Enterprise: The Royal Protocol

**Star Trek: _Enterprise_**

**The Royal Protocol**

**by James Stewart**

It was not often that Professor Alicia Hansen (she held the Starfleet rank of Lieutenant, but preferred to use her scientation for official purposes) thought about all that she had left behind; she was kept far too busy, exploring the final frontier unlocked thanks to the efforts of Captain Jonathan Archer and his crew aboard _Enterprise_. Her parents – her father, a chemist; her mother, a physicist – had wanted her to remain on Earth, pursuing her theoretical studies on stellar formations. Hansen had been sorely tempted: the prospect of working with some of the finest minds of _four_ worlds had been an enticing proposition, but the lure of the stars, to see first-hand that which she had only seen in the laboratory, had just made all resistance to the idea futile. Even while the rest of the crew had grumbled and complained about the empty voids between stars and planets, Hansen had found something new to get excited over. "_Space might look empty to the untrained eye_," she had often said, to the good-natured annoyance of the crew at meal-times, "_but there's a little piece of wonder to find in even the bleakest desert_."

Hansen's parents had never been terribly fond of Starfleet, or of humanity's endeavours into space in general, feeling that there was so much work still to be done on planet Earth in the wake of World War III. The renaissance wrought by the Vulcans after first contact had been made in the late 21st Century had been swift, but it was by no means complete: there were still some remote, isolated regions of the planet that did not have enough to eat, or the majority of the population was homeless; in some areas, in fact, some diseases had still yet to be wiped out. In the wake of the Xindi attack on Earth, they had even found themselves sympathising with Terra Prime's efforts to force all aliens out of the Sol system; Alicia herself would have died there, too, had it not been for a delayed transport that kept her stuck in San Francisco when the assault occurred. The anger and resentment at the loss of life – many whom were friends and relatives – and Alicia's decision to remain in Starfleet drove a further wedge between daughter and parents.

The _Enterprise_ might have unlocked the door to the universe – bringing together, in a matter of _years_, five races who had previously been at each other's throats for _centuries_ – but it was up to the crew of the _Intrepid_ to chart what lay beyond that door. The tiny ship – less than half the size of _Enterprise_ – was presently holding at station-keeping near an azure-coloured nebula; scans indicated it was more than three light-years in diameter, meaning it would take many days to circumnavigate it. Hansen, as one of Starfleet's foremost experts on gaseous anomalies, was having the time of her life making detailed analyses of the nebula's composition. There were dozens of materials within that defied the new-and-improved scanners brought to bear upon it, and Hansen dared to hope that an away-mission into the nebula would be required; the idea of taking the _Intrepid_'s shuttlepod deep into the heart of the stellar gas cloud, possibly even an EVA to collect samples for later analysis on Earth, made her giddy with delight.

" Anything new to report?" asked Carlos Ramirez, the _Intrepid_'s commanding officer of many years. He was generally a patient man, but gas clouds and stellar dust held little sway for him; he was eager to discover something that would mark leave as indelible a mark on the cosmos, like the _Enterprise_ had done, some legend – though he would never speak such thoughts out loud – that would live on after the crew had passed-on. So far, they had come across three nebulas, two Class-3 comets, an asteroid field with scrubs and lichen still clinging to the rocks (which suggested they had once formed a Class-L or -M planet), and a small Yridian trading ship. Although some members of the crew had been taken by the flashy Spican Flame Gems and the intoxicating potency of the Antarean Glow Water, there was very little room aboard the _Intrepid_ for storage of cargo.

" Large amounts of the usual suspects," explained Hansen, glued to her sensor screen. The bridge of the _Intrepid_ was a little unusual, when compared to that of the _Enterprise_: the command chair was situated at the rear of the bridge, so that the vessel's captain would not have to crane his or her neck to check on the officers' progress; the conn and ops stations were in the typical place, just in front of the viewscreen; Hansen's science station covered most of the left hand side of the bridge, along with the communications station; to the right was the vessel's Master Systems Display – an enormous cutaway graphic of the _Intrepid_, which showed the status of every major component – the tactical console, and a small work terminal which served as an auxiliary engineering panel if some emergency forced the evacuation of the engineering deck. "Hydrogen, oxygen and helium. Plasma, too. There are vast quantities of other materials our sensors can't readily identify." Hansen had to fight back the urge to add: "_Materials which might warrant further study_." Ramirez knew of her eagerness to explore every inch of space, but the captain himself was desperate to move on to fresh discoveries.

Before Ramirez could offer any comment, however, something triggered an alarm from the science station. Hansen worked rapidly, her fingers practically dancing across the controls she had become so accustomed to using over the past few years, to determine the cause. "Hm," she murmured, interested. "I'm detecting trace amounts of tritanium and other metallic compounds coming from deep within the nebula, sir," she reported after a moment. "Size is about right to be a small ship, possibly a scout or trading vessel like the Yridian's." Ramirez was off his chair in a second, practically leaping to Hansen's side. "The power signature is incredibly weak, even for a ship that small. They might be in trouble," she concluded.

"Any indication of life-signs?" asked Ramirez; all thoughts of boldly going anywhere were now put aside, as the concern and well-being of all life was of paramount importance to Starfleet. Perhaps it was that, more than anything, which had made the Coalition between the five combative races possible: human beings might have been technologically and militarily the weakest species, but their respect for all life – even down to single-celled protozoa – had seemingly rubbed off on the others. They had learned to look past the differences in each other and see the similarities. Or maybe he was just being naïve. Still, there was a tiny part of Carlos Ramirez that hoped that rescuing this unknown ship would lead to a first contact situation every bit as culturally significant as the encounter with the Vulcans.

" I'm detecting _something_, but the sensors are going _crazy_." Hansen hated using such an unscientific term, but the confused – possibly glitchy, thanks to the nebula – readings displayed on her scanning unit were tantamount to trying to read Greek upside-down and backwards. Whatever exotic gasses comprised the cloud, they seemed determined not to unveil their inner secrets to the _Intrepid_'s science officer. After a brief flurry of button-stabbing, the readings cleared, but only a little. "If I'm reading this right, there are at least sixteen people on that ship. Also, it looks as though their reactor is damaged, which explains the loss of power."

