“Bollocks?” Thane whipped his head around at the science officer’s soft exhalation. “What bollocks? No bollocks.” 

He was across the room in a few strides, looking down in the direction that Allen was. 

“Bollocks.”

“Yeah… that’s what I said. Keep up,” Allen replied, and crouched down in front of the head. It was long dead—or, if it wasn’t, it had belonged to a zombie borg—and lay on its side, trailing tentacles like some kind of freaky cybernetic jellyfish. 

“Careful,” he warned, covering it with the business end of the big rifle he carried. If it so much as twitched, it was gone. Literally. The caliber of this thing would obliterate it, and probably punch a hole in the deck plating as well. 

But it would be dead… Deader. Problem solved either way. 

Allen shook his head. “It’s inert. Nothing doing in there.”

He reached out and picked it up, holding it up in one hand. “Alas, poor Yorick!”

Thane blinked, looking between the crazy science officer and the borg head. “I’m sorry, did you…” 

“Know him?” Allen slid him a sideways look. “Nope.”

Thane gave him a deadpan look. 

“What?” Allen put the head down on the counter. “It’s a skull. You have to say that when you find a skull.”

Thane’s eyebrow winged up. “If you say so.” 

“Okay… this makes things make more sense.” Allen had already moved on, looking at the notes on the counter next to the head. “Looks like Henries was studying borg tech… specifically dead drones.”

He frowned, rubbing at his chin as he read. 

“Dead drones? How many? Are we sure they’re dead?” Thane asked, turning but not wanting to put his back to the head on the counter. There were still two rooms that he hadn’t swept yet. 

“Well, our friend here isn’t going anywhere,” Allen said, trying to log into the nearest console. “Computer core is still online, I’m downloading the logs. There are… no, that one’s not active.” He looked up at Thane. “Looks like they had two pieces of tech onboard. So we’re looking for one more.”

“Shit.”

Thane snapped his rifle up and turned, eyes on the doors to the two side rooms they hadn’t checked yet. His steps were silent as he crossed the floor, not so much as a squeak of boot rubber across the metal plate. For a moment he missed the fire and chaos of the war. 

At least back then the only people who had been trying to kill him where people who had chosen to do so. Not victims who had been plugged into the collective and had no choice. He missed the honest hatred of an enemy who wanted him dead rather than to plug him in as a spare cog in a massive machine. 

The first room was clear, nothing looking back at him apart from an empty counter… no, a dissection table… and some steel cabinets. He crouched down, checking under the table in case Yorick’s friend was hiding down there. 

He moved on, his jaw tightening as he stopped in the next doorway. There was a body on the table, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Not with that much of its insides neatly lined up on the counter beside it. 

“Allen,” he called over his shoulder. “What’s your anatomy like?”