Belly of the Beast

Posted on Sun Jul 31, 2016 @ 3:01pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Cassandra Kennings & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Lieutenant AJ Taggart & Lieutenant AJ Taggart & Senior Chief Petty Officer Samantha Summers

5,815 words; about a 29 minute read

Mission: The Fall
Location: Aboard the damaged Borg Cube

The transporter beam released the away team into the dark, shadowed interior of the Borg ship. Borg vessels were not well-lit to begin with, as all drones were equipped with the ability to see in all light conditions. Captain Kennit as well, her ocular implants meshed with her optic nerve allowed her to see quite clearly without the need for additional light. The air held the sharp acrid stench of smoke, burnt wiring and a sickly sweet smell instantly attributed to death. It was not quiet however, distant noises reached them, echoing through dim-lit corridors.

With a slight jerk of her head to indicate the way, the Captain said "This way." and set off with a sure step. It was impossible to say whether the flicker of something across her skin was merely a trick of shadow and weak light, or something else.. a reaction of the nanites in her blood to the magnetic field energy of the damaged Borg ship.

SCPO Summers looked around the walls of the Borg ship. " What a dump..A *dangerous* dump."

"You can say that again...." Willam said whilst he browsed the selection of hanging conduits and bulkheads like an old fashioned thrift shop.

Summers looked at Willam and just grinned. "If we get out of 'this' alive, I will." Summers then got serious again and kept an eye out.

"What do you mean if? I'm totally getting out of here alive! I mean 'we' we're totally getting out of here alive." The thought made him shudder and grip his phaser tightly.

Summers looked at Willam. " I know that, just wanted to see if you were paying attention. " She grinned at Willam and winked.

He unexpectedly laughed back at Summers, something which he never thought could happen on a Borg vessel.

At this point, the Captain said simply "Enough." Her tone of voice left little doubt as to her meaning.

The whole area was a trip hazard in itself and the cold unregulated temperature of the place gave an eery sense of dread. The temperature controls for the vessel were unable to keep a stable temperature, the Borg would have hated it. Willam himself was also not to keen, he had never been a fan of the cold or the damp.

Yarin took out his tricorders and weapons and began scanning the surrounding area.

"I don't know what you're all moaning about....this isn't such a bad place....compared to some places I've been..." He said, looking down the various corridors around them, scanning with the integrated scanner on his weapon. "All clear....for now!" He remarked.

"The primary systems processing matrix is this way.." Kennit said, not bothering to explain what she meant or how she knew where it was and instead, began to walk through the dark, dim corridors without bothering with a light as she didn't need it. They were there to attempt to gain access to the Borg, to glean what information they might be able to access regarding potential attacks against the surviving Federation stations and outposts in the Delta Quadrant. And that was exactly what she planned to find out..

Among.. other things.

Approaching the end of the corridor, the doors did not open for them at their approach. The Captain did not seem too concerned as she moved toward the control panel set in the wall and placed her hand on the smooth glass-like surface. A greenish light flared at her touch, unseen by those watching a scanner swept over her palm, read the information presented by the nanites under her skin and then, in response to the silent desire of the Queen.. the sealed hatch leading into the primary systems processing matrix chamber parted to grant them passage inside.

Willam could hear the spooky sound of metal rubbing against metal as the doors ahead of them parted. It appeared the Captain had some sort of Borg talent, he couldn't figure out how she could have done it by just using her hand. He shook off the thought and focused on the mission ahead.

As a few of the away team stepped into the room Willam, out of the corner of his eye, saw movement in the far corner of the room. The hair on the back of his next stood to attention and a shiver travelled down his spine like someone had just poured a bucket of ants down his back. There was a faint sound of robotics coming from the distance, no one else had seemed to notice. Willam swung his tricorder into the general direction of the noise and tried to detect what it could have been. He knew very well what it could have been and probably was.

"Did any of you just see that?" Willam asked.