"I'm not getting anything on any frequency," murmured Enya Caprice, the communications chief. "Interference from the nebula or due to their transceiver assembly being down, I'm not really sure." The hiss of static that washed over her ear-piece certainly suggested that the cloud's unusual composition was at fault, but there was no sign of an SOS or mayday, which a ship in distress would naturally transmit if it were in peril. Even its transponder beacon was only barely detectable. Lieutenant Caprice tried to clear up the signal as much as possible, in the hopes of getting through to the alien ship, but to no avail: she eventually had to shut down her board as the roar of static drowned all else out.

Ramirez thought for a second; he had all the necessary information to make his decision, it was now time to make the right one. A phrase repeated itself time and time again in his mind, something his Academy lecturers had told him over and over: "_A Starship commander can make the right decision or the wrong decision, but he can never be indecisive_." That was true now, more than ever: the fate of sixteen people depended on his next actions. He turned to Lieutenant Commander Piotr Vasilli, the Ukrainian tactical officer. "Can we use the grappler to tow them free of the nebula?"

" Negative, sir. I cannot get a positive target lock at this distance," he replied after a fruitless moment of work at his console. "Perhaps if we were to enter the nebula ourselves ..." Piotr Vasilli had once served under the Earth Cargo Authority; when his ship had put back to Earth, he had taken the opportunity to _jump ship_ and sign up with Starfleet Command, feeling that they could use all the space veterans they could muster. His knowledge had quickly saw him rise through the ranks, to become one of the youngest commanders in the fleet; he had a great deal of admiration for _Enterprise_'s tactical officer, Malcolm Reed, and his secret wish was that they could have met on the battlefield to prove, once and for all, who was the best gunner in the Fleet.

_Now was the time, Ramirez found himself thinking, make the right decision or the wrong decision, but do not let doubt cloud your way. "Mr. McKinley," Ramirez said firmly to the young ensign at the conn position, "take us into the nebula, one-quarter impulse power." He turned to Vasilli. "Polarise the hull-plating, charge phase cannons and arm the photonic torpedoes." With a rueful smile at Vasilli's confused look at his being asked to bring all weapons on-line during a supposed mission of mercy, the captain added: "Just in case."_

" _At that speed, it'll take us at least a day to reach their position," noted McKinley; normally exuberant, even he was muted by the awesome size of the nebula as its tentacles of blue whipped out to touch the ship. Within seconds, it had blotted out all the stars and there was nothing on the viewer but deepest azure. If ever we needed any reminder that we are just tiny fish in the biggest pond in the universe, thought McKinley, here it is. This was Randolph McKinley's first deep-space assignment: he had served as relief conn officer on the Republic during his final year at the Academy and had never ventured further than Pluto, and now, here he was, bringing his ship further into the unknown. The thought of one or more vessels lurking in this nebula's myriad of pockets of gasses was an unnerving thought and he strived to put it out of his mind._

" _Any faster," Hansen said, smiling mirthlessly, "and we run the risk of having the gasses cut through the hull like an old oxy-acetylene torch. Polarised-plating or not." As if to confirm her words, the ship gave a shudder as the fiery combination of hydrogen and plasma sought to sear their way through the diamagnetic field that was the Intrepid's only protection from the worst that space had to offer. Newer Starfleet ships were constructed with prototype deflector shields, that would offer ten times the protection of polarised hull-plating, but it would be many months – possibly even another year, depending on what they found out here – before Intrepid would be back in Earth orbit for upgrades._

_Six fairly uneventful hours passed; Hansen continued to make routine scans of the nebula, hoping to make sense of the jarring mix of data being spewed across her screens; Vasilli watched his targeting scanners like a hawk, waiting for some unexpected danger to leap out at the Intrepid; McKinley was transfixed by the viewscreen, watching the kaleidoscopic patterns and swirling striations as if they were some pattern or image hidden in their seeming-randomness. Ramirez finally spoke up, noticing that barely two words had been muttered in the past few hours, "All right, Alpha Shift, I think you can take an early night. We will reconvene at 0700 tomorrow."_

There were a couple of murmurs, but the bridge crew recognised the wisdom of getting their minds off of the lonely voyage, even if it was just for a few hours; with practised ease, the men and women of Beta Shift took over their roles and continued the slow journey into the heart of the nebula. Hansen was the last to leave, feeling like she was leaving an old friend behind as she departed her science station. True, she could monitor the incoming scans from her quarters, but she felt her place was on the bridge, making the new discoveries; reluctantly, however, and with a sharp glance from Ramirez, she vacated her station.

*

_Professor Hansen could find very little to occupy her time off-duty; there was the usual, dutiful message from her parents – they endeavoured to keep her up-to-date on the situation at home, but their contact had dropped from once a week to once a month – and there was research into other subjects, but they held little interest for her at the moment. Who could bury themselves in study when a beautiful, blue nebula dominated every window on the ship? There were a few on the Intrepid who were unnerved by the sight, with a feeling that was akin to claustrophobia – but how many true claustrophobes would take duty aboard a Starship that would spend years in deep space – but to Hansen, the view was as spectacular and as moving as witnessing a sunset on Earth._

_Finding herself unable to relax in her quarters – reading, studying, or even trying to watch a film on the small terminal seemed impossible – Hansen decided to head to the mess hall for some food; truth be told, she was not feeling all that hungry, but who could say know to a cup of cocoa with the best view of the nebula to be had? The mess hall had an almost-panoramic view of space in front of the Intrepid; Hansen mentally cursed herself as she watched the surging whorls spiral out from the heart of the nebula, almost as if the whisps of gas were reaching out to stroke the ship. There was a gentle shudder. Must have passed through a layer of plasma, Hansen thought. She heard someone curse as they spilled their drink. McKinley and Vasilli were sitting at a table together; at another table nearby were Lieutenant Caprice, nursing an amber liquid (alcohol was usually forbidden aboard a Starship, but some officers liked to imbibe every now and then), and engineering deputy Andreana Andy Nagihan. Only thirteen of the forty-three man crew of the Intrepid were female, and it was usual to see them clustered together during meal-times._

