bungakertas | An Exercise In Futility: Chapter Seven (Reply)

Kathryn Janeway was not a woman who liked to back down. But when a large amount of mechanical insects beamed on to the bridge of her ship and simply absorbed any phaser fire directed at them, she knew it was time to find a new strategy whether she liked it or not.

Still, the fact that the Prometheus commander had yanked Voyager away from the enemy ship as a matter of course did a great deal to endear her to their new allies.

The fact that Major Carter had dragged Tom bodily out from under a swarm of the bugs didn't hurt, either.

They had all jammed into the turbo-lift, heading for engineering. Chakotay had a bleeding mark on his neck that ran frighteningly close to a vein.

“Major Carter, Doctor Jackson,” she snapped. “What are those things, and how do we fight them?”

“Those are Replicator bugs. If allowed to proceed unchecked, they'll consume this ship for resources and technology to build on,” Jackson told her.

“They tend to absorb energy weapons, as you saw. They have a vulnerability to projectile weapons like bullets and grenades, however,” Carter reported.

Janeway took this in. Voyager didn't keep projectile weapons on hand. There was no need. Most of her officers weren't trained in them, either. And she certainly wasn't about to sanction the use of grenades indoors.

Her commbadge chirped. “Torres to Captain Janeway,” B'Elanna's voice came, quiet and serious.

Her blood turned cold. With the bridge overrun already with Replicators, this was obviously more bad news. “Janeway here.”

“Captain, several Borg drones just beamed into engineering,” B'Elanna told her.

“That seems to be the order of the day,” Janeway sighed. “Transfer command codes to…” She broke off, thinking. With the bridge and engineering compromised, where could she put an auxiliary bridge? “Astrometrics.”

“Aye, captain,” B'Elanna said. “We've erected a level ten force field around the warp core set to a rotating modulation. So far, they haven't gotten around it.”

“Good work.” Janeway redirected the turbo-lift to deck eight. It came to a sudden stop and everyone spilled out, following the captain to the astrometrics lab.

Once there, Janeway turned to Carter and Jackson. “All right. The two of you obviously have experience fighting these Replicators. You're going to work with my security teams. Chakotay, you and Doctor Jackson take two teams and get me my bridge back. Replicate some of the old-style ballistic rifles to use against the bugs. Major Carter, you and I are going to go get engineering.” There were brisk nods and Jackson headed off with Chakotay, filling him in as they went.

Janeway and Carter went headed to the nearest turbo-lift. As they entered, Carter said, “One of the first things the Replicators will try to do is disable the internal sensors capable of locating them. Because they've never encountered your technology before, it will probably take them longer to do it than it would the Asgard. But given that their first target was your bridge…”

Janeway nodded. She relayed the information to Kim.

A harsh sound reached her ears. She looked over to see Carter working the mechanisms on her P-90 with practiced ease. Janeway's own fingers were itching for a phaser rifle.

The doors slid open to deck eleven.

Carter slid out of the elevator with the grace Janeway usually associated with big predators, smoothly checking the hall in both directions before sliding in behind the captain as they proceeded to one of the supply rooms.

B'Elanna was overseeing arming of the engineering section. Phaser rifles and sidearms had appeared on all sides.

“Lieutenant Torres,” Janeway said, stepping in.

“Captain,” Torres said, turning sharply. “We've been keeping an eye on the drones in engineering. Most of them seem to be focusing on trying to get to the warp core, but…” She trailed off, frowning.

“But what?”

“The computer subroutines governing the force field around the core have been enhanced with what look like Borg adaptive subroutines. Every time the drones get close to taking it down, the force field adapts and they loose all their progress,” B'Elanna said.

“The same thing seems to be occurring as the Replicators attempt to take command of the key systems on the bridge,” Vorik put in from a nearby station. “The Borg subroutines have been programmed differently than usual, however.”

“Let me see,” Carter said, stepping forward.

Janeway watched curiously as Carter frowned at the screen Vorik brought up on one of the computer terminals. She wasn't sure what the woman would make of the display, having never encountered anything like Voyager's systems before.