"See what?" Thomas asked, having kept his attention focused on his tricorder, though his other hand hovered very close to his holstered hand phaser. "The tricorder isn't picking up any movement at all."

AJ, who had been bringing up the rear at this point, moved forward and brought his rifle up. If there was anything he had learned in his time as a member of tactical teams, it was that instruments could be fooled but the senses would do the real work. His motions calculated, he checked every area for a moment and moved on. Satisfied that there was nothing there, AJ lowered his rifle lightly and tapped William on the shoulder. "Take it easy. I won't let the Borg get you." AJ said with a smile, attempting to put this new man at ease.

The tap on the shoulder made his insides squirm, he wasn't easily spooked but being on the half destroyed vessel his mind was playing tricks on him. He turned to AJ and gave him a thankful nod.

"Thanks! I think I'll stay close to you with the big gun!" Willam replied whilst tapping the movement sensor on his tricorder.

Matt motioned for the security members of the team to stay on the outsides of the group. "Keep your eyes peeled; they could be hiding!" He said.

Yarin turned to the Operations officer and thought at him. Sir if you require calming I may be able to help.

It did cross the Captain's mind to remind the away team that sensors had cleared the derelict Borg vessel finding no indication of active drones aboard, as they had been previously noted during the pre-mission briefing. But, at the same time she knew it would do no good. The threat came not from the ship itself but instead from the very real danger that the Collective would send a vessel back to deal with the uninvited guests aboard the abandoned Cube. Indeed, her presence aboard might ensure that event would take place. Best to focus on the task at hand and establish the connection to the Victory and initialize the data dump as quickly as possible.

"Mr. Taggart, I require your assistance. I have accessed the cube primary core, but I find I need help establishing the connection to the Victory utilizing security protocols to maintain separation of our systems from the Borg."

His eyes were like two ping pong balls on sticks scouring the room for movement or the moment he was about to become one with the collective. He knew that his mind was playing tricks on him but he could not shake the creepy feeling that came as standard on a Borg vessel. He had never experienced one in the flesh and didn't plan on doing it today. Willam approached the area where the Captain was standing, she was speaking with another officer who Willam assumed was tactical or security. He wasn't sure sure, not having time to fully memorise the crew list.

Summers looked from Yarin, to Taggart, and then to the Captain, all the while keeping a close look out for anything out of the ordinary. Which caused her to softly chuckle. " Out of the 'ordinary?' in an Borg ship?" She softly spoke.

AJ kneeled next to a control conduit and removed a small black device from his bag- a security tunneler that was designed as a rapid decryption device. Quickly assembling it, he connected two ends of the cable to two sides of the column and checked the connection. Next, AJ removed a transmitter and a larger version of a PADD from the bag. Activating the feed, AJ checked the data that was coming through and tapped an option to route the data to a secured computer drive in the Communicore that would allow his technicians to analyze the relevant data.

Looking over his shoulder, he gave a quick thumbs up. "Data transmission has commenced-" AJ turned as he heard a metallic rustling noise. Two snakelike assimilation tubes popped out from the column and began poking and prodding the data transmission cables and the transmission points. As AJ tentatively reached towards the tubules, they snapped back into the column, leaving no evidence that they were even there. A forcefield activated, abruptly cutting off the transmission.

"Captain, something is wrong here-" AJ was cut off as red laser slights suddenly criss-crossed the room. Unslinging his rifle, he brought it to bear but couldn't maintain his focus among all the potential targets.

"All of you! Move into the main chamber!" the Captain ordered calmly while she moved toward the nearest of the eighteen newly activated drones. These were incomplete, their assimilation process interrupted by the damage to the ship and had been determined irrelevant when the surviving Borg departed the crippled Cube utilizing the sphere which all Cubes contained. Some still wore the remnants of their Starfleet uniforms, the first visible in the gloom only retained one arm, his right arm ended in a stump fitted with a metal connection merged into the raw tissue.

