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  For Doc Marcia

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, I am grateful to all those whose efforts went into the creation of both script and film, and to those who gave me the honor of novelizing the former, specifically:

  John Ordover, Star Trek editor at Pocket Books and all-around cheerful and adorable guy (at least, so far as I can tell over the phone);

  Paula Block, Viacom Consumer Products, the licensing division of Paramount Pictures, also a kind soul;

  John Eaves, illustrator for Star Trek: First Contact, another nice guy, who graciously provided material that helped me flesh out the details;

  And to Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Ronald D. Moore, who don’t know me—but who, if I may say so, wrote a kick-butt movie that was pure pleasure to novelize.

  ONE

  Apathy—that was the greater evil, Picard knew, for an indifferent foe is more to be feared than one whose heart burns with honest hate. Apathy: it stretched out before him in infinite rows of face after flesh-and-metal face, body after motionless body, in a gray metal sea that knew no beauty, no artistry, no appreciation of life—only the singular voice of the collective.

  He stood, the only living spot of color in a vast chamber, surrounded by thousands of cells. In each—on the walls, the ceiling, the deck—an upright Borg drone slept dreamlessly. The effect was that of a great hive; yet to compare this chaotic, thoughtless accretion of exposed conduits and circuitry to those handsome structures wrought by instinct and with care by insects seemed wrong. Insects might be mindless but not soulless; the Borg were both.

  And it was that fact which made him struggle, helpless though he was, against the flesh-and-metal arms that propelled him suddenly down surreal corridors, corridors lined with dulled, sleeping faces, their individuality obliterated by black sensor-scopes.

  It was that fact which, when they pinned him down and slammed his head against the surgical table, made him cry out in darkest rage and frustration: rage that they should dare so to violate him; frustration that they saw his fury, saw his hatred… and simply did not care. That was the bitterest part—that his enemy could be so heartless, so cold that his violent hatred of them did not—could not—touch them.

  And as he stared up at his approaching fate, in the form of a silvery, needle-sharp probe descending directly toward his eye, he thought, This is a foe I can never engage, for they will never care enough to return my hate.

  Then followed a time of forgetfulness. He came to himself again back in the center of the hive, surrounded by slumbering drones who never witnessed his frantic struggle against the restraints that held him.

  In the midst of his struggle, an image came to him: a mouth, bloodless and Borg.

  And yet not Borg, for those pale lips curved in a smile, revealing teeth even whiter. They spoke—and he heard not the thunderous voice of the collective, but that of a woman, low and teasing:

  Locutus…

  A fresh image now: himself as Locutus, half of his face no longer his, no longer living flesh, but thrumming metal and circuitry. Half of his mind no longer his, but consumed by the collective and the detailed report from the blinking sensor-scope. And the half that remained the possession of Jean-Luc Picard was consumed by agony.

  He shuddered at the sound of his own voice—the voice of the Borg.

  I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance… is futile.

  He closed his eyes at the horror of it, and when they opened, he found himself impossibly pinned fast to the surgical table at the very instant the probe pierced his eye.

  He screamed, not so much with pain as with pure rage at the enemy who did not care enough to hate—and so could never be truly hurt.

  * * *

  Picard woke with a lurch to find himself sitting on his couch in the ready room; he put a hand to his sweatdamped forehead and rose at once, dismayed that he had dozed off while on duty and still alarmed by the intensity of the nightmare. Propelled by adrenaline, he hastened to the small adjacent restroom and leaned low over the sink. Instantly, cold water spilled into his cupped hands; he splashed it onto his face—again, again, again—washing away all traces of panic until his breathing slowed and he at last dared rise to face his mirrored reflection.

  His image was, as he had known it would be, reassuringly human and free of the Borg’s mechanical taint. Yet the dream itself disturbed him greatly; he had not had one in almost a year, and then it had not left him this shaken. Indeed, he had not had one this terrifying since the first horrific month following his existence as Locutus.

  Locutus…

  Abruptly, he recalled the image of the ghost-pale lips seductively uttering his Borg name. Try though he might, he could not remember the face attached to that mouth; he knew only that he had known her, and that the memory evoked a profound sense of horror, of revulsion… of attraction.

  As he stared into the mirror, trying to conjure a face other than his own, a muscle just above his jaw spasmed. The event was sharply painful, as though someone had plunged a needle from the inside of his mouth outward through his cheek. More distressingly, it was accompanied by an odd chirping sound—that seemed to emanate from within Picard’s own head.

  Impossible, of course, that the chirp and the spasm were connected, or that the sound had come from inside his skull… yet a mere second afterward, he grimaced at a second surge of pain that left the muscle twitching—and a second chirp.

  Tension, he knew; nothing but tension, brought on by the stress of the dream. It would pass, and if it did not, he would consult Beverly, and she would solve the problem with a prescription for more time in the holosuite or more intense exercise or perhaps even a brief shore leave.