Much to her surprise, Carter said, “It looks like the…subroutine? Subroutine you're talking about has been encrypted using…well, it looks like goa'uld programming.”

“Why would the Borg stop themselves from getting at our warp core?” Torres protested. “Not that I'm complaining, but it isn't like them.”

“And why would they be unable to get around programming they've already assimilated?” Carter added.

“Let's ask them,” Janeway said. She picked up a phaser rifle. “B'Elanna, Major Carter.”

B'Elanna seized her own weapon, looking—for once—as excited as a klingon normally would when about to go into battle. Carter fell into step beside her and the three of them headed for the doors to Main Engineering.

Main Engineering was an impressive place on any day. It was a tall room, full of sleek computers. The warp core and its various accesses soared over the heads of anyone entering. The temperature was always kept slightly cool, in deference to the equipment in the room, which meant that as soon as you entered, you felt in your skin that you had come to an Important Place.

And now, it also looked slightly menacing. The lights were dimmed by the rerouting of power to the shield around the warp core, making all the computer terminals glow unnaturally into the gloom. The blue-white light of the warp core threw sharp, dark shadows on everyone in the room.

And three Borg drones were busily trying to assimilate several computer terminals.

As Janeway's eyes swept the room, she realized that there were three more drones in the room, making six in total. They were each playing with a set of scrap metal. Or, rather, she thought it was playing. As she watched, the fingers of one of the drones assembled the pieces to form a Replicator bug, like the ones she'd seen on the bridge. The bug climbed down from the desk and went over to the force field where it began methodically testing the field. Two more bugs joined it after a few seconds.

“Tell me the field emitters are all working,” Janeway said.

“One hundred percent, all the way around,” B'Elanna replied.

“If the Borg are already having their drones create bugs—,” Sam said, then she broke off. One of the bugs had suddenly turned to face them.

“We haven't presented a threat yet,” B'Elanna said, confused.

The bug looked the three of them over and then caught sight of Janeway and Carter. The three bugs, and the drones that created them, all started towards them.

The women opened fire, Carter taking the three bugs in three shots before focusing on the drones. Two of the three who were working the computer terminals came towards them. The remaining drone of the six withdrew from the computers and took cover behind a desk. Janeway had never seen anything like it from a drone.

Two of the drones went down. A third made the mistake of going for B'Elanna. She brought her rifle butt up into its chin, knocking it backwards, and followed this up with a kick to the teeth. It stumbled, and Janeway finished it off before it could reorient itself.

Carter had taken out one, but the fifth got inside the range of her weapon before she could react. It swung its arm in a wide arc at her neck, but rather than arresting its momentum, Carter ducked the swing and used the drone's own momentum to swing it to the floor. She shot it, but it had adjusted its shields to her weapon. B'Elanna stepped up, and together, they killed it.

Janeway, turned to the desk behind which the other drone was hiding. “Did you see the last one duck?” she asked.

“I did, captain,” B'Elanna replied. The three women carefully crept around the desk to find the last drone crouched with its hands raised, looking at them with its remaining eye completely lucidly.

“Do not harm me. I surrender,” the drone said in a voice that echoed unnaturally.

Carter stared in shock. “Zipacna?”

The drone stood, managing to radiate smugness despite still having its hands raised and maintaining a non-aggressive stance, which Janeway found altogether bizarre. Especially coming from a drone. “Yes. I presume this is the tau'ri's pitiful response to my request for assistance.”

Janeway had to give her credit. The woman's expression barely changed and her weapon didn't budge a millimeter. Instead, she looked to Janeway. “Have the Borg ever used a trick like this before?”

“Never,” Janeway said. “But there are firsts for everything.”

“I assure you, I am not Borg,” the drone protested.

“Because a goa'uld would never pretend to be something they aren’t?” Carter asked, irritation bleeding through her tone.

“I will undergo any test you wish,” he said.

“How about letting my doctor remove your implants?” Janeway said.