Her decision made, Kennit turned and dashed to the computer access panel where she pressed her hand to the control panel and then, twin assimilation tubules shoot from her hand into the connection port on the panel. She gasped at the sensation in her mind, but said urgently, "Mr Taggart, the data upload is resumed. As soon as it is complete utilize the transporter and get out of here..."

Aware now of the intruders on the derelict Cube, the Collective had activated the only remaining drones which could be utilized. The first drones to arrive ignored everyone in the chamber but the Captain, closing on her as she'd known they would. She didn't hesitate, nor waste time trying to use a phaser on the drones and instead lunged at the one armed drone, slamming a fierce left-hook into the drone's ravaged face filled immediately with a right-handed spear-hand blow feeling the drones windpipe crunch and crush under her fingers. The drone gagged, and Kennit whirled the drone around, locking her arm around its neck and with a quick, powerful wrenching motion snapped its neck.

There was no reprieve however, Kennit heaved the body toward a second drone, this one with an intact implant connected to his arm below the elbow and a face ruined by burns that was almost on her, using the brief pause in its advance that the impact and necessity of dealing the corpse in its path gave her to fall back and assess the drone for weaknesses...

The drones were focused on her...the Collective knew who she was...

And had determined it was time for her to return to the family..

Amidst the chaos, AJ turned and his warrior senses kicked in. Flipping his selector to burst fire, his finger pulled back on the trigger, the rifle kicking back as it released three magnetically driven tungsten carbide rounds at 288 feet per second into the chest of the drone, making three large holes and knocking it backwards. For a split second, AJ could see the drone spasm- almost as if it could feel pain. Bringing the rifle around, AJ fired again and again until the rifle clicked. Reloading another magazine, he aimed and fired another burst at a drone that was getting back up to try to drag the Captain away. Wordlessly, he walked over to the Captain and grabbed her by the back of her collar and attempted to pull her backward towards the relative safety of the doorway.

The problem was...the Captain wasn't willing to retreat until she was certain that the data transfer had completed. Otherwise, why had they come here at all? The strong tug at her collar made her stagger back several steps, but she recovered fast and..rather than reprimanding Taggart she turned into him, pressing close and reaching around his body to where she knew he'd secreted a knife among his other items in the arsenal he carried and with a deft flip of her wrist slid the blade from its sheath and worked, arm extended to space the blade deep through the exposed neck of the already badly damaged drone sending a gout of blood from the wound for an instant before kicking the drone hard in the chest sending it crashing to the deck where it spasmed a moment then fell still.

In the meantime, another drone had arrived and was unsteadily moving toward them ..its assimilation process not yet started when the ship was abandoned,instead it still appeared Vulcan..though it's skin was a sickly mottled gray-green color.

Summers brought up her phaser and fired multiple shots at the drone at various places on its body. " Is the Captain secure?!" She shouted at AJ.

"Negative!" AJ said as he continued to fire his weapon over the Captain's shoulder, his rounds impacting against the bulkheads. Swinging his arm around to push the Captain into the doorway behind him, he dropped to one knee and continued firing. His rifle clicked again and his ammo indicator flashed zero. Ejecting his magazine, he replaced it with his final magazine. Looking backward to the Captain. "Captain, get into that room, now! Move!" he said.

Summers motioned to Kennit to come up even with her to form a protective line of them between the Captain & AJ and the Borg. "We've got to hold them till the Captain is safe!" She shouted at Kennit as she loaded a concussion grenade onto her phaser.

The Captain might have laughed at that, she felt not fear nor any real sense of danger at all. Her implants and nanites contained Royale protocols.. If one of those lumbering monstrosities managed to attempt re-assimilation she would take control .. It was that simple.

Falling back into the next chamber, she reached out and connected to the computer terminal there triggering a sudden sharp burst of sparks from a damaged power link however, was able to initiate a force field which hissed to life with a green shimmer to block the entrance to the inner chamber as well as direct access to the computer link between the Borg ship and Victory.