_Engineering was, even in this enlightened day and age, still seen as very much a man's world; of twelve ships that comprised the United Earth fleet, only one of them had a female chief engineer. Hansen was not sure whether it was simply the result of her genetics or some subconscious desire to look more masculine in an attempt to fit in with the male-dominated engineering staff, but it was sometimes hard to see Lieutenant Nagihan as a woman; one was forced to wonder if, perhaps, it was that broad-shouldered, but still feminine, look that had attracted Caprice. Because of this, and her somewhat-aggressive personality traits, Nagihan was often known by the masculine Andy, rather than the feminine Andrea. Hansen shrugged these thoughts aside and went to the protein resequencer; though many improvements had been made to the device over the years, it was still easy enough to distinguish between the artificial meals it provided and the real thing. Nevertheless, the taste was hardly unpleasant. The professor took her steaming mug of cocoa and chose the unoccupied table closest to the panoramic display._

" _Figures," murmured McKinley, just under his breath, not that he cared one bit whether Hansen heard him or not. It was not the best-kept secret in the microcosm of Intrepid that Ensign McKinley was harbouring a crush on the professor, despite the fact that she was fourteen years his senior; age was only a number, after all, especially in a world in which healthy humans could expect to be active well into their eighties and nineties. A drop in the ocean, perhaps, when compared to Vulcans, but still an improvement over even half a century previous. Professor Hansen, however, was more interested in the study of astrological phenomena than human anatomy. This had led to some good-natured, if rude and unrepeatable, jokes about the professor's interest in nebulae. "She'd rather hang around with a cloud of gas than people."_

" _After all the time I've spent on this ship with you, Randy," Vasilli said, smirking, "I can see her point." Joking did not come easily to Vasilli; during cargo runs, on ships that could barely make Warp One-point-Five and were often at the mercy of pirates, there was not a lot of time for humour. Some of the Intrepid crew had been together since the ship had been commissioned, and it had taken the tactical officer some time to really fit in amongst them. He had found a good friend in the young navigator, but even he could find his enthusiasm, and occasional bouts of mania, quite irritating; once in a while, the upstart needed a little blow to his ego to bring him back down to Earth. "On the Lake Baikal, many of the crew preferred to spend time in the sweet spot rather than with their own families. Everyone has their own niche," he added._

_McKinley, however, had stopped paying attention to his friend; rather, he was distracted by the way in which the dark blue light of the nebula played over the pale skin of Hansen, casting her in an almost radiant aura. The result of this soft-focus effect was that the – admittedly, very minor – imperfections in her skin were rendered invisible, enhancing her beauty by several factors. Even her copper-blonde hair looked positively electric in this light. McKinley, not normally one to be rendered speechless, even when it came to someone he was interested in pursuing, was completely tongue-tied; half of him wanted to break the ice with Hansen, while the other was telling him that the icy-looking beauty was way out his league. Her love was the stars and, seeing the way they affected her, who was he to argue? _

_Vasilli, finally realising that his friend had not been listening to him in quite some time, nudged the young ensign's elbow. "Among my people, there is a saying. Live for the moment, for this time will never come again. If you are genuinely interested in this woman, as something more than just a notch on the gun, then you need to tell her. Remember, the worst that can happen is that she will reject you, but at least you'll have an answer. Otherwise, you need to stop acting like such a love-sick puppy, my friend." Problems of this nature were always bound to arise in such a small space, and Vasilli had to deal with more than his share of these types of situation on board the Lake Baikal. Perhaps I should have gone into counselling, he thought, reminiscing on his days aboard the the slow-moving cargo ship, rather than tactics._

"Thanks for the advice," McKinley replied, smiling affectionately at his friend and patting him on the shoulder. He walked over to the panoramic display, taking in the view of the nebula; it was fascinating, yes, but the navigator preferred stars and planets, not unpredictable collections of gas. He just hoped that the painfully-slow journey into the heart of the cloud would be worth it. McKinley found his eyes drifting from the beautiful blue nebula to the far more appealing sight seated at the table in front of the observation window. Professor Hansen looked so serene, almost ethereal, as the blue light played across her features, and the fact that the standard-issue Starfleet jumpsuit clung snugly to her curves did not hurt either; she had failed to notice his approach, so engrossed was she in the tableau before her. "Mind if I join you, Professor?" McKinley asked gently, so as not to startle her.

"No, no. Not at all," Hansen replied, not taking her eyes off of the view in front of her. McKinley sat in the seat opposite her; he tried to not be so obvious about the fact that he was staring at her, but was doing a fairly miserable job of it. Either she was too polite to not say anything, however, or she was simply too wrapped up in the display. The young ensign was not complaining. Suddenly, she let out a rather wistful sigh. "I wish everyone who criticised space travel as being a waste of resources could see this," she said, turning to face McKinley at last. "Some people have such a lack of wonder in their lives. I mean, why would you want to stay on Earth when you can see something like _this_ every day?" Hansen gestured to the nebula, her eyes glittering with blue and green fire. She suddenly looked sheepish. "Sorry, I've been a nut about space ever since I was a kid. Getting out here is, quite literally, a dream come true."

"I know how you feel," McKinley said, nodding appreciatively at the view. "Joining Starfleet Academy, especially in the wake of the Xindi attack on Earth, was not something my family really understood, though. They thought it was too dangerous, facing all those unknown hazards with very little in the way of support." He sat back in his chair, remembering the argument with his parents just before he moved to San Francisco in order to be closer to the Academy testing grounds. "I tried to explain to them that the danger was part of the reason for getting out there. It's where we function best as humans, I've always thought, facing that little bit of adversity. It makes us stronger." _Instead of making us stronger, though_, McKinley thought bitterly,_ it just gave morally-bankrupt cowards like Paxton more ammunition for their racist views_.