“I would expect nothing less,” the drone replied, supercilious arrogance coloring every syllable.

Janeway would've moved, but at that precise moment, her commbadge went off. “Chakotay to Janeway.”

“Janeway here,” she replied, ignoring B'Elanna's curious look.

“The bridge is cleared. Sensors show minimal communication between the blocks and no more bugs anywhere on the ship,” he reported.

“They never disabled the sensors?” Carter said, sounding bewildered.

“Maybe,” Chakotay answered her. “We briefly showed three replicators in Main Engineering, but they're gone now.”

“No, there were three and they are now gone,” Janeway answered.

“Captain, we also have a communication coming in from the other ship,” Chakotay added.

“Patch it through,” Janeway said.

A moment later, Colonel Pendergast's voice came through. “Hello, Captain Janeway?”

“Speaking.”

“I apologize for not communicating sooner. We had several intruders on our ship. That situation has been resolved. Do you require any assistance?”

“No. We had our own intruder problem, but that has also been cleared up. Thank you for getting us out of there so fast,” she said.

“Our pleasure. However, I'm afraid I have to ask for your assistance. One of our crew was caught by one of the drones and injected with something. She is, at present, in stable condition, but unresponsive. Have you encountered this phenomenon before?” Pendergast asked.

“If the drone injected her with nanoprobes, then they would have begun the assimilation process. However, the process can't be completed by nanoprobes alone. It should be possible to reverse her assimilation. Our doctor has some experience with this sort of thing,” Janeway said. She paused and then said, “We've captured one of the drones, alive. It would be easiest if all this took place in one location. May we bring him to your Sickbay?”

There was a moment of deep silence. Carter spoke up beside her, “Colonel? Sir, the drone we have… It's Zipacna. And he seems to be himself.”

At that there were quiet voices on the other end and then Pendergast said, “Bring him along. We've got some passengers who will be happy to keep him under control.”

Janeway called the Doctor to get his mobile emitter and Jackson to simply come along and meet them in transporter room two. She, Carter, Jackson, the Doctor, and the drone all beamed directly into Prometheus' Sickbay.

The doctor there, a Doctor Carson Beckett, greeted them in a Scottish accent. And despite Janeway's certainty that their Doctor would go prickly at having to work with someone else, Beckett's greeting to him was, “Am I glad to see you. Because I don't mind telling you that I've got no clue how to help this poor girl.”

“Oh,” the Doctor said, looking slightly stunned. “Yes, well. I'm sure we've all been there.”

Janeway grinned.

Several people were already in the infirmary. Tuvok and Seven were speaking to two men who they introduced to her as Colonel Jack O'Neill and Teal'c. Another, who had a small bandage over a vicious-looking cut on his face was given the name Major Cameron Mitchell. Two more, both dressed in brown leather clothes rather than the dark blue uniforms of the others, had taken up positions near the drone where they would be close enough to subdue him if needed, but out of the way of the doctors.

“So, Sam?” Jackson said into the ensuing quiet as the two doctors began working on their patients.

“Yes, Daniel?” Carter said, turning to him.

“Did it seem like that was really easy to you?” he asked.

“So, the Replicators didn't put up much of a fight?” Carter looked baffled. “I had hoped it was just me.”

“No, they went down easy,” Jackson answered. “I mean, normally I wouldn't complain, but it makes me wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.”

“I hate to say it, but the Borg usually put up more of a fuss than this as well,” Janeway agreed. “There is something strange going on.”

“What on earth…?” that came from the Doctor. He was waving a tricorder over the unconscious woman with a deep frown. “There are two people here.”

“What?” Janeway asked.

“There's the woman, an ordinary human,” the Doctor reported, “and a second organism wrapped around her brainstem. An intelligent lifeform, if this tricorder is correct. It's incredible.” He turned to the drone. “And he is the same! Unbelievable.”

“He is not the same,” said one of the men in leather—the younger-looking of the two. His eyes literally flashed and voice echoed impossibly, sending an uncomfortable shiver crawling up the back of Janeway's neck. And his face seemed angry and offended.