Kennit could have disconnected then, the force field would have remained in place until she either ordered it to disengage or else the system failed but instead, she turned to the console display and a rapid set of commands in the Borg language began to scroll rapidly across the screen. She was looking for something..searching... The easiest option to find the information she sought, either by locating what she was looking for or by it's absence was to inject her own nanites into the system and fully connect to the Borg ship. That however.. could potentially prove QUITE problematic..

AJ watched the screen of the data transfer node as the drones moved toward the console and examined it. One curiously turned it over in its sole good hand while another simply stared at the tablet. Turning to the Captain, he shook his head incredulously.

"Are you crazy?" AJ asked. "Those things almost killed us and you, yet you decide not to move! What the hell were you thinking?"

"Your death would provide no assistance or benefit to the Collective." the Captain answered without looking away from the flood of data scrolling past on the monitor screen. "The primary objective of the mobile drones was to establish the Collective link through complete reactivation of my cortical implants. And that," she told him, "was never going to happen. Therefore, neither you nor the rest of the away team are in immediate danger. The primary objective is to obtain the data currently being transmitted to the Victory. Therefore our focus is to ensure the success of our mission objectives."

She paused, and then finally glanced at him, "As for whether or not I am 'Crazy'...that is a question which many have debated for most of my career. I assume you are still monitoring the upload...how much longer until complete?"

Being thrown in at the deep end is what had come to mind whilst Willam stood behind the forcefield wondering what had just gone on. What was more concerning for him was how calm and collected the Captain seemed throughout the whole ordeal. For him he had no back story on any of these people he was working with. It was all new for him to form his opinions. The opinion of the Captain so far was that she was indeed a badass. Willam however was trying to get his head wrapped around the situation whilst the grip on his phaser was causing his hand to cramp up.

AJ eyed the console. "It's nearly done. Fifteen percent remaining." Keeping his rifle up gave him a sense of protection even though he knew that if the drones came back, they would be well and truly screwed. Checking it again, he saw that it was progressing slowly but would be complete in about two minutes.

"Keep an eye on the data transfer..as soon as it's complete sing out.." Kennit ordered.

"Three percent remaining--" AJ stopped speaking as the shield covering their doorway flickered out and red lasers that had been pointing upward became horizontal again. "Oh, shit." he whispered. "EVERYONE RUN!" he commanded, bringing his rifle to bear on the nearest target. Firing a three round burst, the rounds impacted the grayed face of the drone, causing a spray of black to hit the bulkhead behind it. With more coming, he attempted to fire again and heard an empty clicking sound. Checking his Heads Up Display, he saw the ammo counter flash zero. Moving backward, he deftly flipped the rifle and began bashing anything in his field of vision. Realizing he couldn't hold out forever, he continuously stepped back. Trying again, he found himself pinned against a wall and continuously being surrounded. Basing again and again, he felt a grip like a vise grip his wrist and pin it. Before he realized it, he was on the deck and a hand was reaching out towards him.

Without even realizing it, AJ began to scream. With his voice echoing off of the bulkheads, he two sharp pinpricks on the side of his neck and a freezing sensation overtake him. As he felt himself begin lose control of his body, he could hear himself stop screaming but it was like the nanites were experimenting with him, like a marionette would a newly built puppet. As a gray haze came over his vision, he could feel the excruciating pain as a Borg implant snaked it's way out of the left side of his head.

There was only one thing to do. The inevitability of this moment had been unavoidable from the moment she's accepted Admiral Macedo's request. When the field collapsed, the Captain had turned to fight and killed the first two drones that approached her, using the knife she'd taken from Taggart. When he screamed, the cry suddenly cut short with an abrupt gasp. Rhea knew what it was without needing the cries of the other away team members or having to look.

There was only one possible action to save her crew. Turning to lock eyes with a drone--once a Klingon, now a mindless creation of the Collective--she stepped toward it and, rather than evading its outstretched hand, looked almost as if she reached out to embrace the much taller, heavier Borg.

