Then he looked at Picard, who nodded slowly, as if with a dawning comprehension. Riker sensed that something unspoken was transpiring between Picard and Hernandez.

Finally, Picard said to Hernandez, "You're not disbanding the Collective...are you, Captain?"

"No," Hernandez said. "We're a.s.similating them."

A two-meter-tall oval of mirror-perfect quicksilver took shape behind Hernandez, who turned and stepped through it without so much as a ripple. Then the oval faded into vapor, sublimated into nonexistence, leaving only Inyx on the screen.

Riker snapped, "What's going on? Where'd she go?"

"To the source," Picard muttered.

Glaring at Inyx, Riker said, "Show me where she is!"

"As you wish," Inyx said.

The Caeliar's image dissolved to that of a view from deep inside a ma.s.sive Borg vessel. A haphazard, slapdash collage of metal, tubes, wires, ducts, and random machinery filled the screen, all of it illuminated through its narrow gaps by a sickly viridian light. The point of view roved through the dark, industrial-looking labyrinth until it found open s.p.a.ce and arrowed down toward the vessel's core. Pa.s.sing like a phantom through solid matter, the image speared its way into the central plexus, to the most elaborate Borg vinculum Riker had ever seen.

In the bowels of that biomechanoid horror, Erika Hernandez walked without fear toward an advancing phalanx of Borg drones. Behind them, atop a dais festooned with regeneration pods and a plethora of bizarre devices, stood the Borg Queen, commanding her foot soldiers forward to intercept her rival.

"No!" Riker shouted. "You have to stop her! She doesn't know what she's doing!"

Inyx replied, "I a.s.sure you, Captain, Erika knows exactly what she is doing. And I would have stopped her if I could."

Riker watched, horrified, as the drones set upon Hernandez in a savage pack-and impaled her with a.s.similation tubules.

29.

Hernandez fell into the arms of the drones and gave herself up, surrendering to their violations. Viselike hands seized her arms and ripped every loose fold of her clothing. a.s.similation tubules extended from the drones' knuckles and pierced Hernandez's flesh, each puncture as sharp as a serpent's bite.

A cold pain coursed through her, surged in her blood, and clouded her thoughts. There was no fury in the drones as they smothered her, only the brutal, simple efficiency of machines subjugating flesh and bone.

Beyond the one-sided melee, the Borg Queen stood on her dais and regarded Hernandez's fall with haughty dispa.s.sion.

The voice of the Collective flooded Hernandez's mind like seawater pouring into a sinking ship, and her thoughts drowned in the aggressive swell of psionic noise. Panic bubbled up from her subconscious. For a moment, she wished she had prevented the drones from injecting her. It would have been within her power to turn them back, to wrest them from the will of the Borg Queen, but instead she had let them strike unopposed-because that was the plan and had been from the start.

A black fog of oblivion enfolded her.

This is the only way, she told herself. The only path.

None of the Caeliar could do this for her. Hernandez knew that only she could serve as the gestalt's bridge to the Borg. The Caeliar, with their bodies of catoms, were immune to a.s.similation; the Borg's nanoscopic organelles needed at least some trace amounts of organic matter to invade and transform as part of the a.s.similation process. In the body of a Caeliar, the organelles would find only other nanomachines-all of which would be far more advanced and powerful than the organelles and utterly impervious to them.

It would have been equally futile for any member of the Starfleet crews to volunteer for Hernandez's mission. Without the Caeliar catoms that infused her body, and which had altered her genetic structure, another organic being would be unable to survive the a.s.similation process while acting as a conduit for the focused energies of the gestalt.

Only I can do this, Hernandez reminded herself. I have to hang on. Can't give up...not yet.

The icewater in her veins turned to fire as a.s.similation organelles and Caeliar catoms waged war for possession of her body. Needles of pain stabbed through her eyes, and a burning sensation p.r.i.c.ked its way down her back.

Every inch of her was consumed with excruciating torments. Two deafening voices raged inside her head: the soulless roar of the Collective and the hauntingly beautiful chorus of the gestalt.

