A snip snip here and snip snip there

Posted on 24 Sep 2013 @ 2:54am by Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Legatus of Borg

3,417 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 4 - Sickbay
Timeline: MD04 - 0510 hrs

ON:

Allyndra looked over the Captain and the odd greenish-grey of the skin mottled with dark streaks. It was only by sheer luck and the sacrifice of others that the Captain had been not transported. It was now time to see if the condition could be reversed. Someone who she was not sure who had administered the 'scissors' and it had greatly slowed the spread but due to the time between the dose and now, the 'scissors' had not been able to reverse the nanite infection.

Borg still roamed the ship but curiously they had veered away from sickbay. Allyndra could only think that injured crew meant beings that were not worth bothering. She had ordered carefully through verbal carried commands that hypos with the developed 'scissors' be distributed. She did not trust that at anytime they would suddenly decide that it was time to assimilate the rest of the crew. It seemed a miracle that since she had passed out on the Cargo Bay deck and woken up in her own sickbay that it had not happened.

Allyndra did not trust that it would be that way and the more people they had and could reverse assimilation or prevent it the better. She already had a thought on using a DNA type molecular machine but there was no time to work on it. Thus, it was time to ask for another approach in this case.

Her throat still felt raw and her voice still sounded like it, not her normal musical one. Allyndra had no need to activate the EMH, it had been active since the attack.

=^=This is Allyndra, Emergency Medical Hologram Doctor to Medlab please=^=

The EMH had up to this point been operational for 21.24 hours without rest - not a problem of course for a hologram, but it was obvious to it's program that the organic medical staff of the Galileo were being pressed to breaking point. As the call came in over the comm, the hologram needed only a moment to re-direct his program to the holo-emitters in Sickbay, and soon materialised ahead of the Chief Medical Officer.

Allyndra knew it would be probably seconds and she observed the Captain's form on the isolation bed. She could not help but wonder what her thoughts were, suspended in that half space between Lirha and the Collective

Lirha was unconscious but the nanoprobes inside her continued to work and rewire the synaptic pathways inside her brain. Her previous life slowly became irrelevant. Her crew became irrelevant. Starfleet became irrelevant. The echo of thousands of voices in unison overcame her subconscious thoughts, and pushed her individuality into the deepest regions of her mind.

"Yes, thank you doctor for such prompt response." Allyndra knew that the EMH was a programme and it could just jump from here to there but she always thought it best to act professional even to an artificial thing like the EMH.

"Unfortunately, it appears that the DNA 'scissors' have been given out of the three hour time window that was determined in the lab here. The Captain's condition while not worsening has not reversed either. I thought to draw upon your knowledge base." Allyndra pinched at her eyes for a moment, "To see if there might be another course of action. You must forgive me, between the Cargo Bay and the current load of patients I have not had time to think further."

Allyndra smiled wryly, "I envy you your stamina"

The EMH displayed a smug grin as it's ability to go for such long periods without rest were praised. It was true that it's program was far more advanced than the organics with which it served, but unfortunately it was not praised often enough for the hologram's liking.

"Well Doctor, it's nice to be appreciated. I have been cross referencing the captain's condition with the database at Starfleet Medical and there appears to be substantial information there from a fellow EMH - I believe the copy which served aboard the USS Voyager during it's time in the Delta Quadrant - it lists quite thoroughly the process he went through to remove the Borg technology from one of their crew members. Perhaps a similar technique could be used here?"

"Thank you, I know there had to be something. Again," Allyndra closed her weary eyes. "I just have not had the time to look into it. The 'scissors' have slowed the progression so perhaps what you might be able to do will hasten the final process."

"From the data gathered by the Voyager EMH there is a substantial volume of information regarding the internal coding of the Borg nanoprobe technology. At such an early state of assimiliation it might be possible for us to reprogram those nanoprobes to...well.....stop?"

"I had not thought about the programming the nanites. That is a bit out of my field but I can control the programming of the 'scissors'. The 'scissors' can act as a sort of reprogramming function since they work on the nanite assembly. It might be possible to reprogramme them then to rewrite part of the nanite programming itself. I will need you considerable help as," Allyndra shook her head. "I am not sure my mind is functioning fully."