************************************************Sickbay***********************************************

Cassandra had left the bridge part way through, and had been helping in Sickbay as a standby nurse, but was periodically checking in on the crew. Everyone was looking tense and she was concerned there had been no mention of word from the away team coming down the chain.

She stole away for a moment and pulled her gold compact out of her bag, flipping it open and looking hard. She immediately snapped it shut and ran at full speed into Nicole's office. "Academy scenario," she said.

"Shit," Nicole said, jumping up from her chair and opening the drawer by her side. She reached in, grabbing the palm phaser she kept secured, as well as her black bag. She knew with the Captain's knowledge and access, she'd already be tied in to the settings of all the phasers interfaced with the ship, but Nicole hoped the captain would remember the doctor's little surprise.

She ran into Sickbay, Cassandra on her heels. "Computer," she said, "access program Anderson-Green-Four, ten second delay," she said, ignoring her staff.

"Authorization required," the computer said.

"Anderson-Epsilon-Five-Three-Blue," Nicole said.

The computer beeped and Nicole raised a hand to maintain silence, then tapped her combadge. "Anderson to security, I need guards posted around every entry point to Sickbay, phasers on rotating frequency settings. We may have a Borg foothold shortly. No one gets in or out of Sickbay until I say otherwise. Anderson out."

"Get the secondary Sickbay's set," Nicole said to her staff just before the program initiated and everyone except her and Cass were all transported out of the room.

"Let's get ready to grab them," Nicole said to Cassandra, who nodded and followed her.

*************************************************Cube************************************************

Every Drone remaining stopped. They stood still and silent while the Captain remained locked in that terrible embrace with the towering Klingon. Taggart's mind was overwhelmed with the incredible, fierce powerful will of the Queen before him. A single command strong enough to push the roar of the Collective back to a thrumming murmur surged through him. Absolute rage, hatred, the promise of vengeance; one simple word carrying such meaning and intent. Her voice was instantly recognized, though she spoke not aloud but instead through the link now joining and blending them into one:

No!

The fog was clearing from his mind, he could still hear and feel the Collective there, but now there was another presence between his lone consciousness and the horror of the Collective mind. Her. The Captain/Queen.

And her rage and hate for the Borg radiated in blazing waves as her mind swept through, taking control and holding off other distant Queens who tried to pull her in, tried and failed.

At the same time, everything she was, he knew! She was aware of so many things, the billions of Borg pushing at her mind and only to be rebuffed and pushed away. The data transfer to the Victory, additional information accessed and assessed, some discarded and some copied and sent to Victory to be stored and studied. She was even blocking the pain of the nanites in his blood, protecting him for the agony of the nanites multiplying, linking to his nerves and mind. Awareness: her own agony.

Protecting her crew, her people...

Assessing the condition of the drones around them. Of the 11 still operational, he knew it as clearly as if he had a medical suit to assess them. Six were too badly injured by combat and the partial assimilation. She terminated them, then and there, those six simply collapsing. Mercy and grief; she would not let them suffer even the brief moments they would have had before death would claim them upon separation from the Borg.

She was searching. Looking for a very specific mind, an image of a man; his blue eyes bright with laughter, hair gone prematurely gray, which only added to his handsome appearance. A name: John.

Her husband, missing for years and declared dead. If she found him here among the Borg, she could also free him to the arms of death. Could not rescue him, could not save him...could only end the torment. He wasn't there. A mixture of relief and terrible pain, grief and agony of not knowing what had happened..

Taggart knew all of it as well: exactly why her personnel records were sealed and classified under so many walls of protection he'd been unable to crack even one layer.

Section 31. Over twenty years of a constant, eternal war to keep the Federation secure. Battles fought that were never told. Capture, torture, rescue. The vicious, merciless killer she was. Assassinations ordered by commanding officers she carried out without hesitation. Tactical experience and training gained over two decades of fighting a war no one knew raged. Her exhaustion with it, how tired she was of death, of seeing friends die and knowing their families would never be told the truth of why. Again grief, intense and so very deep... John.

