Part 25 (1/2)

”Standing by, Captain. Transporters are operating on internal backup power.”

Having Kirk already in the pattern buffer would essentially cut transport time-sitting-duck time-in half. Transferring to internal backup power in advance would avoid even momentary interruptions if they were hit and main power was lost. Even Picard's Locutus memories didn't tell him how much time would elapse between the moment he deactivated the deflectors and the moment the cubes, suddenly picking up the undisguised Enterprise, would begin firing. Every millisecond, however, could be critical.

On the viewscreen, the Vortex was already visible, even without sensor input. The image, derived from visual subsystems only, was of course out of date by the several days it took light to travel the intervening distance through normal s.p.a.ce. But it couldn't be helped. The Borg cube being simulated by the deflectors was sensor-opaque in both directions. Borg sensors couldn't see in and Enterprise sensors couldn't see out.

The two Borg cubes that had until hours ago been the only Borg s.h.i.+ps in the vicinity of the Vortex appeared as tiny specks at approximately three and a half minutes out. The Wisdom and the Alliance observation platforms were of course still too small to be picked up. The new Borg cubes that had in reality positioned themselves around the Vortex several hours ago wouldn't be seen ”arriving” until moments before the Enterprise dropped out of warp-within transporter range.

”Two minutes, Captain,” Data said. ”Chronometric radiation is increasing exponentially.”

Picard's tension eased just slightly. Increased chronometric radiation was, according to unproven theory, indicative of increased instability. At some level, the timeline was already coming unraveled. The effects of whatever was about to happen were spreading in both directions through time, triggering the radiation just as their own ”arrival” from the future had triggered a burst of radiation.

Whatever was about to happen...

Without warning, a half dozen Borg cubes appeared, not around the still-distant Vortex but around the Enterprise itself. Smoothly, effortlessly they matched its course.

Obviously the Enterprise, despite its ”disguise,” had been detected.

”Sixty seconds, Captain.”

Before he could acknowledge Data's words, something closed around Picard's mind like an icy net, sending a new jolt of adrenaline through his body.

For a moment, he couldn't imagine what was happening to him, but as he tried instinctively to pull free, his Locutus memories recognized it: A Borg Link.

Pausing only long enough to direct all the cubes surrounding the Vortex to ”see” the approaching cube and to lock onto it as soon as it came within weapons range, the Borg Queen focused her mind on the approaching cube to the exclusion of all else.

And found herself Linked directly to the Picard creature!

Even though some part of her had been expecting precisely that, the reality was still a shock, momentarily freezing her thought processes as the ”memories” of her own death at the creature's hands once more threatened to overwhelm her.

Recovering, she considered for another moment the possibility of using that Link to extract the information she wanted directly from Picard's mind, to find out where he had come from and how he had come to be here, but caution won out over curiosity. A Link might be precisely what the creature wanted. The Link would allow information to flow both ways, and she was at the point now where she feared that nothing was impossible in her dealings with this creature, whoever or whatever it really was, whenever and wherever it had come from.

Breaking the Link with Picard, she returned her full attention to the Link with the rest of the cubes. Their weapons systems, she noted with satisfaction, were already locking onto whatever it was that was carrying the Picard creature.

First one and then another fired, but the phaser blasts seemed to pa.s.s through the object with no effect.

After those two shots, before the other cubes could fire, all weapons locks were lost.

Impossibly, the object was gone!

In its place was not another s.h.i.+p, not even Picard's, but an irregular, pock-marked ovoid, apparently a small planetesimal traveling at warp speed.

A trick!

She had no idea how Picard had done it, but it had to be a trick of some kind, an illusion.

But it was an illusion that registered on Borg sensors and would prevent their weapons from even trying to regain their lock. The target they had been instructed to fire upon had vanished after two bursts of phaser fire. There was therefore no reason to fire again, no reason to lock onto this new and totally different object.

She couldn't take direct control of all weapons systems on all cubes quickly enough, but she was already in control of those in her own cube. Unlike the drones and the automated weapons systems, she was not limited to what was programmed into her. She could act independently.

And she did.

But even as she trained the weapons on the object and fired, it dropped out of warp.

And disappeared.

An instant later, the Enterprise appeared in its place, a tiny speck within the volume of s.p.a.ce that had been occupied by the illusion. Her initial phaser blast shot through the area previously occupied by the vanished illusion but went harmlessly past the comparatively tiny s.h.i.+p offset several hundred meters from its center.

It took only seconds to redirect the phasers and fire a second salvo, followed by a series of photon torpedoes.

To her utter surprise, the s.h.i.+p's s.h.i.+elds offered no resistance. It was as if they didn't exist.

Another trick? she wondered as one of the phaser blasts caught the s.h.i.+p solidly, sheering off one of the two linear extensions at the rear, sending the remains of the s.h.i.+p tumbling out of control.

Another illusion? she wondered as a substantial piece of the forward part of the saucer section was vaporized and a half dozen explosions erupted from other areas of the saucer.

And even as she continued to wonder, even as the remnants of the s.h.i.+p began to break up, the entire universe seemed to waver around her, as if it and not the s.h.i.+p being destroyed before her eyes was the illusion.

”Thirty seconds to transporter range,” Data announced as a searing lance of phaser fire shot by only a few hundred meters away.

And another.

”Second image,” Picard snapped.

An instant later, the holodeck computers switched from the image of a Borg cube to that of an asteroid slightly larger than the cube had been. The visual subsystem images on the viewscreen s.h.i.+mmered for a split second but were otherwise unaffected by the reshaping of the deflector fields.

The Borg sensors, however, would see the asteroid, just as they had, until that moment, seen the cube. If Picard's Locutus memories were correct, the Borg s.h.i.+ps would lose interest the moment the image changed-as long as they had not been programmed to deal with the new image. The Locutus memories had already been proven correct when the cubes had paid no attention to the sudden appearance of a new cube in their midst, so there was every reason to believe that this seemingly transparent subterfuge would also work. The Borg, at least at the drone level, did not deal well with the unexpected. Nor did they very often look out the window, so to speak, in order to see what was really happening.

All they needed was a few more seconds.

”Transporter range,” Data announced.

Four things happened virtually simultaneously.

The Enterprise dropped out of warp drive.

Grimly, Worf disabled the deflectors, leaving the Enterprise both visible and defenseless.

Another bolt of phaser energy skimmed by, missing the Enterprise by less than a hundred meters.

And La Forge initiated the delayed second stage of Kirk's transport into the Vortex.

From the transporter room, Picard could hear-or at least imagined he could hear-the warble of the transporters as the matter stream that was Captain James Kirk was ejected from the pattern buffer and sent on its way to the heart of the Vortex more than ten thousand kilometers distant. Red warning lights were undoubtedly blinking wildly on the transporter console, indicating the destination was hazardous and unacceptable, but La Forge had already taken away the computer's ability to shut down the transmission and return the matter stream to the pattern buffer.

The s.h.i.+p shuddered as it was struck by the nearest cube's phaser fire. Lights flickered as emergency backup power came on line and what was left of the s.h.i.+p began to tumble helplessly.

A moment later, it shuddered again, even more violently from a second hit. Sparks erupted from every power bus as the viewscreen and all displays went dark for a moment, then briefly recovered.