"It should be a simple procedure to enhance the programming of your biomolecular scissors...perhaps we could bind them to an electrochemical receptor which we could then use as an adaptor to allow us to interface with the nanoprobes directly. Doctor if you would be so kind as to prepare the scissors, I will prepare the programming for the nanoprobes?"

The EMH leapt to work as it's knowledge of bioprogramming leapt to the forefront of it's diagnostic datbase. All the basic written code was already there thanks to the work of the Voyager EMH, and all the program aboard the Galileo would need to do was manipulate that code to a slightly different operation.

Again Allyndra felt as if she was just a pair of hands but in her current state she did not mind since she was afraid of making a mistake.


Borg Cube

Deep in the confines of the cube, an alarm began to blare loudly as the nanoprobes in Lirha's bloodstream began to report back to the rest of the Collective that something was amiss. The tiny nanomachines were slowly beginning to lose their presence within the Orion female's blood, and this clearly went against the requirements of the Collective. From the darkness, a voice formed from millions of distinct tones began to echo.

"Alert. Nanoprobe deactivation detected - assimilation process incomplete. Proceed."

The alcove of Legatus burst into life, the connective interlinks snapping free of the drone's exoskeleton as he stepped down from it's slumber and began to receive instructions from the collective.

"We understand."


Sickbay

The EMH watched successfully as the implants began to reduce their rapid rate of expansion throughout the Orion's body, the nanoprobes continued to slow their progress, the rate of implant formation falling, and the level to which the Captain's biological systems were suppressed slowly began to fall.

"The nanoprobes appear to be responding to our instructions....they are no longer producing additional implants."

"Excellent," Allyndra said and monitored the progress. It was going faster than she had expected. "Doctor, I can not thank you enough and soon hopefully we will have the Captain back."

"Of course Doctor - I'm an Emergency Medical Hologram - if I would have been of no use here then my program would not have been worth the photons it was projected into."

"Captain, Captain, this is Allyndra can you hear me?"

A singular voice burst into the Orion's head. And then a name. Who was 'captain'? Lirha's brain struggled to process what was happening to her and where the sound was coming from, but every so slowly she began to recall her past life experiences. Several long minutes passed while her eyes moved below their lids, then slowly fluttered open. She stared blankly at the chief medical officer above her but didn't say a word. Rather, she couldn't -- at least not until her mind was able to right itself and allow her to speak again. A single tear rolled slowly from the side of her eye and down her greenish cheek...it was as much of a response as she could muster at the moment.

"It will take a few more minutes Captain but I think we have the Borg assimilation process on the run. There seems to be rapid clearing. You may be able to move and talk in a few more minutes."

Lirha swallowed a dry lump in her throat then closed her eyes. She heard the Akkadian's comforting reassurance, but it took her a long moment to process the individual words. For now, she decided, all she could do was wait. And hope.

Allyndra noted the slight change and got a glass of water. She was sure that the Captain would be thirsty.

At the far end of the room, the tell-tale green hue of a Borg transporter beam illuminated the Galileo Sickbay as a trio of three drones materialised. Whilst the two flanking drones were of little consequence, it was the lead drone that would draw the most attention from the Starfleet crew, as the eyes of their former-XO peered back at them with mechanical efficiency.

"You will surrender the Captain to us. Resistance is futile."

Allyndra caught a flicker out of her eye. The sheen was one she had seen before and she alerted the EMH before reaching over and taking a hypo with DNA 'scissors' in it.

Allyndra could more or less recognize the former XO beneath all the implants and armour. It made no difference to her, she knew that he had been fully integrated and she whirled to face the drone.

She showed the hypo and then injected herself. "Resistance is not futile."

"Irrelevant. Your biological distinctiveness will not be added to our own. Surrender the captain."

The drones seemed completely unphased by the actions of the Galileo CMO, in fact it would have made little difference to them whether or not she was even present.

