Re-born – How to kill a Borg
by Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & HoD Ro' Matlh

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Title   How to kill a Borg
Mission   Re-born
Author(s)   Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & HoD Ro' Matlh
Posted   Mon Mar 19, 2012 @ 10:18am
Location   FHew Engineering, Deck 2
Timeline   During the Borg fight
Shields had failed and Tell had a hell of a job trying to repair what was left of the shield regenerator panel. The whole damn thing had exploded in front of her but the impact had thrown her sideways away from the main blast that could have easily caused more damage than it did. She was on the point of losing consciousness when her vision started to blur and her ears started that tell tale ringing. She knew the signs by now and refused to give into it. She forced herself to get up.

Something small sharp and barbed had embedded itself in Tells left arm and acting on impulse alone she pulled it out. Blood poured down to her wrist like a rivulet as she administered a hypo from the med kit. She hated pain, she had no use for it in her life. Pain always brought back raw memories of which she would rather forget. She pushed the med kit to one side and then tore a strip of cloth from her vest and tied it round her wound.

She knew for certain now that the Borg would come aboard and carried a disruptor attached to her belt as she frantically worked on bringing the shields back on line. Not only her life depended on it but everyone else's.
It was then that she heard the familiar sound of a transporter beam and her heart pounded heavily in her chest.

A drone appeared a deck below her next to the Main M/ARA manifold. It began to use one of the tools on it's arm to disengage the manifold cover. If it succeeded in accessing the core it could put the FHew out of business permanently.

Steam still leaked out of the coupling Tell had only just repaired minutes ago or was it longer than that, she had lost track of time. She pressed herself flat up against a bulk head and from where she was hiding she could just make out the Drone. She drew her weapon across her frame and thought What the hell am I supposed to do? How the hell do I kill a Borg?

She fought down the panic that threatened to over take her completely and thought logically. Though not one for thinking logically Tell was more cut and run than that. But she did have the element of surprise on her side though and could use the steam to her advantage. She took aim at the intruder but couldn't fire because of close proximity to her engine. She would have to get closer... much closer.

Steam swirled as a shadow wove in and out of it. The Drone took no notice it was to intent on what it had been told to do. Suddenly Tell appeared almost in front of it.

"Surprise!" she whispered and then fired.

The Drone took the shot to the head, peeling skin away from metal and fell sideways, heavily. Before Tell could even grab a tool to reattach the manifold plate, she sensed rather than saw a second drone appear in a green shimmer. It crouched over its fallen comrade and removed a few key components.

The Drone was almost on top of her as Tell's weapon released a barrage of energy that should have executed the bane of her existence in mere seconds. Only not, in this instance. The dammed parasite was protected by its force field and Tell's moment of glory was crashed and burned. The Borg straightened and turned to look at Tell. It stride purposely towards her its intent as clear as the mud on Theries 6.

"Great", she thought, "They decide I am a threat the moment my weapon stops being effective." Though not normally one to turn away from a fight, on this occasion she felt it was clearly justified. Tells only other option was to run. Unless she fancied being a Borg, which of course she did not, nor ever would be. She pushed that thought aside and forced herself to concentrate on the predicament at hand.

She scurried back to the ladder quickly and leapt up it with practised ease. The Borg was behind her, fast despite its apparent bulk. Now what are you going to do? her mind kept asking her again and again. She acted out different scenarios in her little grey cells. It was no good reasoning with something, whose soul purpose, in what ever a Borg counted as life, was to assimilate the living daylights out of you. Do Borg's have a soul she wondered? She was digressing again, she needed to do something if only to stop her self thinking to much.

"You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

The Borg's words echoed in the space around them taunting Tell, daring her she thought to confront one of the most dangerous beings, if you could call it a being, known . For a few moments she found herself wishing she was somewhere else other than here.

There was no sound other than its tiring incessant droning on.

She stepped out from the ladder and into the smaller storage space. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Her inner voice tormented her, she could call for help but it would come to late. What kind of a warrior was she if she couldn't face death in the eye?

"Resistances is futile." the Drone told her "Your death is irrelevant. We will add your biological distinctiveness to our own."

Tell winced, his voice was the most chilling sound she had ever heard and would have sapped her of both courage and hope. She forced herself back against the shadow of an over hanging bulk head. She felt sick her arm was throbbing and only added to her own internal anguish.

She sensed where he was and before her nerve failed her Tell stepped out of the dark recess to confront the scourge of the universe. A sudden sound to her left startled her slightly she knew what it was but didn't turn.

The Drone was ahead and side onto her, he turned slowly and began to walk towards the engineer. From somewhere near him a fractured pipe belched steam turning the storage area into something resembling a scene from an ancient Gothic horror. The red beam from his eyes played through the fog, like a lance, dancing and spinning with every step he took, yet remaining fixed on her.

"I think you need to brush up on your social skills. You must have a better store of chat up lines inside your head other than. 'You will be assimilated'." She told him, the latter part in a sing song voice.

"Resistance is futile."

"That's not much better than the last one and you have a habit of repeating yourself." Tell replied while walking backwards towards the ladder she had not long come up. He advanced menacingly towards her. "You should try nice to meet you, I'd leave out the assimilating bit we don't care for that kind of thing either. If you want my advice and I clearly gather from your body language that you don't. Have you ever thought about using moisturiser?"

His arm reached out to grab her and she took one more step back and then stopped. His attention was diverted enough to see a damaged plasma conduit. "That's a no then?" she asked

"The collective must grow. Death is irrelevant."

"Yeah I thought that too" she told him "But Sa la vie" she shrugged and fired at the conduit whilst diving down the ladder in the hopes she would make it down to the bottom and live to tell the tale. The only thing that met her there was blackness.

The flood of super heated drive plasma stripped away flesh and delicate circuitry alike. The Borg Torso tried to take another step without it's command node but faltered and fell sideways.

Tell took a few seconds to realise that she was still alive and running on adrenaline only went back to work on the shields. For now there were no further attempts to board the ship. However, she had no time to do anything more than lock down the plasma leak. With that conduit out of action, valuable drive plasma was now unavailable for much of the systems. She needed to take down one or more major systems, but what? Weapons? Shields? Cloak? Inertial Dampening? Structural Integrity? Attitude drive control?

Sparks flew from different areas of the engine room and yet the ship still held together but barely, only just. Something trickled down the side of Tell's face and she wiped it away to deal with later. What should she start with? What could they do without? None of it. She looked at all of the main systems but chose to take the cloak off line first. Flyboy would have to work that bit harder to dodge the bullet's and pull a rabbit out of the hat if they were ever going to get out of this one alive.

"Tell to the Captain."

Ro' planted his foot into the back of the dead drone to push it off the end of his bat'leth. He glanced around the Ammunition bay to check there were no more drones before responding. Satisfied he pressed a com button on a wall. "Go ahead."

"I've had to take the cloak off line to patch up the shields. You'll have it soon, so don't waste it. Tell out."

"Understood. We have a small auxiliary generator that Jared set up just forward of the bridge, dedicated to the Cloak. It can give us a few minutes if necessary."