledge stored in the databanks here, it is certainly possible,” Dr. Brooks agreed. “But why would they willingly do that?” Although all evidence suggested the Andorians had become susceptible to the Borg neural interlink frequency, there was still a chicken-and-egg problem there. Without Borg influence, why would one voluntarily make the modifications to their genome to make themselves susceptible to Borg influence?

“As a scientist, don’t tell me you’ve never looked at the Borg and not seen a certain elegance and beauty in their systems,” Admiral Reyes replied, drawing shocked expressions from the officers around her. Lieutenant J.G. Cruz and Lieutenant Balan had certainly never thought of it that way, but Dr. Brooks and Admiral Reyes, as research scientists by trade, were cut from a different cloth. “When I spoke with Administrator Thoss, he clearly worships the Borg and believes they are the galaxy’s salvation. What if the worship came first, and then he took the next logical step?”

“And now they’ve crossed totally over,” Dr. Brooks replied, finishing her line of thought.

“Exactly.”

“As much as I hate to say it,” interjected Lieutenant Balan timidly, feeling fairly spooked by this whole conversation. “It sort of fits.” She looked over at the young Andorian sensor operator she’d been speaking with earlier. “When I was talking to the young man over there, he spoke of being born able to hear the voice of the Collective.”

“But where is the voice coming from?” Admiral Reyes asked.

“I can’t tell you where it’s coming from,” Dr. Brooks answered over the link. “But I have a pretty good idea what is emitting it. We’re calling you from a central plexus that was extracted from the Cube at Wolf 359. While most of it is intact, the vinculum is missing. I’ll bet that if you find the vinculum, you’ve found the source.”

“It’s down here,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz asserted with a surprising degree of confidence.

Everyone turned to him.

“How do you know?” asked Admiral Reyes.

“Because… because I can hear it too,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz admitted sheepishly. “I started hearing it as we descended towards the surface, and it’s been getting louder and louder ever since.” 

Everyone was staring at him now. Did they think him a leper, or worse?

“It doesn’t seem to have any influence over me,” Lieutenant J.G. tried to assure them. “I still have complete control of my faculties, and I’ve been trying to push it out of my mind, but it’s still there, blabbering away in the background.”

“It’s not unheard of that those who were once assimilated can still hear the Collective after,” Admiral Reyes explained, projecting calm and compassion, seemingly unphased by the revelation the young man had shared. “Admiral Picard is a perfect example, and just like Admiral Picard, I have no doubt that you will be able to resist its urges.”

Lieutenant J.G. Cruz nodded, appreciating her support.

“If you focus on it, do you think you could follow it to the source?” Admiral Reyes asked, a deep sadness in her eyes as she knew what she was asking of the young man who’d already been through so much.

“I… I… yeah, I think so.”

“Then draw up a team, say half the group we’ve got down here,” Admiral Reyes ordered. “And go for the source.”

For an instant, fear washed across the young man’s face, but he pushed it down. He knew the torture these colonists were going through. He’d been there himself just two months prior when the Borg came to Earth. He could do this. He could end their pain. “And what about the rest?”

“They’re going to stay here and hold this facility with me,” Admiral Reyes replied as she looked over at Administrator Thoss. “I still have a conversation to finish with the administrator.”