"My parents don't approve of Starfleet, or space travel, much either. I always thought my mother would have loved it out here. Being a physicist, there would be so many new discoveries out here that she could appreciate." Hansen sighed, a bit more wearily this time. "Oh, well. They won't know what they're missing. At least, not until I get home and tell them." Hansen usually never had the time to think about her split from her family; it was a surprise to her that she did not feel more deeply about the issue, even though they had been quite close before the incident. Maybe it was just age? At thirty-eight-years-old, she should have been thinking about forming a family of her own, but she could not imagine giving up space travel to look after a bunch of mewling dependants. Freedom, that was it. Being out here, away from everything, was ultimate freedom. Maybe there was a small part of her that wanted to put roots down, some day, but the thrill of being out here kept that side of her nature mercifully quiet.

For a long time, neither McKinley nor Hansen had anything to say; there were so many things that the young ensign _wanted_ to say, of course, but for the time being – even with the words of Vasilli still ringing in his ears – he was content to sit by the professor's side and be entranced by the view. He wished he were a bit more poetic; he wished there was some way for him to say that the azure nebula was only as fractionally as beautiful as she, but he could not find the words. In any situation where there is potential for romantic entanglement, there is a single, defining moment in which the right thing is said or done; for McKinley, sadly, the only thing he could think of to ask was the most obvious topic of conversation. "So. Who or what do you think we're going to find in here?"

The moment flitted by; the nebula seemed less radiant, and now, Hansen was just another officer discussing the mundaneness of routine ship's business. "I have no idea. Maybe they were running from something and took shelter in the nebula to repair their systems," she suggested. "I just hope we don't get there too late. If their reactor was in as bad a state of repair as the scans seem to suggest, then who knows what their condition could be." Although Hansen recognised that it was an important part of their duty, to render aid when and where they could, part of her could not help but feel a little disappointed that their mission of exploration was put on hold; guilt washed over for being this way, and she took a deep drink of her cocoa, which burnt the roof of her mouth.

With a look of envy, McKinley noticed that Caprice and Nagihan were leaving together. _If only it were so easy for all of us_, he thought, letting out a sigh. All hope of similar good fortune between himself and the professor seemed lost, simply because he had not said the right thing. He cursed himself, wishing that his normal, winning charm would work in her presence. Maybe she was _The One_: that one, indefinable, ineffable person that would come into a person's life and change them forever? The young ensign did not generally believe in such a thing, but perhaps, he was supposed to win the professor over _properly_, not simply _woo_ her with childish enthusiasm? "I think I'm going to turn in for the night," he said. The navigator had to fight his natural instincts which urged him to add: "_Care to join me?_"

"Good night, ensign," Professor Hansen replied with a tone that was all formality. After the young navigator had departed, Hansen let out another, more forceful, sigh; she was not immune to the charms of McKinley, at least not as much as she pretended to be, but shipboard romances were always fraught with complications: the constant worrying about what might happen – which was true of anywhere, not just of life aboard a Starship – in the line of duty. And while he was not exactly a child, being twenty-four-years-old, she simply could not imagine the prospect of becoming involved with someone so much younger. She raised her mug of cocoa to the nebula and sarcastically murmured: "To middle-age."

*

The next morning, the bridge was quite subdued; on the viewer, the alien ship was growing steadily closer. Even from a visual inspection at extreme range, it was clear that it was in some distress: it spun over on its axis slowly, flames belching from what looked to be a ruptured impulse engine. Ramirez was regarding the ship intently, trying to make out what species it belonged to; there was something familiar about its general shape and lines, but there was also something different about it, something _unusual_ that the captain could not quite put his finger on. He hoped it would resolve itself once they got closer. "Mr. McKinley, slow to one-sixth and bring us alongside the alien vessel," Ramirez ordered. He turned to Hansen who was taking her accustomed position at the science station, relieving a tired-looking ensign. "Short-range scan, Ms. Hansen. What can you tell us?"

"Heavy damage to both their impulse manifolds and warp reactor," she murmured in reply, "looks like they were involved in a fire-fight. I'm detecting residual tetryon particle traces." Tetryon traces narrowed the number of potential attackers significantly: the drone-weapon, encountered by the _Enterprise_ on its diplomatic mission to Babel, left tetryon traces on the hulls of the ships it had attacked. "Indeterminate life-readings, however," she added. "The ship seems to have entered some sort of low-power mode, possibly the crew are awaiting a rescue craft of their own." Hansen's console started to beep as it found a match in the _Starship Recognition Database_. "It's a Tarkalean scout, apparently, but …"

"But this one is at least three times the size," finished Ramirez, finally realising where that niggling feeling of recognition had come from. The ship did indeed fit the general parameters of a Tarkalean vessel, but now that the _Intrepid_ had drawn closer, they could see for themselves the differences: it was covered in a spidery network of exotic machinery, all of it glowing a sinister shade of green; it was clearly not typical Tarkalean technology, unless they had made some incredible advances in the past few years. Like some kind of twisting, mechanical serpent, the add-ons wormed their way across the ships' hull, burrowing their way into every major component. "It looks like the Tarkalean ship is being consumed," Ramirez said, both impressed and appalled with the idea. "Mr. Vasilli," the captain said, "tactical opinion?"