Her feelings for Alec Hunter... Unexpected to find someone again, to realize she even could feel those emotions again...

Quite suddenly a barrier was there, she'd realized he was snooping and she'd closed that part of her mind from him.

With all of it taking place in a matter of seconds, the data transfer was complete.

Taggart knew it as soon as she did. A command from her to the Borg ship and they were gone, transported directly into the Victory's sickbay, including the five surviving drones whose condition was stable enough she knew Dr. Anderson could save them.

************************************************Sickbay***********************************************

Neither Nicole nor Cassandra was prepared for the away team's arrival. They'd both assumed they'd have to pull the team from the cube. Thankfully they already had weapons at hand, if not at the ready.

Cassandra reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like a simple wooden children's spinning top. She held it in what appeared to be a threatening manner and kept her distance.

Nicole held a slightly over-sized disruptor in her hand, and immediately brought it up and took aim.

Standing there in sickbay, the veins in her face standing out under her pale skin, the Captain/Queen turned eyes which reflected silver, the whites shot through with red from blood vessels now visible toward a startled Dr. Anderson and said, "Mr. Taggart requires your immediate assistance Doctor."

Nicole's eye raked over the scene and she immediately fired her gun at the Captain. *Never gets old,* Nicole thought. The Borg shields flared, as Nicole expected, and the Captain raised an eyebrow as her systems analyzed the beam.

SCPO Summers whirled around with phaser in hand, but kept it lowered. She spoke out loud, looking between Taggart, the Captain, and Dr. Anderson. "Will someone please explain what the hell is going on here?!"

Nicole ignored her and pointed her gun at AJ, firing quickly, striking him just above the collarbone. He convulsed briefly, then collapsed and lay still. She then fired at each of the remaining drones that had been beamed aboard, watching them drop to the ground. She grabbed a tricorder from her black bag and knelt down, running it over AJ. "You were on a cube, now you're not, and the Captain and AJ are both undergoing assimilation. Any other stupid questions will have to wait." She closed her tricorder and stood up, snapping her fingers to the rest of the team. Get them up on biobeds."

Summers muttered some choice words under her breath but kept it to herself as to where and to whom they were directed.

She turned her back on Summers and looked back to the Captain. AJ's assimilation had begun rapidly it seemed, but then suddenly slowed. Given what she knew of the Captain, she had a fairly good idea how she was disrupting the Borg programming. "It won't last though," she said, finishing her thought.

She approached the Captain without hesitation. "How long will your hold last?" she said. "Protocol or not, their base programming is going to run contrary and override. I need to know how long I have to save them."

"You will prepare each for treatment, when ready I will terminate the connection and you will see to their survival." It was a command, not a request. "Until the connection is served, they will obey my command." A pause, then "If you attempt to disable me again, I cannot guarantee suppression of defensive action." The message their was clear in the vicious, cold fire which blazed in the Captains eyes and radiated from her soft, yet threatening tone of voice...in other words, 'Shoot at me again and I will resoundingly kick your ass.' So far as her control over them, it would last until the connection was broken. The danger came from the ever present threat that the Collective would sway her hate of them, that the alteration made by Section 31 scientists would be overcome.

Summers stood by, watching the narrative unfold before her eyes. She holstered her phaser and went over to Nicole. "Thanks for the update. What next? "

The door to sickbay opened, and Commander Hunter entered only to draw up short in shock at the sight before him. Taggart on a bio bed, five other Borg being moved to bio beds and the Captain, her face pale with a spiderweb of veins visible beneath the skin, her eyes fierce. "Oh my god..."

Nicole quickly brought up her stunner behind her and fired, then swung to the left and fired again. As Summers and Hunter dropped to the floor, she looked at the Captain and said, "and that wasn't an attempt to disable you."