  It would pass.…

  But as he stood over the sink, it did not. To his confusion, the pain intensified, and the muscle began to writhe continuously, accompanied by the persistent high-pitched sound; hoping to smooth the spasm away, he ran his hand over his cheek—to no avail.

  When the last and sharpest burst of agony came, instinct instructed him to gaze up at the mirror, at his twitching cheek. He watched with dread, but not necessarily surprise; hadn’t he always known, in the deepest recesses of his brain, which even Beverly’s medical probes could not touch?

  Hadn’t he always known?

  So he watched as the flesh of his cheek trembled, then stretched out, as if he were pressing hard from the inside with his tongue. It was not his own tongue, of course, but something much harder and longer, and it pushed until the skin and muscle could expand no more.

  At last, the muscle tore and the skin burst; he stared in horrified fascination as darkly gleaming metal, slick with his own blood, emerged from within him.

  A Borg servo. It rotated with a series of high-pitched chirps, while Picard descended into mindless panic.…

  * * *

  Picard awoke, gasping, on his own couch and thrust himself abruptly into a sitting position. To his fleeting dismay, the chirping continued unabated; he put a hand to his cheek to feel for the servo before realizing that he had awakened again from a nightmare—truly awakened now, for the feel of his palms against the couch and his arms beneath him were solid, real.

  Yet he wished he were again asleep. As frightening as the dreams had been, they were simply that: dreams.

  This was reality; and the horror of it was, he had awakened knowing.

  The chirping, too, was real. And as he rose from the couch and moved to the terminal, he consciously slowed his breathing and composed himself before tapping a control. A message coalesced on the screen.

  INCOMING TRANSMISSION. STARFLEET COMMAND TO CAPT. J. L. PICARD. USS ENTERPRISE NCC 1701-E. COMMAND AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.

  He cleared his throat and told the computer: “Authorization: Picard, four-seven-alpha-tango.”

  The image on the screen shifted fleetingly to the Starfleet chevron, pointing upward like an arrowhead aimed at the stars. It faded at once, replaced by the image of Admiral Hayes. Hayes was not quite so old as most of his peers at Fleet Headquarters; his hair had only recently begun to silver. But his demeanor was august, almost severe, his eyes framed by countless deep furrows, carved by the responsibilities of duty.

  A line for each life lost under his command, Picard thought silently, then said aloud, “Admiral.”

  Hayes paused to study him. “Catch you at a bad time, Jean-Luc?” Under normal circumstances, his voice would have been infused with a casual warmth that his stern appearance belied. But
these were not normal circumstances.

  “No, of course not,” Picard lied, realizing that it was not the residue of nightmare-induced panic Hayes had detected in his expression. Rather, the admiral had seen the dread that came from Picard’s already knowing what his superior was about to say.

  Hayes clearly did not quite believe the captain’s reply, but his own apparent turmoil and the urgency of his message kept him from wasting a second pursuing the matter. “I just received a disturbing report from Deep Space Five.…”

  As Hayes spoke, Picard felt growing pity for him. The imminent future would etch itself into the admiral’s features, leaving behind new and deeper lines, more fresh ones added than he had even now. If he survived what was to come.

  Picard listened as the admiral continued. “Long-range sensors have picked up—”

  “I know,” Picard said, interrupting, causing Hayes to subtly recoil and narrow his eyes in surprise. “The Borg.”

  TWO

  Surrounded by his senior crew, Picard sat at the conference table in the observation lounge of the new Enterprise. The room was an elegant improvement over its predecessor, beautiful, spacious, and comfortable, but its most striking feature was a multitude of windows opening onto star-littered indigo. At that instant, the ship was passing through a gas cloud, which refracted the starlight into a swirling gossamer display of rainbow colors.

  A stunning sight, but Picard could only think: All those suns… and orbiting them, how many habitable planets? And of those planets, how many life-forms assimilated by the Borg? How many cultures forever lost over the millennia, and how soon shall we join them?

  Six months earlier, he had sat in this room and stared up at the bulkhead, where models of all the Enterprise’s previous incarnations, A through D, hung in a glass case alongside other mementos of past missions, past glories. The sight had filled him with optimism and pride that he had the honor of commanding such a worthy vessel with such a noble tradition. He had already worked through his lingering sense of loss at his previous ship’s destruction and had begun to feel hope. The Enterprise-D was irretrievably gone, but her spirit remained, permeating every atom, every cell of this vessel and her crew.

  Now Picard looked at his surroundings and dared not allow himself to feel attachment. This was merely another ship that might be lost.

  He drew his attention back to his staff. This sight was also familiar, yet not; Data, Riker, Troi, and Beverly’s faces were the same, but they now wore the new uniforms—black, softened only by an inset at shoulder and collarbone of dark gray. The effect was flattering but a bit severe—and perhaps appropriate for the moment, Picard reflected grimly, given the devastating nature of the announcement he had just made.