"Impossible to say, sir," Vasilli replied, checking his readings. "Tarkalean scouts are known to have only minimal weaponry, possibly a spatial torpedo launcher, but I've never seen anything like this." He made some adjustments to his console, trying to get a better indication of what type of armaments the scout might be packing; between nebula interference, however, and the scout's own low-power state, it was impossible to tell. "There is a deflector shield generator, but it's been disabled. Whatever did this to the ship must have been packing quite a punch." _And whatever it is might still be lurking, waiting to make the kill_, Vasilli thought, _and would they take exception to our attempts at rescuing them?_

"Still no luck in raising them," added Caprice. "Their communications network seems to be working perfectly, they're either unwilling or unable to respond." That presented an interesting dilemma: if they were unwilling to respond to the _Intrepid_'s hails, could it be some matter of national pride? Not wanting to look weak in front of an alien race? If they were unable to respond, then was it possible that the crew of the ship were being held hostage, thus the _Intrepid_'s presence here could only be exacerbating the situation. "No, wait!" she suddenly exclaimed. "They are broadcasting a single, very powerful, subspace signal. It's ..." The lieutenant frantically analysed the signal, but it defied every attempt at decoding. "I have no idea, sir. It's unlike _any_ frequency I've ever seen before."

Captain Ramirez stared at the viewscreen; now that McKinley had brought the _Intrepid_ alongside the scout vessel, it was all too obvious that something hideous had befallen it: there were deep wounds in the hull from phaser fire; gas, probably oxygen, leaked out from the breaches, suggesting that its containment systems were off-line. _What is the right course of action here? The damage suggests that the crew are probably dead_. "Mr. Vasilli, I want you to prepare a well-armed away team. I know you won't be terribly fond of the idea, but I want you to use the transporter in case we have to make a quick getaway. Whoever attacked the ship might be hanging around, waiting for seconds."

The tactical officer was perilously close to arguing the decision, but he knew better than to argue with his captain once his mind was made up. Although transporting technology had improved in the years since its initial introduction, most of the crew were still leery about the idea of having their molecules broken up and translocated by a compressed particle stream. Vasilli stood and nodded to Professor Hansen; she was an obvious choice to join the away-team, as her analytical skill would help solve the mystery of the attackers. McKinley stiffened slightly at the mention of her name, but was too much of a professional to say anything; Vasilli, sympathetic, shot an encouraging look to his friend. _Don't worry_, he was trying to tell him, _I will bring her back_.

When Vasilli and Hansen departed the bridge, Ramirez laid a hand on McKinley's shoulder. "There's no need to worry, ensign," he said quietly, so that the rest of the bridge crew could not hear. "Vasilli's the best. He'll make sure she comes back in one piece." The captain, however, would have felt better if he were accompanying the mission; regulations stated that a captain's place was on the bridge, but sending good men and women off to potentially hazardous situations while sitting comfortable and safe on a Starship just sounded _wrong_ to him. Trying to suppress his internal conflict, Ramirez returned to his seat and hoped that nothing would go awry.

*

_Well, this is certainly different, Vasilli thought to himself, casting his eyes around the interior of the Tarkalean vessel. The information contained in the Starship Recognition Database was either sorely out of date, or one massive redecorating job had been undertaken: the corridors, which should have been a deep amber colour, were instead filled with black and grey cables, unusual tetrahedron-shaped devices – they looked like enhancements on the Optical Data Node relays found on Starfleet ships – which blinked a fierce red. The interior looked as though it had been built with function, rather than form, in mind. "I'm reading a temperature of thirty-nine-point-one Celsius," he heard Hansen say, muffled slightly by the static over the communicator. "Internal pressure is two kilopascals above normal and the humidity is at ninety-two percent. Whoever runs this ship now, they certainly like it hot. The atmosphere is tinged with fluorine, too."_

"_Thank God, then, these environmental suits work as they were intended," Vasilli said, with a tinge of sarcasm. The two officers, followed by a quartet of security personnel – all of them armed with phase rifles and pointing them nervously at any shadow which the bizarre green light created – stalked their way through the corridors slowly. It was some moments before they finally saw someone; a roughly-humanoid creature, with the facial ridges that indicated he was Tarkalean in origin, but massive reconstruction work – apparently undertaken by the same creatures who had modified the vessel itself – had clearly been done to his body. He was standing before one of the blinking nodes, apparently making modifications to it, but Vasilli could not identify the tool he was working with; even more horrifyingly, the tool appeared to be grafted directly on to where his left hand should have been. "Ms. Hansen, what do you make of it?" asked Vasilli, his mouth running dry at the fearsome sight of the creature._

"_He certainly started out life as a Tarkalean," she confirmed, "but a network of cybernetic components has been grafted over – and into – his body. If these sensor readings are accurate, nanotechnology has been injected into his bloodstream and is now rewriting his DNA. It's impressive, certainly." The cyber-creature suddenly looked at the away-team; he stalked towards them, slowly, an optical implant where his right-eye should have been projected a red beam on to their bodies. "I think we're being scanned," Hansen said, sotto voce. The creature passed them, without saying or doing anything, and proceeded to work on another section of the corridor. "Fascinating," Hansen muttered dryly. "I would guess that we're permitted to be here, as long as we don't pose a threat."_

_Six people, armed with the newest and most powerful assault weapons in Starfleet, and we're not considered to be a threat? Vasilli was not sure whether to be relieved or alarmed; he hoped that the Intrepid transporter chief was maintaining a lock on them, for if they were truly not a threat, then they might have to leave in a hurry. The corridor they were walking down suddenly became wider; instead of the exposed cables and power nodes, there were rows of what appeared to be some kind of stasis unit: there were ten on each side of the corridor, with only fifteen of them being occupied. "This would explain the strange life-readings," said Hansen. "They barely register while in these things." Cautiously, Hansen walked up to the closest of the cyber-creatures and waved her hand in front of its face. It failed to respond. "Might be some kind of sleep or regeneration unit," she guessed._

"_Why would they be asleep when their ship is in such a bad state of repair?" Vasilli wondered aloud. "And why only have man working as a repair crew?" It was possible, perhaps, that each of the creatures had a specific role to play in the repair of the ship; as they were not needed right now, it was reasonable to assume that they were conserving power. The away-team made their way further down the corridor, eventually coming to a large hatchway; it appeared to lead to the engineering section of the ship, and Vasilli touched the control on the side panel to open it. It did not respond, however, so he aimed his rifle at it. "Stand back," he said to his team, seconds before firing._