The second man, stepped forward, looking somewhat conciliatory, though still slightly displeased. “What Malek is saying is that while the 'second organisms,' as you called them, are the same species in both cases, they come from…antagonist cultural backgrounds.”

The Doctor nodded. “My apologies.”

“The woman and the symbiote she carries,” Malek said, voice still echoing. “Are they all right?”

The Doctor nodded. “The borg nanoprobes suppress voluntary functions, and will begin creating implants if left unchecked. However, your friend's assimilation is in the very early stages. At this point, she lacks a complete link to the Collective. I believe the process is entirely reversible.”

Malek looked pleased at this. Janeway looked at the older man who'd spoken. “If it's all right, what is the difference between…the drone's cultural background and yours?”

The man frowned thoughfully and finally said, “I suppose the simplest difference is that when a goa'uld takes a host, they do it by force and completely suppress the host's ability to act independently. When our symbiotes take hosts, they do so only with the host's permission and act in partnership with the host.”

“And you are…?” she asked.

“The host,” he said, smiling. “Jacob Carter, United States Air Force, retired. My symbiote's name is Selmak. Malek, who you've heard speaking, is the symbiote of the pair.”

The younger man gave her a deep nod of his head.

“Zipacna is, as we've mentioned, a goa'uld,” the younger Carter explained.

Janeway blinked at them all in surprise.

“A lot to take in, isn't it?” O'Neill said, half-sarcasm, half-sympathy.

“I do not understand,” Seven said, looking at the drone as Carson Beckett worked on it under the Doctor's direction. “How did you manage not to be assimilated? If you are connected to your host, it does not make sense that you would have been spared.”

“I withdrew from my host’s mind prior to assimilation, and severed all links between our bodies,” Zipacna replied. “I remained within him, but not a part of him.”

Seven nodded, but Janeway noticed that Malek and Jacob Carter had rather odd looks. Jacob had turned deathly white, and Malek looked downright murderous.

“Do you mean to say,” Malek began in a voice as cold as a glacier, “that having taken your host by force several centuries ago, and forcing him to participate in all your crimes, that at this moment of utmost terror you fled and left him to face it alone?”

“What else is the purpose of a host?” Zipacna asked, sounding genuinely baffled.

“You cowardly, worthless, detestible—”

“Malek.”

Jacob Carter had cut him off quietly with a hand on his shoulder. “We know.”

Malek looked away angrily, and then, with an effort, turned and gave O'Neill a nod. “I apologize for my outburst.”

Into the quiet that followed, the drone spoke. “And this is the formidable alliance of tau'ri warriors and tok'ra shol'va who have so confounded the empire of the system lords. Kalach kek!”

Jackson blinked. “Well, that wasn't very polite.”

“Now, you said that your host was assimilated,” Janeway said to the drone.

“Yes, of course, I did. Are you people simple?” it snapped back.

Janeway breezed right by the rudeness. “That would mean he is still a part of the Collective now. Doctor, I want you to concentrate on getting that link shut off.”

“Broadcasting our position?” O'Neill said, following her train of thought with admirable ease.

“Most likely,” Janeway said.

“Yeah, we should put a stop to that,” O'Neill agreed.

He went over to a device on the wall and informed the bridge.

Beckett evicted them from the Sickbay as soon as O'Neill hung up, stating a need to work. The two tok'ra refused to budge, being as they were guarding the drone. Everyone else waited in the hall outside for any news on the progress.

After a few moments, the Doctor—the holographic one—came out to speak to Janeway. “Captain, these nanoprobes are modified from the usual sort we would see in the Borg. They seem to be made up of microscopic versions of the Replicator blocks. I believe we have managed to block their ability to send outgoing signals, but we haven't disabled them. At the moment, I don't know enough about Replicator technology to begin to do such a thing.”

“We'll give you everything we've got on the Replicators,” Major Carter spoke up.

