The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [86]
Janeway touched her comm badge. “Data,” she said, “we’ve made it into her office and we think we’ve located her lab. Can you—”
She heard the sound of phaser fire on the other side of the door. The Borg had found them again.
“That door won’t hold for long,” Montgomery said.
“Data, can you erect a force field by the entrance to Covington’s office?”
“I will attempt to do so, Captain. I suggest you proceed with both caution and alacrity.”
“We intend to do so. Phasers aren’t going to get through this door. Is there any way you can unlock it?”
Data was an expert at being able to do several things at once, all flawlessly and efficiently. He was being put to a real test now, however, as he tried to keep up the various force fields he had erected to protect Janeway and her crew, reestablish power, prevent the queen from gaining any more access than she already had, and trying to open the door.
[258] “There are two life signs behind the door you indicate,” he said. “Both of them are Borg. One of them is the queen.”
“Can you unlock it?” Janeway repeated. Data attempted to do so and was met with a surprisingly forceful resistance. She did not want that door opened, and was concentrating a great deal of her efforts on keeping it locked.
“You are going to have to use your phasers,” said Data.
They exchanged glances. The door behind them was much less difficult to break down than the one in front of them, and the drones had a head start and probably more phasers. Data had just signed their death warrant with his words.
Nothing more was said. These were all Starfleet officers, and good ones. Janeway lifted her phaser and took aim. The rest silently followed suit. They would keep trying until the door behind them was opened, and the drones burst through and killed them.
The sound of over a dozen phasers operating simultaneously was hard on the ears, but Janeway endured it, knowing that it might well be the last sound she heard. They all concentrated on the same spot, right where the locking mechanism was located. Behind them, the drones continued their onslaught.
When the room started to fade in her vision, Janeway almost laughed with joy. The clever Data had not alerted them to an alternative lest the queen also know, and was in the process of initiating a site-to-site transport to the other side of the door. She only hoped he had done it swiftly enough so that the queen couldn’t put up a block.
[259] They materialized inside Covington’s laboratory. There were only two people in the room, as Data had informed them. Sitting rigidly at a console was a young man in civilian clothing. Except he really wasn’t a man anymore, he was, like everyone in the building, Borg. He had linked with the computer and completely disregarded them. For the moment.
But Janeway barely had time to register his presence. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the terrifying sight of the Borg queen. The EMH had been right. He had done a fine job on this queen. She stood naked in the regeneration chamber, bathed in eerie green lights. Her smooth, gray flesh was unmarred. No harsh implants jutted out from her body or face. The only signs that this was not a normal human were the hue of the skin and the two tubes that ran from the base of her skull into her body. Her eyes were open, but they were presently unseeing, and she was swathed in various cables, looking like a spider in her web.
Despite the horror of the image in front of her, Janeway felt a renewed surge of hope. A true queen would not need to be so exposed, so physically bound to the machines with which she shared her existence. She would walk freely, connected only by thoughts. Would carry on conversations. Would look at them with mingled contempt and triumph.
The queen in front of her was more to her liking.
She heard Montgomery mutter an oath and lift his phaser. “No!” Janeway