Resistance - J.M. Dillard [52]
He had grown sufficiently accustomed to the Collective’s steady patter in his mind to focus on his own thoughts. He let Locutus guide his feet and let his mind recall each individual of the lost away team. He wanted to remember them separately; it fell to his responsibility to notify their families when he returned to the Enterprise.
If he returned, the thought whispered, and he corrected it quickly, firmly. When.
He could not let himself forget the cost of his own reluctance to face the Borg alone. The lost were not faceless officers, aware of the dangers of service aboard a starship. Each one had a history, loved ones, dreams. And Picard fought against the Collective to remember them as such.
There was Lionardo Battaglia, of course—a sharp, ambitious young man, but one with depth. When duty had brought him to the captain’s quarters, Battaglia had immediately recognized the music Picard had been listening to: Puccini. He had spoken knowledgeably of the composer’s life.
Though Battaglia was still alive, Picard had to think of him as lost. He could not cloud his mission with thoughts of rescue. Saving Battaglia could mean the loss of more than just Picard.
Instead, he focused on the dead—the truly lost. There was Amrita Satchitanand, whom he had met only briefly when she had first reported to duty aboard the Enterprise. He remembered her as a lithe, diminutive woman with skin the color of coffee with cream and an elegance to her movements that reminded him of Hindu temple dancers.
There was Jorge Costas, tall, dark eyed, and proud, who had come from a large family in Starfleet, all of whom would feel his loss. There was Noel DeVrie from Holland, painfully young, with an eager attitude and hair the color of sunlight, as pale as Costas was dark.
He moved past a row of darkened chambers, each one housing the silhouette of an upright, sleeping Borg. The sleep that is not sleep, he thought. The Borg did not dream. Their presence made him wary, but as he passed by, they remained silent and still, adrift in mindless existence.
Footsteps coming toward him. Locutus took no notice, but Picard tensed at the sight of a drone looming swiftly in his vision—coming, he knew with Collective instinct, from the birthplace of the queen. The drone had once been humanoid, though its original sex and species had been so long submerged that they had been washed away, like the tide wearing down stone, leaving smooth, bland features in its wake.
No alarm was sounded in the group consciousness, no call to action given, but Picard froze nonetheless, remembering how swiftly Battaglia and the others had been taken. The drone neared and lifted an arm terminating in a single, viciously sharp blade. Picard rested a finger on his communicator badge, ready to touch it if need be, to warn those on the Enterprise, just as Battaglia had done with his last breath.
The Borg moved within an arm’s length, the arm still raised. And then he walked on, brushing against Picard as he passed.
Picard let go a long breath, then stilled his human mind. He allowed the Collective to become ascendant and resumed his steady pace.
He let the mind of the Borg draw him over the metal scaffold, beneath pulsing lights that might have dazzled human eyes. In the ship, all was silent. Locutus felt safe, nestled in the bosom of the Collective, a part of hundreds of others. Picard felt horribly alone.
It was not far to the single enclosed chamber on the ship. Picard paused in the open entryway and stood in the pulsing light—a longer wavelength than that in the rest of the ship, though his Borg’s eyes could not identify the color.
The chamber was vast, high ceilinged, fogged with humidity; in the far misting shadows, an exoskeleton of conduits hung on the walls, pumping in specially warmed and dampened air, filtering the environment. Small, slickly shining nutrient tubes dangled down unused, a tangle of black snakes.
Captain Picard,