Picard recoiled slightly. "A thalaron weapon," he muttered. "Rebuilding such a device would antagonize every power in the quadrant-an outcome your predecessor died to prevent."

"I'm aware of that, sir," Kadohata said. "However, a cascading biogenic pulse powered by thalaron radiation would, in theory, be able to destroy the Borg's organic components. Without their drones or the organic portions of their ships-"

Picard cut her off with his raised hand. "Point taken, Commander," he said. Then the port turbolift door opened, and he saw Worf step onto the bridge. "We'll continue this another time."

"Aye, sir," Kadohata said, and she turned and walked back to ops. As Kadohata settled in at her post, Worf offered a discreet nod of greeting to Lieutenant Choudhury at tactical, then sat down in his chair beside the captain.

"I talked to Captain Dax," Worf said.

"And...?"

"She declined to approve my transfer," Worf said. "And she is proceeding with the attack."

Picard breathed a disappointed sigh. "Of course she is."

"You do not approve of her plan," Worf said.

"It's not up to me to approve or disapprove, Mister Worf," Picard said. "I simply lack Captain Dax's confidence in her odds of success."

Worf shifted his posture, straightening his back. "I reviewed her attack profile," he said. "It is bold, but I believe it has a reasonable chance of securing the Borg probe."

"Yes, but what then, Number One? Does pitting Captain Hernandez in mortal psychic combat with the Borg Queen strike you as a viable strategy? Or as yet another in a long line of hopeless delaying tactics?"

Undaunted by the captain's pessimism, Worf replied, "I will not know until I see how the fight ends."

"That's what I'm afraid of, Mister Worf." Picard frowned. "Are you certain you tried every argument to dissuade Captain Dax from going forward with this?"

"She did not give me the chance," Worf said. In a more diplomatic tone, he asked, "May I offer some advice, Captain?"

"By all means, Commander."

"A lesson I learned while I was married to Jadzia remains just as true today about Ezri: She is a Dax. Sometimes they do not think-they just do."

16.

Ezri Dax took a breath and settled her thoughts. Within moments, she and her ship would plunge headlong into the chaos of battle. She was determined to take one brief moment of quiet before the storm in order to steel herself for whatever followed.

Months earlier, when Captain Dexar and Commander Tovak had been killed, Dax had stepped up to fill the void at the top of the Aventine's chain of command. That moment had inaugurated her captaincy. The one that was about to unfold-an arguably insane, all-or-nothing a.s.sault on which depended the survival of everything she had ever known-would define her captaincy.

On the main viewer, stars stretched past, pulled taut by the photonic distortions of high-warp travel.

She wiped the sweat from her cold palms across her pant legs and set her face in a mask of resolve. It was time.

"Helm," Dax said, "engage slipstream drive on my mark."

Erika Hernandez keyed the commands into the conn and answered, "Ready, Captain."

Dax looked at Bowers. "Sam, tell the transporter rooms and strike teams to stand ready. Tactical, raise shields and arm torpedoes." She lifted her voice. "Three. Two. One. Mark."

Hernandez patched in the slipstream drive.

It was like being shot through a cannon of blue and white light or a faster-than-light patch of whitewater rapids. A peculiar, quasi-musical resonance filled the ship, like the long-sustained peal of a great iron bell but without the note that started it ringing. Dax detected no real difference in the sensations vibrating the deck under her feet, but adrenaline and anxiety were enough to crush her back against her chair.

Then the rush of light became the black tableau of s.p.a.ce, and at point-blank range in front of the Aventine was the Borg reconnaissance probe. As promised, Hernandez had guided them out of their slipstream jaunt with surgical precision, into a perfect ambush position against the Borg.

Dax sprang to her feet. "Fire!"

"Torpedoes away," replied tactical officer Kandel.

Three electric-blue streaks arced toward the Borg ship and flared against its shields, and a fourth sailed through with no resistance and hammered the long, dark vessel amidships.

Kandel reported, "Direct hits! Their warp field's collapsing!"

"Stay with them, helm," Dax said, before she realized that Hernandez was already compensating for the changes in the Borg ship's velocity. Not bad for a person who learned to fly starships in a different century, Dax mused.

Hernandez matched the Borg's course and speed almost perfectly, then said, "We're at impulse, Captain."

"Strike teams, go," Dax said.

Gredenko relayed the order from ops to the Aventine's twenty transporter sites, which included four upgraded cargo transporters and six emergency-evacuation transporters. More than two hundred Starfleet security personnel were, at that moment, being beamed inside the Borg probe. If the estimate of the ship's drone complement was accurate, her people could expect to outnumber the enemy by a ratio of four to one.

Dax hoped that it would be enough, because once they were deployed, there would be no reinforcements-and no turning back.

"Transports complete," Gredenko said.

"Helkara, activate the dampener field," Dax said.

The Zakdorn science officer keyed in the command and replied, "Field is up and stable, Captain."

She nodded. "Good work, everyone."

Bowers watched Dax as she returned to her seat. Once she had settled, he said, "Now comes the hard part: the waiting."