Allyndra almost laughed at the statement. If they had an inkling of what she had been proposing with the science department it would be something else.

"You know I cannot stop you. However, you should also know that the assimilation has been reversed and it will not take hold again. What need do you have of her?"

Allyndra could not help but ask even though she probably would get nothing out the Borg. If she only had time to come up with an improved 'scissor' that would extract the nanites on the spot she might get the Executive Officer back. Luck was not going to be with her right now.

"Assimilation of the female is irrelevant. Additional drones are not required at this time. Your vessel has less than a 13% chance of successfully resisting us."

The voices in the drone's head were already calculating the probabilities of the crippled Nova-class being able to resist another Borg attack. With it's systems so badly damaged, the Collective had calculated that barring a deliberate breach of their warp core, there was nothing the Federation vessel could do to affect them.

Still laying on the biobed, Lirha had slowly become conscious of what was transpiring, including the arrival of several intruders. She managed to roll her head to the side and soon stared into the most horrible scene she had ever witnessed. It was Commander Holliday...but...he was Borg. The familiar mechanical exoskeleton and armor plates adorned his body, and his skin was ashen and devoid of life. Seeing the man whom she had served with and become so fond of over the past year suddenly reduced to the Collective's drone was the worst thing she had ever experienced as a captain, and her body went stiff and rigid as she began to panic. "...Commander... John...?" she whispered with fright.

The drone seemed to cock it's head at the mention of the former name of the individual which had since been added to perfection. The Orion female no longer appeared under the control of the nanoprobes, and the entire Collective could be heard whispering as they attempted to identify and more importantly adapt to whatever had been done.

"We are Legatus of Borg. We speak for the Borg. You will surrender yourself to us or we will destroy this vessel. Resistance is, and always has been, futile."

"..N-no..." Lirha weakly protested. "You are...Commander Jonathan...Holliday...my first officer..." she tried her best in her sickly state to reason with her XO, but her head was still cloudy and in a thick haze. She felt like she needed to vomit.

"We are Legatus of Borg." The drone repeated in the same monotone voice, as if the words Lirha had spoken were trying to get through but being blocked by a layer of technology too thick for words alone.

"Saalm, Lirha, Captain of the USS Galileo - female Orion. You will surrender yourself to us. This drone requires your knowledge."

Lirha managed to somehow cry out in distress, a loud and tearful plea which was the result of her emotions boiling to the surface and her having no control over them. More tears streamed down her cheeks and she suddenly felt very sick and overcome with physical and psychological pain. She turned her head towards Legatus and vomited uncontrollably, sending a heavy stream of bile and stomach contents against his black Borg armor. Her body trembled for many long moments and she gasped for air, trying her best to choke back the remains of her sadness and helplessness. "...You want my knowledge...why?" she croaked.

"Discussion is irrelevant." The Drone replied, supposedly unaffected by the biological functions going on around him. His eyepiece, capable of seeing most of the EM spectrum as well as various additional measurements were detecting somewhat irrelevant biological processes within the Orion's physiology, no doubt a side effect of interrupted assimilation.

"You will submit to neural probing. You will not be harmed."

Without waiting for any further response the Drone moved at a speed that seemingly would be beyond a creature predominantly covered in metal, grabbing the Orion around her shoulders with a vice-like grip before bringing it's assimilation tubules into place, the metallic probes burying themselves into the back of the Orion's neck, directly interfacing with her spinal column.

"Data download in progress. Resistance is futile."

The Orion captain's eyes rolled into the back of her head when she was injected with the set of tubules. Her body twitched and spasmed once more as if she were being assimilated all over again, until she suddenly went limp in the drone's arms. Exhausted and unable to cope with the repeated trauma, her body slowed itself down to dead-like state and was unable to resist the new attack upon her senses.

It was a strange and terrible feeling -- tubules deep inside of her neck and probing her spinal column for information. They interfaced quickly with her brain's synaptic relays and suddenly a flood of memories coursed through her subconscious and were downloaded into the drone's memory banks.

