Facing Her Majesty

Posted on Tue Oct 27th, 2015 @ 10:13pm by Lieutenant Commander Ryuuji Takasu & Jennifer Daxer & Ensign Noriko Ogawa

896 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Behind Closed Doors
Location: Engineering

Knowing that a special guest was being escorted to Engineering, the drones working on 6 of 12 quickly finished up their work, before moving her to one of the newly constructed alcoves for regeneration. This particular alcove was situated just out of view of the main Engineering area. If any of the unassimilated crew managed to make it this far, she'd still be out of sight.

Off to one side and behind Ryu, Noriko walked in formation with the other drones escorting him to the nerve center of the hive. On the outside the young women, now sporting several external hardware devices, followed with calm indifference. Inside however a war was raging between her mind and the hive as she tried to hold onto the last vestiges of her individuality despite mounting pressure.

Several drones were scattered about Engineering, working tirelessly in an effort to break the encryption placed on the Tokyo's main computer. While they had Jen's highly classified override codes, their inability to decrypt the computer systems were severely hampering their efforts. "Restrain him..." Jen whispered to her drones.

Noriko reached out, taking Ryu's arm firmly as a second drone did the same to his other side. The grip was firm, probably even a bit too tight as Noriko, now identifying herself as 2 of 4, noticed a slight wince from the unassimilated human.

"Well!" Ryuuji said. "You're not going to assimilate me?" he asked struggling against Noriko's grip. "You have one hell of a grip on you ensign" he muttered.

After a moment, what appeared to be just another drone stepped out from behind one of the Engineering Bulkheads. Covered mostly with implants, and Borg armor, there wasn't a whole lot of difference in appeareance, except the pistol that was attached to this drone's hip, and the fact that neither of her arms had been replaced. "Assimilating you would defeat the purpose for bringing you here, Mr. Takasu." Though distorted, it was clearly Daxer's voice. "You are going to help me get what I need from Commander Aisaka."

"You're kidding right!" Ryuuji laughed. "Why should I help you! Plus, Taiga is so stubborn sometimes she'd never give me it to give to you. Hell, I can't even make her give me her leftover pudding when she doesn't want it!"

"She may be stubborn, but I know there is a special bond between the two of you, Commander." 6 of 12 said evenly. She approached Ryuuji, placing the bare fingers of one hand against his cheek. As she looked at him, it was easy to see the war raging in her eyes, every conscious moment spent fighting the Collective. "Your Captain will come for you, and when she does... you will both join the collective."

"Is that the Borg talking, or Jennifer?" Ryuuji asked curiously. "She's also a Starfleet Captain. She has more responsibility than just me, she's got to think of her crew" he explained. "No one wants to be a mindless, Borg Drone. No offense..."

"The knowledge, and experiences of the Vulcan, Daxer has become part of the collective, which means we know everything she knows." 6 of 12 explained. "We have control over many of this vessel's systems, and soon your entire crew will join us in assimilating the Alpha Quadrant... Resistance is futile."

"Ah!" Ryuuji said. "There's a catch isn't there!" he looked at the Borg drone's eyes. "You can't take the entire ship without Taiga's command codes! Daxer may have been the XO of this ship, but that doesn't give her access to everything, therefore Taiga is the one you really need. Isn't it?"

As she looked at him, a single tear escaped Jen's unaltered eye, slowly streaking down the woman's face. She smiled, and it was easy to see that the smile didn't reach her eyes. "By now, she knows you've been relocated here." 6 of 12 finally replied. "My guess is that she will come for you herself... an act that will be her undoing."

"You can't predict what she'll do" Ryuuji snapped back. "You can't know everything! Even in your assimilated state you still believe you're better than everyone else!" he said his voice now slightly raised. "You're going to have your ass handed to you, just you watch!"

6 of 12 paused for a moment, as she was fed new information from the collective. After a short moment, the smile seemed to melt away, and she looked back at Ryuuji. "I know everything that the Collective knows." She said simply. "My drones have spotted her, and she is already making her way here with a team."

"She's probably thought of a thousand ways to kill you already" Ryuuji said with a smirk. "She's not coming down here for me, she's coming down here for you!"

"Then let her come." Daxer said. She smiled again, and this time, the smile did reach her eyes, as she inwardly hoped that Taiga would put her out of her misery, and retake the ship. "Either way, the result will be a wanted outcome."

Ryuuji let out a sigh. This drone was different from what he had heard about before. He knew that somewhere in there Daxer was trying to fight back. It might have been her and not the Borg that had prevented his assimilation although at the rate the Borg were going the assimilation of the Tokyo and the whole crew was imminant, sooner rather than later.

To be continued...

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