The single drawback to Dax's plan lay in the dampening field that the Aventine was projecting toward the probe. By using the Hirogen's tactics, her crew had neutralized the Borg ship's weapons, shields, communications, and ability to repair itself. However, the field also prevented contact with the strike teams inside the vessel, and it made it impossible to beam them out or to send reinforcements. Unless and until the strike teams gained control of the ship and established visual contact with the Aventine, there would be nothing for Dax to do but sit and wait-and keep a volley of transphasic torpedoes armed and ready to fire, in case her captaincy's defining moment turned out to be a historic blunder.

The shimmering haze of the transporter beam dissolved into the darkness of the Borg ship's interior, and Lieutenant Pava Ek'Noor sh'Aqabaa felt her antennae twitch with antic.i.p.ation.

Heat and humidity washed over her. "Flares!" she ordered, bracing her rifle against her shoulder. "Arm dampeners!"

Ensign Rriarr moved half a step ahead of sh'Aqabaa and snapped off several quick shots from the flare launcher mounted beneath the barrel of his T-116 rifle. Pellets of compressed, oxygen-reactive illumination gel made glowing green streaks across the deck, bulkheads, and overhead of the Borg vessel's frighteningly uniform black interior.

Clanging footsteps echoed around the strike team of t.i.tan security personnel, and the ominous footfalls grew closer. Through tiny gaps in the ship's interior machinery, sh'Aqabaa caught sight of drones advancing on their position at a quick step. Red beams from Borg ocular implants sliced through the dim and sultry haze. "Activate dampeners," sh'Aqabaa said.

She and the rest of her strike team keyed the replicated dampeners attached to their uniform equipment belts. Senior Petty Officer Antillea switched on several more of the small spheres and lobbed them down the pa.s.sageways and around corners. All around them, and everywhere one of the spheres rolled, the faint lighting inside the scout ship faltered and went black, along with any powered machinery or data relays.

The intimidating thunder of converging footsteps slowed. Looking out through the vast empty s.p.a.ce in the middle of the probe's hull, toward sections along its opposite side, sh'Aqabaa saw dozens more sites going dark. Then the entire probe shuddered, and darkness descended like a curtain drop.

"Seek and destroy," sh'Aqabaa said, advancing toward the enemy, her finger poised in front of her rifle's trigger.

Then the Borg drones quickened their pace. In the uneven light of the flare plasma, shadows both ma.s.sive and misshapen crowded in her direction. As she turned the corner to her right, Antillea was at her left shoulder, while Rriarr and Hutchinson broke down the left corridor. In unison, they opened fire.

Muzzle flashes lit the pa.s.sageway like strobes, and the explosive chatter of the rifles was deafening. High-velocity monotanium rounds tore through the oncoming wall of Borg drones, spraying blood across the ones advancing behind them.

Gunfire echoed from every deck of the ship.

Another rank of drones fell, holes blasted through their centers of ma.s.s, vital organs liquefied by brutal projectiles. And still the next waves never faltered, never hesitated. Not a glimmer of fear or hesitation crossed their pale, mottled faces, and sh'Aqabaa knew they would never retreat or surrender. This was a battle to the death.

Her rifle clicked empty. A push of her left thumb against a b.u.t.ton ejected the empty magazine as her right hand plucked a fresh clip from her belt and slapped it into place.

In the fraction of a second it took her to reload, the drone in front of her charged, grabbed the barrel of her rifle with one hand, and forced it toward the overhead. His other hand shot forward, and sh'Aqabaa caught the glint of emerald light off a metallic blade. She twisted from the waist and pivoted, dodging a potentially fatal stab.

A staccato burst of gunfire flew past her and perforated the drone, who let go of her rifle as he collapsed backward.

Sh'Aqabaa nodded her appreciation to the Bolian officer who had fired the rescuing shot, then leveled her weapon and felled another rank of drones.

Lines of tracer rounds overlapped in the deep green twilight. Drowned in the buzzing clamor of the a.s.sault rifles were the distant alarums of struggle and flight from other sections of the ship. Can't let ourselves get pinned down, sh'Aqabaa reminded herself. Have to keep moving.

She shouted over the buzz-roar of her rifle. "Second Squad! Advance, cover formation, double-quick time!"

Behind her, the second six-person team that had beamed in with hers hurried down a corridor perpendicular to the one in which she and the rest of First Squad were fighting. Within seconds, the rapid clatter of weapons fire reverberated from Second Squad's new position.

Then came an agonized caterwauling from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. Rriarr had been impaled by a drone's deactivated drill, which had penetrated the Caitian's armored combat-operations uniform by sheer force.

A scaly hand shoved her to the right. "Move, sir!"

As she slammed against the bulkhead, sh'Aqabaa saw Antillea suffer a killing jab that had been meant for sh'Aqabaa herself. A drone plunged a stationary but still razor-sharp rotary saw blade attached to the end of his arm into the Gnalish's throat. Antillea twitched and gurgled as blood sheeted from her rent carotid, but she still managed to squeeze off a final burst of weapons fire into the drone. Then the reptilian noncom and her killer fell dead at sh'Aqabaa's feet.