_That was the spark that lit the fire: all of a sudden, the entire ship seemed to bring itself back to life; the lights, which had only been operating at a low-level, were suddenly garishly, horribly bright. The cyber-creatures who had been in suspension suddenly bolted out of the alcoves and stalked towards the away-team. Vasilli and his team turned to fire at them, but the streaking red bolts of destruction connected only with a force field; each of the creatures, it seemed, was protected by its own personal shield. I'll have to recommend this technology to Starfleet, should I have the chance, he found himself thinking. "Intrepid," Vasilli shouted into his communicator, eyes wide with fear at the advancing drones, "now would be a good time to bring us home." _

_There was no response from the Intrepid, however; somehow or other, the cyber-creatures were blocking their signal. The closest of the nightmarish amalgams of skin and metal approached Vasilli; he tried to smash it away with the butt of his rifle, but to no avail. With fearsome strength, it smashed through the helmet of the environmental suit and left the tactical officer exposed to the toxic atmosphere of the vessel; he noticed that the others of the team were in a similar position, all of them being held firmly by one of the creatures. Its left hand extended towards his face and he noticed the long series of tendrils growing from it. They approached his neck and the creature said, in a voice that was not his own, "The Collective must grow." The tubules – snake-like, mechanical tentacles – punctured Vasilli's neck and billions of tiny, self-replicating robots – all of them geared to one purpose – invaded his body._

_Vasilli fell to his knees, screaming in agony; his screams were only echoed by the rest of his team, undergoing the same hideous transformation as he was: his skin exploded with a series of blotches, as the nanoprobes coursed through his body. He felt sick, cold with fear, and nauseous. The pain was unbearable and yet, somehow, it was not enough for him to pass out; it was only a matter of seconds before there was no longer an entity called Lieutenant Commander Piotr Vasilli, and all that was left was a husk, a drone, an empty shell in which the personality of the Collective took hold. His skin had turned a pale shade of grey and was covered in minute arrays, all of them augmenting his existing biological functions. The voice of the Collective filled his head, soothing him, telling him that he was closer to perfection now. The last traces of the man who had been Intrepid's loyal tactical and executive officer were burned away, synapses melting and reforming, replaced by the cold, implacable will of the hive mind._

_For now, only Alicia Hansen had been spared this fate; the creature that was once Vasilli understood why, understood now the purpose of having the Intrepid lured here: this small fragment of the Collective was lost, alone in a distant part of the galaxy, and it needed a purpose: a very special type of person was required to fill that gap in their nature. The Collective needed to grow, he understood, but it also needed a reason for growing. Cut-off, so far from home, this isolated group needed a family to support it. And all good families need a parent to learn from. "The unit designated Alicia Hansen," Vasilli said in the voice of the Collective, a nightmarish mish-mash of more than a dozen other voices, all blending not-quite-harmoniously, "you have been deemed compatible for implantation of the Royal Protocol. You will speak for us in all communications with inhabitants of this Quadrant. You will be our Queen."_

_Hansen was pulled to her feet by the drones; the men and women who had once been her colleagues, they were now mindless automatons, obeying whatever instructions were being pumped into their heads. She tried to fight them off, but their strength had increased a dozen times over, and she soon gave up the effort; the energy might be required later, if she could find a way to get away from them. "Vasilli, please," she tried pleading to whatever might remain of the tactical officer's humanity, "what about McKinley? Do you remember Ensign Randolph McKinley? He is your friend." He appeared not to have heard her. "What about Captain Ramirez? The Intrepid. You have friends, there. They can help you."_

_After a journey that saw them winding through several sections of the ship – Hansen tried to remember as many of the details as possible, as working knowledge of the ship's interior would aid in her escape – they came to a large, domed chamber: bright, green light filtered down from the roof, casting an ugly, sickening aura on the room. It felt like some kind of hospital gone mad. Hansen, as it turned out, was not far wrong in that analogy: there were eight beds arranged in a circle around a central control console; medical instruments, still covered in black-red blood, lay on trays beside the beds. "We only wish to improve the quality of life for all species, Professor Alicia Hansen," the voice of the Collective said through Vasilli. "Help is irrelevant. The Intrepid's technology, and her crew, will soon become part of our perfection."_

_*_

_Ramirez had to fight the impulse to pace up and down the bridge; he was tense, nervous, but he could not allow himself to show such weaknesses in front of his crew: the captain of a Starship had a duty to look superhuman, to always be calm, cool, confident and collected; unfortunately, until the day Starfleet was run by computer, there was always the possibility of mistakes. It had been close to an hour since the transporter lock on the away-team had been lost; impossibly, the scout's deflector shield had been brought back on-line, even though it had been critically damaged not too long ago. Although his own engineering crew were superb at their jobs, Ramirez found himself envious of that kind of efficiency. "Any luck?" he snapped harshly at Ensign Derin Tigan, the relief communication's officer. He immediately regretted his tone, but an apology was unthinkable, at least not in public. So much for calm and collected, he thought bitterly._

_If Tigan was bothered by the captain's brusqueness, he was too much of a trained officer to show it. He had only been serving aboard the Intrepid for a matter of months, having only just graduated the Academy; it was the first time he had been on a deep space mission, and there were times when his nerves could get the better of him. Graduating top of his class had put a world of expectation on his shoulders that he had simply not been prepared for. When I get home, I'm going to apply for a job working at Starfleet Headquarters, he thought, I'm not cut out for this space travel business. "No, sir," he reported, annoying at his inability to detect the away-team. "We'd have to take out their shield grid before we can get a lock on them."_

_With a compliment of two phase cannon turrets and class-one photonic torpedoes, Ramirez was under no illusions about the enormity of the task; still, it was either attempt a rescue, or do nothing and head back to Earth for reinforcements. The prospect of leaving his crew behind on an alien ship was not one even worth considering for a second. "Mr. Harrison," Ramirez said to the relief tactical officer, "lock all weapons on to the scout's shield grid." There was the potential, he realised, that their attack might cause injury – or possibly worse – to members of his own crew, but there was absolutely no other choice: the Tarkaleans were refusing to respond to hails and they were interfering with their attempts at retrieving the team; they were not being blatantly hostile, perhaps, but certainly the situation warranted concern. "Broadcast a warning to the Tarkalean ship, that we will open fire unless they return our people."_