The Doctor blinked. “Oh. Well, that would be helpful, yes.”

Carter grinned and followed him into Sickbay. About fifteen minutes later she came out. “Beckett and your doctor think they've got it cracked. In fact, when I left, they'd managed to get Freya conscious again. It'll be about an hour or so before they have either Freya or Zipacna back to normal again, though.”

“Okay. Pendergast is going to want an update. Let's assume we'll have some sort of conference on our options after Freya and the goa'uld are de-Borged,” O'Neill said. “Convene in the briefing room and we'll decide on a new direction from there.”

For once, the doctors were punctual and only did need about an hour. Freya, dressed in hospital scrubs, was even able to join them in the briefing room along with both doctors, the three members of Voyager's crew on board, Malek and Jacob Carter, SG-1, and Colonel Pendergast.

The room was obviously not built to hold so many people, as several of them were left standing.

“All right,” Pendergast said, after asking Freya if she and Anise were all right, “tell me about reversing the…assimilation?” He glanced at Janeway, who—unused to not being the one at the head of the table, was mollified by the deference—nodded back.

“Assimilation process,” he finished.

The Doctor recognized his cue and began. “Borg nanoprobes generally begin a process of assimilation by taking control of a hosts blood cells and using the circulatory system to move throughout the body. Within the various systems, the nanoprobes will begin replicating within the new host and eventually, when a critical mass is achieved, build several of the smaller Borg implants.”

“In these cases, however,” Beckett moved in, “the replication process proceeded much faster than the Doctor reports is ordinary. No doubt as a result of reinforcement by the Replicators. Freya already had several internal implants before we were able to remove them.”

The Doctor nodded. “The key to halting the process is to break up communication between the nanoprobes, at which point the host body's immune system will recognize them as intruders, and flush them out.”

Beckett carried on with their report. “Normally breaking up communication between the Replicators is bloody difficult, but the blocks seem to be using the Borg system to communicate. Externally, the exchanges are protected, but within a host body, the protective protocols are sacrificed for speed. Once the nanoprobes were overcome, all four of our patients' immune responses took over. After that, it's just a matter of removing the implants.”

“We suspect,” the Doctor added, “that this is also why Zipacna was not assimilated after reasserting control over his host. Because he is situated internally, any protective protocols that would’ve attacked him weren’t able to do so.”

Everyone looked to Freya.

“I assure you, I am well. We both are. Both of these doctors have done an excellent job, and Anise is healing any remnants of damage done. I am quite unharmed,” she said.

“So, we can fix people if we can subdue them,” O'Neill said. “I like that. But I'm not clear on what good that does us when dealing with a whole ha'tak full of those guys.”

“It's possible the Super-Collective is still working out how to smoothly integrate the massive amounts of new technology within itself,” Major Carter said, and was about to keep going when she was interrupted.

“Actually, I'm wondering if this Super-Collective really exists yet,” Jackson put in.

“Doctor Jackson, you saw the same things as the rest of us. Replicators working with drones. You know as much as the rest of us that Replicators do not cooperate with anyone,” an echoing voice said from Jacob Carter's mouth. Selmak? Yes. That was the name.

“I know,” Daniel said, “but I remember several times on the bridge of Voyager that one or a few of the bugs would break off doing one thing and then start doing another. One of them even started going around in circles. Now, I admit that computers aren't my area of expertise, but it looked to me like they were getting conflicting commands.”

“I must concur with Doctor Jackson,” Tuvok said from beside Janeway. “During our fight with the intruders on Prometheus I noted one of the bugs attack a drone. Then, a few moments later, the same drone crushed two of the bugs. The Replicators and Borg do not appear to be working smoothly together.”

Major Carter turned to Seven. “Could you describe to me just how the Borg think?”

Seven nodded. “The minds of the individual drones are linked to form a hive mind called 'the Collective.'”

“And where is that Collective administrated?” Carter pressed.

