A Collective Experience

Posted on Fri May 24, 2019 @ 3:07pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit

1,617 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Plaga Navis
Location: USS Victory

Ready Room

Despite her apparent unwillingness to issue a general warning to civilian populations within this part of space during the discussion the evening before with Doctor Anderson, Kennit had indeed ran a comprehensive query identifying every known star base, space station, colony and inhabited world within an eight week radius of their location traveling at maximum warp.

After considerable thought, a very carefully drafted message had been sent out across all subspace channels detailing preliminary symptoms to watch for, and recommending all patients presenting such symptoms be quarantined immediately due to the extremely contagious nature of the unidentified illness. She wasn’t happy about it. At all. The resulting flood of requests for further information had been responded to with an automated message stating all known details had been provided and any further data would be shared as soon as possible.

Thus it was, the Captain was in somewhat of a less than charitable mindset when she reported to the ship’s holodeck for a regularly scheduled training session with two security officers for hand to hand combat.

She’d sent both of them to Sickbay in short order, both security officers rather battered and bruised.

Now once more brooding in her Ready Room, Kennit had spent the last 20 minutes staring silently out the viewport at the darkness of the Delta Quadrant. An idea had come to her, one that she knew was not exactly something which anyone but Harv Bennett would approve of. But...

There was another option for collecting data on this part of space besides trusting the local civilizations to share information. This deep into the Delta Quadrant, while the Borg were not especially active in this area nonetheless, transwarp conduits did cross through two sectors away. She could link her consciousness into the Victory’s communications systems and, with a simple tweak she could access Borg communications, listen in, search the data streams which were always present, always connecting each member of the collective to the Hive Mind through the Individual Queens who then fed the data to the Queen within Unimatrix Zero.

The physical impact on her would be...unpleasant.

But..she believed the risk to be worth it. If a Borg vessel had detected a starship with a quantum signature matching that of the Mirror Universe, or had assimilated crew from the Mirror Universe, the data obtained might prove invaluable to their current search.

Mind made up, she sat back in her seat and opened a small access panel on her desk meant to allow for maintenance work. The port present there, designed for engineering diagnostics also allowed her to directly link her neural implants to the Victory’s computers through the assimilation tubules in her arm.

The moment the connection was made, her eyes darkened nearly to black. The Collective voice flooded her mind, seductive and oh so very strong. Her implants designed for this, to control that immense surge of information handled it at once. Staring out into nothing, yet aware of everything.. she swept through the data, searching...

When a thin rivulet of blood began to trickle from her nose, she paid it no mind.

********************

The damn had finally burst. The rumor mill had begun about what had happened on the Maharshi Krishnatreya and the psychosomatic responses were beginning. People were coming to Sickbay in a panic over everything from a cough to an itchy patch of dry skin. The more people talked and compared symptoms, the wider the 'infected' area grew. As one person became itchy, so did they all. As one person coughed, everyone felt the urge.

Nicole had come into Sickbay to see almost two-dozen panic-stricken officers demanding they be treated. She scanned each of them, worried at first that somehow they'd missed something and things had spread. When she realized there was nothing more than a case of panic, she gave everyone a story about it being a small outbreak of Aldebran skin mites and gave everyone an analgesic, combined with a mild sedative. The itching gone and their worries fading, she gave everyone a stern lecture about how worry is more contagious than anything, and sent them on their way.

She was about to return to the lab when two crew members limped in, bloodied and bruised. That didn't help the nerves of the last of her patients. She assured them it was nothing and put the two crewmen on a biobed. She healed them and logged their treatments before sending them back to their quarters as well. She had no doubt that the Captain was not much worse for wear, but on the other hand, the Captain could be bleeding from her eyes and still avoid Sickbay.

Nicole walked to the Ready Room and rang the chime. When no response came, she grumbled and overrode the door, stepping inside. "What the hell..." she said.