The Bolian ensign tried to provide sh'Aqabaa with covering fire, but she could see that he was beginning to panic.

Feeling the battle rage of her Andorian ancestry, sh'Aqabaa screamed a war cry and resumed firing, eschewing safe center-of-ma.s.s shots for single-round head shots. Each sharp crack of her rifle sent another bullet through another optical implant, terminated another drone, dropped another black-suited killing machine to the deck missing half its head. Then her rifle clicked empty again. She ejected the exhausted clip and jabbed the b.u.t.t of her rifle into the face of the drone charging at her, knocking him backward. Then she fired a round of flare gel into the face of the next-closest drone.

It bought her only half a second, but that was all she needed. She slammed a fresh magazine into her weapon and unloaded in three-round bursts on the remaining drones in front of her. When her third clip was empty, so was the corridor.

"Tane, collect Antillea's belt," sh'Aqabaa told the Bolian, who nodded, despite his face being frozen in an expression of shock. Without a word, he kneeled beside the slain Gnalish, removed her equipment belt, and strapped it diagonally across his chest as if it were a bandolier.

On the other side of the intersection, Lieutenant Hutchinson was doing the same for Rriarr. Her backup, a Zaldan enlisted man, stood sentry, checking up and down the various pa.s.sageways for any sign of new attackers. The probe resounded with far-off gunfire.

Loading a fresh clip into her TR-116, sh'Aqabaa stepped beside Hutchinson. "Ready?"

"Yes, sir," Hutchinson said. "Now what?"

"Reload, regroup, and go forward," said sh'Aqabaa.

Hutchinson and the others fell into step behind sh'Aqabaa, who led them back up the main pa.s.sage. Second Squad was several intersections ahead of them, apparently having made quick work of whatever they'd encountered along the way. "Check all corners," sh'Aqabaa said to her team. "Take no chances."

Around the first few corners, they found only dead drones. As they got closer to Second Squad, the area looked clear. The pa.s.sage was open on their left to a wide, yawning s.p.a.ce in the middle of the probe. In its center, on an elevated structure, was the secure area where the cube's vinculum was housed.

Ahead of sh'Aqabaa and First Squad, a spark flashed off the edge of the partial left wall. She and the others pressed against the bulkhead to their right and crouched for cover.

"Stray shot?" Hutchinson speculated.

"Maybe," sh'Aqabaa said, peering into the shadows on the far side of the ship. "Be careful, and watch the flanks." She stood and led her team forward to catch up with Second Squad.

A burning sledgehammer impact in sh'Aqabaa's gut knocked her backward before she heard the crack of gunfire or saw the flash of tracer rounds slamming into her and her team.

Then she was on the deck, doubled over and struggling to hold her abdomen together. A sticky blue mess like the core of a smashed kolu fruit spilled between her fingers.

She heard heavy footfalls drawing closer, and she wondered if it was the Borg coming to finish them off.

I won't be a.s.similated, she promised herself. She fumbled with one blood-slicked hand to pry a chemical grenade from her belt. She barely had the strength to pull it free.

Dark shapes hove into view above her.

Sinking into a dark and silent haze, she decided it didn't matter anymore. It's over, she thought. Her strength faded, and the grenade slipped from her grasp, along with consciousness.

The oppressive monotony of the Borg probe's interior was one of the most disorienting environments Lonnoc Kedair had ever seen, and the near-total darkness enforced by the energy dampeners only made it more so. Every time her eyes began to adjust to the shadows, another blinding flash of rifle shots or another stream of tracers made her wince and turned the scene black again.

Marching footsteps echoed from a few sections ahead of her and her squad from the Aventine. Red targeting beams from Borg ocular implants crisscrossed erratically in the dark.

Kedair waved her squad to a halt with raised fist. At her back was T'Prel, and across from them were Englehorn and Darrow. With quick, silent hand gestures, Kedair directed Darrow and Englehorn to alternate fire with her and T'Prel. Then she looked back and signaled ch'Maras and Malaya to guard the rear flank.

She detached an energy dampener from her belt and primed it. Twenty-odd meters away, at the intersection, a platoon of Borg drones rounded the corner, spotted her and the rest of her team, and sprinted toward them, firing green pulses of charged plasma from wrist-mounted weapons.

Their flurry of bolts dissipated into sparks as it made contact with the outer edge of the squad's dampening field. Then Kedair lobbed her spare dampener at the drones, aimed her rifle, and waited for the Borg's roving ocular beams to go dark. They all went out at once, like snuffed candles.

With a tap of her finger against the trigger, a stutter-crack of semiautomatic fire dropped two drones to the deck.

T'Prel crouched beside Kedair and snapped off a fast series of single shots, and each one found its mark at a drone's throat, just above the sternum.

The rear ranks of drones hurdled over their dead, in a frenzy to reach the intruders.

Whoever said this ship would have only fifty drones was either lying or out of their mind, Kedair decided as she fired the last few rounds in her clip. There was no break in the buzz of weapons fire while she and T'Prel reloaded; Englehorn and Darrow had started firing just in time to overlap them.