“In our own universe, the Borg collective—made up of many billions of drones—is administrated by a 'queen.' Each individual drone relays information into the Collective. The queen functions as a sort of probability engine, deciding on appropriate courses of action from the information she is given. However, in a Collective so small, it is likely the information would be referred to a computer consciousness, which would administrate individual information to achieve consensus. It is only over very large scales that the organic intervention of a queen becomes more efficient,” Seven replied.

Janeway filed that explanation away for further study later on.

“The Replicators are ruled by a computer consciousness of their own,” Carter said. “If the Borg tried to assimilate the Replicators and the Replicators tried to consume the Borg, then wouldn't the two computer consciousnesses come into direct contact at some point?”

Seven nodded. “It is likely. Each would no doubt seek to control the other, in increasingly invasive ways.”

“So, sooner or later, they would start to directly overwrite various directives and protocols, trying to get around the safeguards the other system possessed,” Carter continued. “And, after an even longer period, the two would be fully merged.”

“But they would be able to issue commands to both groups long before that occurred,” Seven agreed.

“Wait, are you saying I was right?” Jackson asked, sounding totally astonished.

“I think you may have been,” Carter said.

“Cool,” O'Neill put in.

“All of that is very interesting, but how does it help us?” Pendergast asked.

Carter frowned. “Well, sir…I suppose it doesn't. The two groups will keep growing more and more into one cohesive whole. And when that's done…I don't know. They were already able to transport several drones and bugs directly through the shields of both ships. The bugs have been equipped to assimilate people and the drones can both create bugs and replicate implants. Those are some fairly astonishing improvements over a very short period of time. When the computer conflict that is holding the two groups back from cooperating effectively comes to a halt…I don't know what we can do to stop them. That Super-Collective is the most dangerous thing we've ever faced.”

“And there's no way to…keep them fighting?” Daniel asked.

“As the two consciousness effect one another more and more, they will learn from each other, and each incorporate more of the other's technology into their own,” Seven explained. “Eventually, they will reach a point where they will become indistinguishable.”

“I do not accept that there is nothing we can do about this,” Janeway said. “Nor will I stand by to watch the Borg become a greater threat than they have been.”

“What she said,” O'Neill agreed, nodding at her. “There's got to be a way to remind these two groups they should be fighting each other more than anybody else.”

Major Carter shook her head. “Sir, the only way to do that would be to introduce new programming into one, or both of the computer consciousnesses. And the only way to do that would be for someone to physically enter that ha'tak to input the programming. Whoever went would be assimilated. It's a suicide mission.”

There was a deep silence. Finally, Malek said, “I can do it.”

“It should be me,” said Selmak. “I am the more expendable.”

“No,” Malek replied. “You are not. And should anything go wrong, I do not wish to be the one to report to the council that Selmak is dead. I will do it.” He turned to Doctor Beckett and the Doctor. “The two of you were successful in reversing what was done to Anise. I will trust that you can do this a second time.”

“Okay, so that's our plan?” Pendergast said.

“Only half of it, sir,” Major Carter put in.

“The major is correct,” Seven said. “If we wish to ensure that Malek's actions go undetected, we must offer the Super-Collective a distraction.”

“I was really hoping it wouldn't come to that,” O'Neill sighed. “Okay, so what do we bait them with? They don't really want either of our ships.”

“New technology. Replicators love new technology,” Sam offered.

“What about the planet?” Jackson put in. “We all had a feeling there might be an Ancient outpost there. I know the Replicators would go for it, if they knew where it was.”

“The Borg could be tempted to such a place,” Seven agreed.

“How would we defend our position?” Janeway asked. “If we draw them in, they'll know right where we are.”

“I've got some thoughts on that. We'll have to trust each other more than we have, though,” Major Carter said.

Janeway looked at Pendergast who smiled. “I wasn't sure about you folks at first,” the colonel said, “but you've been good allies up to now. If we can stop these guys, I'd love to have your help.”

“I agree,” Janeway said.

“Then here’s my recommendation,” Carter told them, and she settled in to lay out her plan.

An Exercise In Futility: Chapter Seven

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