Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [1]
- and that was exactly how Janeway wanted it. Make her stew a little longer, she thought, refusing to gratify the Queen with an answer. You want it? Come get it!
On cue, the Queen stalked across the deck plating, covering the distance between herself and Janeway in three long steps.
A metallic taste filled her mouth: adrenaline. Janeway’s heart quickened; the cold prickle of sweat drizzled down her neck. This is it.
“Not feeling talkative?” Any pretense of humor gone, the Queen thrust her hand into Janeway’s neck; assimilation tubules pierced her skin.
In agony, Janeway cried out-groaned- every fiber in her body howling in pained shock. She slowly collapsed onto the floor. Recollections of her previous assimilation stormed to the fore of her consciousness; unconscionable agony unleashed every terror and nightmare she’d ever survived. Waves of Borg technology rippled beneath her skin, tunneling through her tissues like greedy parasites.
The Queen’s shadow enveloped Janeway. “You and I don’t need words to understand each other.”
Janeway heard the Queen’s smile rather than saw it. Don’t get cocky, Your Majesty. I’ll still have the last laugh. Stubbornly, she hung on to the desire to witness the Queen’s defeat, refusing to succumb to the invasion ravaging her body. Cell by cell, the nanoprobe cancer spread, searing away the messy “inadequacies” of individuality and rendering her a clean vessel to receive Borg “perfection.” An implant sprouted through her skin as the technology devoured her from the inside.
Through pain-induced delirium, she had a vague notion of the Queen circling her like a predator closing in on wounded prey. I will not give in became Janeway’s mantra as enduring her moment-to-moment struggle became progressively more excruciating. Denying the Queen the satisfaction of hearing her screams became paramount; she sought strength by clinging to that part of her mind that remained her own. There, she searched for the calm rationality of her scientist self to shore up her will.
Inhale…
Once a cadet had asked what assimilation felt like and Janeway had compared it to an army of billions of nano-sized rotors pillaging and plundering through subcellular passageways. Now she knew that description was wrong. What she felt had more in common with the glacial burn of a neutron star’s liquid hydrogen core coursing through her veins. The cold scorching torment ebbed gradually into numbness. Whether by her own endorphins inducing a narcotic-like haze or by her nervous system surrendering and being overrun entirely by the invaders Janeway didn’t care: she only knew that whatever scrap of her identity that had thus far eluded conquest was drifting away, disassociating from the drone body being built from her flesh.
Ghostly whispers encroached on her thoughts-the end must be near. Let go, Kathryn. Your time has come. The end is here.
In weak protest, she thought, Not yet! Not yet! Voyager isn’t safe!
Though Janeway couldn’t comprehend what was being said, she was aware of the voice of the collective filling the Queen’s chamber as they acted, presumably on the Queen’s orders, to stop Voyager.
The metallic monotone echoed “- redirect vessels to intercept.”
Abruptly, a high-pitched whine sliced through the voices; the Queen staggered, Janeway winced. But as the whine died away, the metallic monotone gave way to cacophonous jumble.
“- corridor nine… Voyager… U.S.S…. zero nine… transwarp… intercept… unable to comply..”
Janeway, at last, felt satisfaction.
A console sparked. Lights flickered, dimmed. The whine erupted over the miasma, provoking visceral misery from the Queen, who, reeling from pain, grasped her head and covered her ears. Overcome, she gasped, stumbled forward, and braced herself on a metal beam.
Janeway locked gazes with the Queen. “Must be… something you assimilated…” she rasped, managing a half-smile. For a moment, the sweet satisfaction of leveling her enemy trumped her suffering.
“What have you done?” the Queen demanded.
“I thought we didn’t need words to understand each