_Tigan did so, but – as Ramirez expected – there was no response. "All right, then, I guess we'll have to do this the hard way," the captain sighed inwardly. "Mr. McKinley, bring us in to two hundred kilometres." At that distance, the Intrepid would be at risk of sustaining as much damage as it hoped to give out; but with interference from the nebula and the deflector shields protecting the scout, getting in close and personal was the only way to ensure a successful attack. Ramirez noted that the navigator seemed unusually pensive; the risk of combat was always enough to knock the wind out of anyone's sails, but the captain suspected the cause was much more personal. So. He really is in love with Hansen, and most of us just thought it was a childish crush. Of course, McKinley is no child. Ramirez's spirits were momentarily buoyed, knowing that his crew would do everything possible to rescue their comrades._

_Slowly, utilising thrusters only, the Intrepid manoeuvred into position over the Tarkalean ship; at this range, the hideous cluster of technology clinging to the ship looked even more horrifying; it was as if the ship had succumbed to some kind of mechanical plague, something that was taking over the structure of the scout from the inside out. Ramirez hoped that the same fate would not befall his own vessel. The atmosphere on the bridge was growing even more tense than it had been; it seemed wrong, somehow, that a mission of mercy was now about to turn into a shooting match. Even worse, that the Starfleet vessel would be the one to open fire. Ramirez wondered how the Admiralty would look upon it, should they ever get the chance to learn about what happened here. No time to worry about that now, the captain decided. "Mr. Harrison, fire at will!"_

_Fingers of angry-red devastation leapt out of the phase cannon mounts located on the forward quarter of the Intrepid; if the Tarkalean scout had been unshielded, the cannon-fire would have torn through the hull easily, but instead, they merely glanced off of the deflectors. Now that the Intrepid had proven itself to be a threat, however, the scout's weapons and engines were suddenly brought on-line; the ruse of pretending to be an injured ship in need of help was no longer required, now it was time for action. The bulky, block of a ship should not have been able to move as quickly as it did, but it almost-literally danced around the comparatively slow-moving Intrepid, unleashing blast after blast of greenish-blue radiance at the Starfleet vessel. The Intrepid's hull glowed orange as the diamagnetic field, designed to protect it from weapon's fire, was burned away._

"_We're taking heavy damage!" growled Harrison, working quickly to divert the Intrepid's minimal reserves of emergency power to the hull-plating, hoping to stave off inevitable breaches throughout the ship. "And we've lost the port cannon." The phase cannon had been literally lost: the mount had been torn free from its housing during the initial onslaught. "Reports of injuries on all decks." Whatever had upgraded the scout ship had done an incredible job on its weaponry: they were tearing through the hull-plating as if it were nothing but a nuisance. It was obvious that the Intrepid was outmatched. The ship was rocked violently again, causing consoles to explode, as more phaser fire came in._

"_Photonic torpedoes, maximum yield!" Ramirez ordered. "Target their weapons systems." Freeing his captured crew was now a secondary priority, Ramirez realised; for now, ensuring the survival of the Intrepid was the main concern. McKinley proved his natural flying instincts time and again by getting the Intrepid gracefully clear of an incoming barrage of fire, and then, swinging the ship back around so it was in position to target the weapons array of the Tarkalean vessel. The orange bolts of devastation raced from their launcher, striking hard and powerful against the small scout ship; much as the phase cannons had proved ineffective, however, the torpedoes had only exploded harmlessly against the shields. Perhaps no more than superficial damage to the Tarkaleans._

_Finally, the Tarkaleans attempted to communicate; it was not, however, any message that Ramirez and his crew might have been expecting. The voice was harsh, electronic, and even though only one person was speaking, it sounded as though dozens of people were uttering the same words in unison. "We are the Borg. Disarm your weapons and prepare to be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Attempt to defend yourselves and you will be punished further." Just as the crew were attempting to comprehend the message, the viewscreen flickered to life and Professor Hansen appeared. Or at least, a creature who bore an extraordinary likeness to the Intrepid's science officer. "The Collective must grow," she whispered in a serene voice. "Resistance is futile."_

"_Mr. McKinley," Ramirez breathed, "get us the hell out of here, best possible speed." Going to warp inside the nebula was clearly impossible; even going to full-impulse power would present numerous difficulties, but Ramirez knew it was necessary to get out of the cloud and warn Starfleet of the Tarkalean ship: whoever these Borg were, they were not going to stop with the capture of one ship and crew; they were a threat to the entire Coalition of Planets, especially if they could modify one insignificant scout ship so drastically. McKinley, incapable of taking his eyes off the screen – he wanted to scream, to yell his anger at what had been done to Hansen – had to be gently prodded by the captain before he got back to work. "I just hope they won't pursue us," he murmured grimly._

_*_

_The creature who had once been a human being, with the designation Professor Alicia Hansen, watched the Intrepid flee slowly back towards friendly space; the newly-instilled desires creeping throughout her body, a hunger that was left unsated, demanded that she pursue the vessel, and use its assets – both biological and technological – to bolster the Collective's resources in this hostile region of space. The part of her, the deep recesses of her mind that had still not fully-submitted to the Borg's influence, was content to let the ship make its escape; she was able to spare the ship's demise by telling the Collective that the Intrepid would report back to Earth authorities and they would send out more powerful Starships to this region, ones that would suit the Borg's purpose in this Quadrant a lot better. Hansen – what was left of her tattered mind, anyway – caught a fleeting glance of herself in one of the reflective computer consoles: she was repulsed by what she had become, but that part of herself was now being pushed to the very depths of her subconscious where it could no longer cause trouble._

