On the Fritz

Posted on 27 Oct 2013 @ 12:15am by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren
Edited on on 27 Oct 2013 @ 12:19am

1,114 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: Borg Cube - Unknown
Timeline: MD05 - 2200 hrs

[ON]

Zaren woke with his... her... Their cheek pressed against a wall, the room spinning around Them. Had the gravity gone off? Gingerly, They clamored back to Their feet using the pillowwall as support and swayed, considering Their surroundings. Still in the same room. Hadn't They already gotten out-

The door had finally unlatched when she heard the pounding of boots just outside the door. Scrambling back, she threw her makeshift tools into a darkened corner and arranged herself on the table just as they entered. "I'm cooperating," she'd insisted, but they'd instructed the nanoprobes within her to put her to sleep again anyway. She'd woken sporatically from that point on, in flashes of light and the echoes of her own screams as they tried to pull Zaren's knowledge out through her head. Like a straw. A living straw for the milkshake that was a hundred and fifty years' experience. Didn't they have that on their own as a massive glob of intellect thrown all together? Why did they need her? Something was in her mouth, thick and rubbery, and a moment later her entire body seized, fingers and toes curled, muffled pitiful screams-

They blinked, dazed, and touched Their temple, hissing as the press of cold fingertips irritated the burn marks there. A living straw, They thought again and elicited popping sounds from Their neck and shoulders before retrieving the collected bits of metal They'd previously used as tools, and returning to the door. It was easier this time. They remembered how the bolt had activated.

Ear pressed to the crack of the door, They listened intently. Nothing but the whirr of the ship. Maybe The Borg had gotten what they wanted from the miniature Trill. Maybe they hadn't.

At this point, Zaren did not care two figs, a tholi, or a pimplam. The necessity was escape. Any more damage to Their mind and it would be completely useless to anyone, least of all Them. Sliding the door open, They eased out into the hall and considered the stark interior of the modem. Cables languished loosely where they were no longer necessary, like thick sparking snakes hanging from trees. It felt as though it took a full minute just to turn Their head to one side. Then the other. This was unacceptable. Too many thoughts clustered at the front of Their mind. Too many wills combated for rights to fingers, elbows, ears, and tongue. Their own thick snakes of consciousness slid over and past each other, stretching rolling sliding torquing twisting tangling-

A wheezing exhale escaped Them as the inner battle raged. Their shoulder hitched. Arjin won.

Vision cleared. The right untampered eye narrowed, narrowed, narrowed, and shut. The cortical implant was more useful in this lighting. The key was understanding the layout of the corridors and rooms. They were organized into sections, always, that was the most expedient way of detailing a ship. The Borg, for all their 'evolution', were only a conglomerate of the norm; they were no different. So. Scouting was the delicacy of the day and Arjin knew that best. His steps were the quietest Lilou's feet had ever taken. At the first sound of footsteps or movement, he withdrew into darkened alcoves and recesses, twisting behind tangled machines until the drones passed by, as he built a map in his mind of what went were and where was what. He found an arm with an active phaser attachment and took the entirety of the grisly thing, holding it close to her body and rounding every new corner with care and quiet.

It took a long time. The panic of Raifi and Lilou and Velen was distracting and made him irritable, so he shoved them down and away. He could feel them clamoring unheard in the dark, but it made little difference to him. Now was for survival, nothing more. A half dozen drones strode past as he huddled behind what he assumed was some kind of recharging station. Then another half dozen. They'd likely noticed their experiment had taken a walk. Fine. It had been ages since he'd had a good fight. As they rounded a far corner, he slipped from hiding and continued on his path.

For the next several hours, They slunk down tangled, cluttered corridors, around information hubs, and into shadowed rooms, gathering information of the layout of the ship and carefully avoiding garnering any sort of attention. The trick was finding a console that would give him access to the network of the ship, but unfortunately there just weren't that many of those. And why should there be? Lilou's voice echoed dimly from the back of Their mind. When the ship's passengers are better integrated than any optical data network? Still, he was able to ascertain certain pieces of information. Such as the fact that there was a standing, operational transporter unit in the area of the ship itemized for ship and drone repair, and the other fact that he was only two levels above said area.

Lips curling into a grim smile that had never before graced Lilou's lips, Arjin slipped back into the corridor and went in search of a way down. He found it in an abandoned lift shaft, apparently designed past and around some time before and left empty where it had been. Using network cables and wires strapped around Lilou's waist, the Trill belayed down the shaft, grappling tightly to the wall as she passed the opening for the intermediate floor which teemed with drones refueling or... something. Gathering data perhaps? Arjin wasn't sure and didn't care to stick around to find out.

As he scuttled down another level of the ship, he felt the rumbling in Their mind heave and thunder and dutifully ignored the chatter from the peanut gallery. What an odd turn of phrase. Why would a gallery of peanuts make any noise at all? Peeking around the edge of the opening to the repair level, Arjin noted a swarm of activity. He also noticed that there was blood and sweat dripping from his nose and gathering in a small puddle on the floor beside the lift shaft. Cupping his hand over his nose and leaning a little further from the wall to avoid any more slipups, he waited, upsidedown, in the shaft for whatever the commotion was over to die down. For the drones to shuffle off and go on about their merry business. For a chance to get his hands on the transporter and see what he could do to get back to the Galileo.

[OFF]

Zaren (Lilou Zaren)
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Daedalus

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