As the final databurst was stored in the Borg's collective memory, Legatus withdrew it's tubules and allowed the Captain to collapse in a heap before him. Without a single word the drones demateralised into nothingness as they were called back to the hulking Cube only a few hundred metres away from the hull.

"Queen of Night's Promise what the heck was all that about?" Allyndra made the comment and turned to check on the Captain. The colour was coming back as the new Borg assault had not done anything to prevent the nanites from being eliminated. However, one more trauma was what was not needed.

Allyndra checked the scan. The gluatamate production was all off. "We need to stabilize her transmitter function before she has an epileptic seizure, Doctor. Could you please prepare 10 microcentigrams of phencyclidine please."

"Of course Doctor." The hologram replied, having been busying himself examining the ambient scans the computer had been taking of the drones ever since they had materialised in Sickbay. Putting down the PADD the hologram moved to the medical tray and picked up the relevant hypospray before injecting the Captain as requested.

"You will both be interested to know that our...guest...did not show all the common indicators of a drone. There were several anomalous readings."

"Thank you Doctor." Allyndra remembered her manners. "I noticed that as well, there was actually a name which the former Commander gave. From what I know of the Borg that is highly unusual. Correct me if I am wrong but was there not a previous incident of the kind? I seem to remember something from the Academy history of a starship Captain having a sort of semi-independent identity."

"You would be correct Doctor - Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise-D was also assimilated as a named drone - the medical database generated from that particular event is truly fascinating."

"Interesting," Allydnra replied noting that the Captain's vitals were now settling into a more normal pattern. Allyndra replaced the glass of water with a flavoured one with electrolyte replacement in it and then sat on the edge of bed. She lifted the Captain's head so she could sip the drink.

"Easy, slow." She admonished. "Well, Captain, good news and bad. The good news is that it appears with the considerable help of our esteemed EMH that we have you on the mend. The bad is that our visit cannot forebode any good."

Lirha slowly opened her eyes and looked around in a groggy manner. As Allyndra held her head, she took a small sip of the drink which was tilted to her lips. It felt cool and refreshing, a much-needed relief for her parched mouth and throat. "Am I...assimilated?" she finally asked in a soft voice, unsure what exactly had happened to her in sickbay. Her last memories were of nanoprobes rewiring her insides, but now she strangely felt as if they were not present anymore.

Allyndra laughed lightly. "No indeed you are not. Welcome back Captain."

A sigh of relief washed over her, and Lirha took another, longer drink from the cup Allyndra was holding. "How is the ship?" she asked, "and...Commander Holliday...?" she hesitantly inquired. She vaguely remembered seeing what she thought was John but an assimilated version of him...but then more tubules had injected her and she had lost consciousness. Lirha wasn't quite sure if those memories were real, but she had to ask.

Allyndra shook her head. "The ship is still here, Holiday will need to be rescued, however the best you can do for anyone right now is rest."

"...What day is it? How long have I been unconscious?" Lirha tried her best to resist the urge to get to her feet and begin to survey the damage and organize a rescue part for her XO. She felt much better without the nanoprobes inside her, but she was still terribly fatigued and tired. The mention of sleep was hard to resist, and she let out a soft breath and sank her head back into the CMO's hands.

"Now, now, your body has had a pretty good assault and I can not vouch that there will be no reaction to the 'scissors'. We need to let you have a little time. Two days since the attack Captain. Commader Blake is doing a good job, everyone knows exactly what needs to be done. We are all trying to get as much repair done without getting the Borg going again and also come up with some things that provide some......'surprises'"

"Very well..." she whispered, her eyes slowly closing as a wave of tiredness swept through her. "You will keep me apprised of Galileo's situation, yes?" she proposed, one final request before she obeyed the order to sleep.

"Yes, I will let Commander Blake know we have been successful. Rest I will check on you in a bit."

Lirha complied with a slight sense of reassurance, and she finally closed her heavy eyes and dozed off into a deep sleep.

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Allyndra illm Warraquim
CMO
USS Galileo

Legatus of Borg
Borg Drone
Borg Collective

EMH Mk-X
Emergency Medical Hologram
USS Galileo

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