  In the silence that followed his brief, blunt statement that the Borg had reappeared, expressions grew somber and five pairs of anxious eyes focused upon him. The fifth pair of eyes belonged to Geordi La Forge, who, like the Enterprise-E, seemed familiar yet changed. La Forge’s VISOR had been replaced a short time before by electronic ocular implants, and Picard still felt mildly disconcerted every time he looked into his chief engineer’s large eyes, with their dizzyingly intricate geometric designs traced in black upon starkly blue irises.

  “How many ships?” Riker asked.

  “One,” Picard replied. “And it’s on a direct course for Earth. It will cross the Federation border in less than an hour.” The statement caused another swift round of startled looks to pass among his senior crew members, but they said nothing and immediately refocused their attention on the captain as he continued. “Admiral Hayes has begun mobilizing a fleet in the Typhon Sector. He hopes to stop the Borg before they reach Earth.”

  Data, whose pale golden face reflected the concern he felt, courtesy of his activated emotion chip, interjected, “At maximum warp, it will take us three hours, twenty-five minutes to reach—”

  Picard swiveled in his chair to face the android. “We’re not going.”

  A heartbeat of stunned silence, during which expressions slackened, then grew taut again. Riker leaned forward, his dark eyebrows arching upward. “What do you mean, we’re not going?” His tone was just civil enough, but the undercurrent of indignance was unmistakable.

  Picard averted his gaze and stared out at the blurring stars. “Our orders are to patrol the Neutral Zone… in case the Romulans try to take advantage of the situation.”

  “The Romulans?” Deanna Troi repeated, her expression frankly disbelieving; Picard watched similar emotions play over the faces of all.

  “Captain,” Data added immediately, “there has been no unusual activity along the Romulan border for the past nine months. It seems highly unlikely that they would choose this moment to start a conflict.”

  He stated the obvious, of course; the captain drew a breath, meaning to tell him so.

  But before he could speak, Beverly rested both elbows on the table and lifted her cupped hand as though it held an excuse she might literally offer up. “Maybe Starfleet feels we haven’t had enough shakedown time.” Perhaps she believed it; perhaps not, for Picard shot her a glance—and she at once lowered her gaze, as if in admission that there might be another, deeper reason Starfleet had ordered the Enterprise-E to stay away, but she was too loyal to utter it.

  “We’ve been in space for nearly a year,” La Forge countered, dismissing Crusher’s argument with a wave of his hand. “We’re ready. The Enterprise-E is the most advanced starship in the fleet. We should be on the front line.”

  If Geordi suspected the same reason Beverly did, he did not show it; neither did Troi or Data. Riker’s expression remained inscrutable.

  “I’ve gone through all this with Starfleet Command,” Picard said heavily, working to keep his own outrage from showing… and not particularly succeeding. “Their orders stand.”

  This time, the leaden silence that followed lingered a time, remaining unbroken until Picard lowered his gaze from the backdrop of glittering stars and fixed it on Riker. “Number One, set course for the Neutral Zone.”

  He rose, then exited swiftly, before the others saw his anger and shame.

  * * *

  At the entrance to the ready room, Will Riker paused, padd in hand. He had performed the distasteful task assigned him, as second-in-command; the Enterprise-E now sailed a respectful distance from the Neutral Zone’s border. The first scan had been completed, and it fell to Riker to present the results to his captain.

  Almost a full day had passed since Picard’s stunning announcement that the Borg were headed toward Earth. During that time, the captain had spent as little time as possible with his crew, preferring to closet himself away in his quarters or ready room. Riker understood; the crew members, himself included, were undeniably frustrated, restless, even angry at Starfleet’s refusal to let them be of real service. And if they were offended and furious, how much more so was Picard—who had once been captured by the Borg and used to kill his own people, whom he had sworn to serve?

  Now Picard’s greatest opportunity for expiation—and the Enterprise crew’s greatest opportunity to avenge their captain’s suffering—had arrived, and Starfleet denied him, and them, that chance.

  True, the very thought of confronting the Borg again terrified Riker, as it surely would any sane, sentient being. But the thought of waiting uselessly while fellow Starfleet officers, and perhaps Earth itself, were destroyed or assimilated horrified him even more.

  Will drew a breath and stepped forward. The door to the ready room slid open, allowing a blast of dark, thunderous music and anguished voices to assault him. He gritted his teeth and entered. So skull-shatteringly loud was the music that a vein in his forehead began to pulse in time to its beat, while a half-full teacup on the captain’s desk rattled in its saucer.

  As for Picard, he stood staring out at the stars, his back to the door; the tension coiled in his shoulders and tightly crossed arms telegraphed his mood more eloquently than the agonized opera. Rage seemed to emanate outward from his body into the air, riding upon each blaring, furious note.