The Doctor's surprise at finding the Captain right there behind her was apparent, it did not slow the Captains reaction however as she disarmed the Doctor with a lightning fast motion of her hand, taking the stunner from the doctor in an almost slashing motion and hurled it across sickbay where it slammed into the bulkhead wall, denting the paneling at the point of impact from the force of the Captains throw.

"It would have failed had it been," Kennit responded, her voice clearly conveying a threat as she finished with "Do not attempt such an action again."

Seeing Hunter shot down by the stunner had triggered an immediate reaction .. Fortunate for the Doctor, the Collective pushed at the Captain's mind then, attempting again to draw her back to them, to break past the barrier which kept Rhea Kennit in control, and not the Borg. Her eyes took on a distant expression as she focused on that internal battle. Allowing the Doctor to make her retreat, all the while aware that the Captain was completely aware of what was taking place around her in sickbay.

Anderson turned and stepped over Summers, walking over to one of the drones and putting her bag on the service table next to the biobed. "Yarin: I need you to identify every subspace signal coming in and out of this room. Try to isolate the Captain's frequency and keep anything else from communicating with the drones. Barnes: Get to the bridge and tell Penny to get some distance between us and the cube, and be ready to fly out at a moment's notice. Cass: Stand down and tend to Summers and Hunter. Monsoon and Casey can help you." She tapped her combadge quickly. "Anderson to Alpha Surgery Team, report to Sickbay and suit up." She closed the channel and looked at the Captain once more before heading for the changing room to get her surgery gear.

Summers was looking at the ceiling. " I can't move. " She thought to herself. Her mouth twitched. She gulped. She felt her pinkie move. She thought of Nicole. " You little (rhymes with expletive deleted.)"

She tried to lift her head up, and moved her eyes around. She was able to focus on Anderson and mouthed the words " You'll get the brig for this.." Which came out of her blurry mouth, " Yulllll gibberish..suushhhh..thisissss."

"There, there, don't strain," Cassandra said, coming around Summers to grab her by the shoulders. "Mister Monsoon, some help would be appreciated."

Willam had been in his own form of assimilation, a kind of frozen expressions spread like butter across his young face. The sights and sounds in front of him was enough to make anyone need a therapist for at least a month. He shook off the thought of panic and walked over the where the drones and star fleet crew were spread around sickbay.

He moved himself past the Captain in the stealthiest way possible. Willam knew nothing about the Captain. One minute she was a normal and to the point officer and now she was in some form of transition to something he didn't really want to know about.

"Yeah.....Yes sure." Willam responded to Cassandra.

Willam moved himself to help the officer lift the ever changing officer off the floor by a swift scoop under the arm pit. He couldn't help but wonder if the contact via armpit would be enough to assimilate him to into the collective.

They lifted Summers up onto a biobed and Cassandra glanced at the readings before pointing to Casey for help with Hunter. They put him on the biobed next to Summers and she gave him a sympathetic smile at the look on his face. "I'll get you both something to reduce the intensity of the nerves re-awakening."

Summers tried to grab on to someone/somebody. "Wait, she said in a low slurrish voice. Who's side are you on..who's side am I on? "

"At the moment, you're on your back-side," Cass said with an amused smile. "As for the rest of us?" She glanced around. "Right now it's the Doctor's World, and we're all living in it. Lie here, keep out of the way, and let her save her patients." She reached for a programmable hypospray on an instrument table and programmed it swiftly, then pressed it against Samantha's neck. She came around the biobed and did the same for the Commander

I think I need some of that too. Willam thought to himself.

Cassandra replaced the hypo on the tray and looked over Summers quickly, pulling back her eyelid to see her pupils. "It's an irritating stunner, I know from experience, but you'll be all right." She patted Summers' hand and turned to look at Monsoon. "Are you all right?"

Summers smiled and looked around at the person in the next bed. " Wow...what happened to *you?*" And then she giggled.

(To Be Continued in the next post - "Error In Judgement" )

 

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