_The Royal Protocol – a set of instructions, hard-wired into every piece of technology now worming their invasive way through her body – contained the sum total of all knowledge the Borg Collective had ever attained; from this, the Hansen-creature knew the legacy of the ship designated Enterprise: it would be fitting if the instrument that had engendered so much Borg defeat would become the tool used to destroy the Coalition of Planets before it even had a chance to the threaten the Collective. Yes, there was a certain sense of what humans called poetic justice there that the Hansen-thing could not help but smirk. Emotions might have been irrelevant to the drones that surrounded her, but she was not a drone: she was the guiding light for this particular group of drones. She was their Queen. The drones all had their assigned tasks, could even work independently if need be, but she coordinated all their efforts. No aspect of shipboard operations was beneath her notice now._

_It was an immense feeling of power, which, even now, she was having a hard time not getting excited over: the lives all these people – drones – depended on her instructions; before she had arrived, they had been aimless, wandering, acting out on only the merest surviving instructions after their long incarceration. Thanks to the enhancements made to her brain, provided by the cortical array which oozed thick, black tentacles into her cerebral cortex, she could feel the biting chill of the ice, even through the protective exo-plating. She recalled the battle with the ship designated Enterprise, the spacing of two drones, their recovery by a Tarkalean scout, their assimilation of that vessel. There was a gap in the memory-recall, which she attributed to battle-damage sustained during an encounter with a modified Romulan Warbird. The next memory was of drifting, alone, into the nebula and then silence: retirement to the alcoves, building up their strength, waiting. Waiting for the right person to come along, to restore them to their former glory._

_Now that more of the Royal Protocol had asserted itself into the cortical array, and was pumping more instructions directly into Hansen's brain, she came to identify herself more as the Queen, rather than Hansen. The name sounded strange on her tongue, even though it had been her designation for her entire life. But then, that life was gone now. A new life, one of unlimited possibility and potential, was now spread out before her. The longing for roots which she had felt so deeply before, well, she had found them now: a family to call her own; they needed her protection, her wisdom, to survive. And this was a family who would never outgrow her, would never stop needing her, would always require her patient, gentle nurturing. She was a Queen, but she was also a mother, and she had to learn when to be which to her children. There was nothing more important than family, she realised now, and nothing more important than safeguarding the future of my children._

_In order for any family to survive, however, it had to expand: in animal cultures, those with the strongest genes, or those who could spread their genes the furthest, tended to flourish; the same could be said of the Borg, although for vastly different reasons. Strong Borg would adapt, weak Borg would be destroyed. It would be necessary, in time, for some of this small, fragile collection of drones to move on, to assimilate other ships, or worlds, and then grow another Queen, and the cycle would continue until there was nothing but perfection throughout the universe. If they really were destined to be perfect, then surely it was only logical – destined, even – that the Borg should control the galaxy? What right-thinking being could resist it: never being afraid, never being alone, never being cold or hungry? Those that would resist us, the Protocols said, will be overcome … or punished._

_As a mother, the Queen was appalled – as any good parent would be – by the thought of having to use punishment on those who would defy her will; it was, however, the sign of a true parent when they learned when coaxing words would work, and when discipline was required. There were a billion worlds out there, many of them still untouched by the probing fingers of the Collective, and many of them would try to resist, try to cling to their imperfections. The Queen realised she would have to learn dispassion, to reign in her feelings, when dealing with those could not be reasoned with, or would try to fight the inevitable. A grand honour had been bestowed upon her; her inauguration as Queen was replaying itself now, in absolutely perfect detail, thanks to the cortical nodes enhancing her memory. Even the fear and revulsion she felt was captured with stunning accuracy, but they were just temporary anomalies, of no importance. The feeling of joy, to be accepted within the Collective, to be such an important part of it, was much a more intoxicating emotion._

_The unit that had once been designated Piotr Vasilli – he was now One of Seven, Primary Adjunct to Unimatrix One-Two-Six-Echo – held her forcefully in his iron-grip, leading the unit once known as Professor Alicia Hansen to the conversion chamber: the lights from the high-domed ceiling cast an eerie green aura on the room; bio-beds were arranged in a circular formation around the central vinculum, the processing device which managed all communications within the Borg's subspace network. A look of terrified apprehension crossed the professor's face as she was forced down on to the bed; her arms and legs were bound, preventing her from retreating. One of Seven stepped forward and injected an initial onslaught of nanoprobes into Hansen's bloodstream; these would begin the basic process of assimilation, converting the professor into a standard drone._

_Within seconds of implantation, the professor's skin started to turn a shade of greyish-white; basic implants started to spread out across her body, supplementing her biological functions. Even without further implantation, she would still possess many times the strength of a regular human, increased sensory awareness, and a limited link to the communications network. Already, the voice of the Collective was filling her mind. The next phase of the operation was more difficult, but it was carried out with practised ease: a device was removed from the vinculum; similar to a cortical array, only much larger, in order to facilitate communications between the Queen, the ship and its drones. Without ceremony, the back of Hansen's head was carved off by a drone outfitted with a saw-like appendage – the nanoprobes would sustain all life-functions and would soon repair the damage – and the cortical array was slotted into the hole: thousands of tendrils soon snaked out, puncturing the skull and easing their way into her synaptic pathways._

_The cortical array carried with it The Royal Protocol; not just a set of instructions and the Collective's total knowledge, it also began much more subtle manipulations of the soon-to-be-Queen's body: her original spinal cord was severed and dissolved by modified nanoprobes and replaced by one of metal; the tiny machines then set about melting her original bone structure, replacing it with an endoskeleton made of toughened tritanium. A Queen had to be strong, physically as well as mentally, if she were to be an effective ruler. Finally, her body was severed just above her breasts; if it became necessary to communicate on a one-to-one basis, she could be reinserted into her body, but for the most part, she would be plugged directly into the vinculum to disperse her commands to the Collective. Dispassionately, drones removed the tattered and blood-soaked Starfleet clothing from the remains of the body – sexuality was beyond them now, so the naked form meant nothing to them – and the nanoprobes grew a hardened shell of exo-plated armour over the exposed flesh._


End file.