The Captain’s head cocked slightly to the left, aware of the intrusion but she didn’t speak. On the display screen set on her desk, data being transferred through her subtle link to the Hive scrolled in swift and unreadable script. The information was coded using Borg algorithms to be decrypted later. Kennit had indeed found tantalizing information, and was pushing deeper now. On the hunt for still more data which might point out the answers to the questions she sought. A small spot of crimson visible at her nose the only indication of the physical toll the connection was taking as payment.

Nicole put her bag on the Captain's desk and pulled her tricorder out. She flipped it open and scanned her slowly. "Aneurysm in twenty seconds and counting..." she said, counting down as she sat in a chair and crossed her legs to watch the Captain's bubble burst.

Kennit heard the Doctor’s grumbling, but was too deeply entrenched within the data stream to worry about Anderson’s well established tendency toward dramatics. She was searching for a point of origin, a station, star system, asteroid cluster... where were the ships whose quantum signatures had been noted by Borg sensor analysis as being of that other Universe operating from?

It appeared the Collective had not determined a need to identify where those 57 starships were operating from. No further investigation had been ordered to track them.

The Hive had however detected her within the link, and a number of powerful voices whispered seductive and alluring, calling to her to come home..

She ignored them other than a fierce surge of hatred, and a promise to tear through them with relentless intent to destroy as she disengaged the link. Before disconnecting from the Victory she sent a decryption algorithm to make the downloaded data accessible by the Victory’s computers and the pulled free.

Immediately the light sent a vicious stab of agony through her skull, prompting her to snarl out “Dim lights to 20%” as she swayed, momentarily unsteady on her feet

Nicole grabbed the Captain's shoulder and forced her back down into her seat, pressing a hypo to her neck. "Do. Not. Move." she said sternly. She pulled a cortical monitor from her bag and put it on the Captain's neck, watching her tricorder's readings as she ran an instrument over the woman's head. "Any particular reason you were risking a stroke? Was it worth the effort?"

Eyes closed, the Captain winced at the Doctors loud tone. “Fifty-seven.” she said.

"And a hearty thirty-eight right back at you," Nicole said.

Even with her head pounding, Kennit rolled her eyes. “Ships. Fifty-seven vessels all identified by the Collective as Alternate Universe. The quantum signatures...unmistakable. No data on point of origin. The Cube vessel which was transiting the conduit provided the link. So many scanned. There are likely more.”

"Brilliant. When it rains it pours," Nicole said. "And you decided to overwhelm yourself. Shall I carry you to your quarters, or would you rather collapse here?"

The Captain Hook her head, “I need something for pain..then..I’m going to go beat the answers I need out of Nathan.”

"You're not going to beat answers out of a damp rag right now," Nicole said, heatedly. "You're in pain because you are severely damaged. I'd prefer you get to Sickbay, but we both know you're going to argue that harder, so I'll compromise on you resting and letting your body heal with minimal treatment here." She helped the Captain to her feet and guided her to her private bunk off the ready room. "Two hours. Lie down and do not move for two hours after I treat you, and you will be able to turn him to mincemeat as you like. That's an order." She eased her onto the bunk and pulled tools out of her bag, beginning to run the over the Captain's forehead.

“It’s a headache...I am not damaged.” the Captain argued.

"Yes, you are," Nicole said. "People don't spontaneously bleed out their noses because everything is fine and dandy." She ran her instruments over the Captain slowly. After a few minutes, she put everything back in her bag and stood up. "Two hours, then you can go. Do I need to strap you to your bed?"

Even sick, the lethal glare in Kennit's gaze was unmistakable. "I wouldn't recommend it.." she muttered, but remained lying back .. for the moment.

"Thank you, ever so much," Nicole said with exaggerated civility, curtsying, then giving her one more scan before standing up straight. "I'll come and check on you in a few hours," she said, snapping her bag shut. "Be sure to tell me where you are." She walked out of the Captain's ready room and headed back to Sickbay.

 

RSS Feed