As the Collective became more aware of the gestalt through its bond with Hernandez, the singular intelligence behind the Borg launched a mind-breaking a.s.sault on her psyche. Unlike the first time the Borg had a.s.sailed her, however, Hernandez wasn't alone. Reinforced by the shared consciousness of the Caeliar, she dispelled the Borg's demoralizing revisions of her memories. Its lies broke like waves against an unyielding seawall.

She felt the Caeliar gestalt rea.s.sert its primacy in her mind and body, and then it landed its own first blow against the Collective, dredging up fragments of an ancient memory-bitter cold and empty darkness, loneliness and despair, fading strength and dwindling numbers. And, above all, hunger.

Paroxysms of rage shook the Collective, and Hernandez knew, intuitively, that the Borg armada was firing en ma.s.se at Axion, unleashing every bit of destructive power it could marshal. All of the Collective's hatred and aggression was erupting, and the Caeliar had become its sole focus. As the bombardment hammered Axion's shields, however, there wasn't a glimmer of distress or even concern in the gestalt. At best, the Caeliar reacted to the fusillade with equal parts curiosity and pity.

So much sorrow and anger, opined the gestalt. Such a desperate yearning...but it doesn't know what it seeks, so it consumes everything and is never satisfied.

A surge of strength and comfort from the gestalt flowed through Hernandez, and the chaos of its struggle with the Borg gave way to a sudden peace and clarity.

Then the Caeliar projected their will through her fragile form and usurped control of the Borg Collective.

The Caeliar gestalt beheld its savage reflection.

The Collective looked back, hostile and bewildered, like a wild thing that had never seen a mirror nor caught sight of itself in still waters.

Inyx perceived the shape of the Collective and was shocked at how it could be both so familiar and so alien. Two great minds, the Collective and the gestalt, had shared a past until their paths had diverged. The Borg had been forced down a road of deprivation and darkness, while the Caeliar, despite being wounded, had been afforded the luxury of a more benign destiny. Now their journeys, separated by time and s.p.a.ce, had converged.

A roar of voices spoke the will of the Borg.

You will be a.s.similated. Your diversity and technology will be adapted to service us. Resistance is futile.

The gestalt was overwhelmed with pity for the primitive and autocratic posturing of the Collective. Like a child that had never been disciplined, it laid claim to all it surveyed, seized everything within reach in rapacious flurries of action, and never once questioned if it had the right to do so.

Brute force was the Collective's tactic. The drones that surrounded Axion outnumbered the Caeliar population five to one. Across the galaxy, there were trillions of drones, in tens of thousands of star systems, on innumerable cubes and vessels. Had the Collective's conflict with the Caeliar been one of simple numbers, there would have been no contest.

How tragic, Inyx mused openly in the gestalt. It doesn't understand at all.

Ordemo Nordal replied, All it sees is power to be taken.

Edrin, the architect, asked, Do we know who it is?

It's time we found out, said Ordemo.

The tanwa-seynorral focused the gestalt's attention on breaking through the noise of the Collective, penetrating to the true essence of the Borg, exposing its prime mover, revealing the mind at its foundation and the voice behind its Queen.

Wrapping herself in the shelter of a hundred million hijacked minds, the Borg Queen sought refuge from the scalpel-like inquisition of the Caeliar. With patience and precision, the gestalt evaded the crude latticework of enslaved minds and found the Queen lurking in the dark heart of it all. Then it pushed past even her, in search of the truth.

Cut off from the Collective's core essence, the Borg Queen stumbled in confusion-deposed, disoriented, directionless.

Locked in the core of every Borg nanoprobe was the key to the Borg's ethereal shared consciousness, an invisible medium that spanned great swaths of the galaxy. Unseen, it was never heard directly except through the Queen. Its presence was always felt by every drone, and every sentient mind it pressed into service amplified its power.

At first, it seemed less a personality than a collection of appet.i.tes. It was fear and hatred and hunger, and beneath even those primal urges lurked a deeper wound, the impetus for its insatiable appet.i.tes: an inconsolable loneliness.

It had no memories of its own, no name beyond Borg, but as the gestalt took its full measure, it was recognized by one and all for what and who it truly was.

Sedin, said Inyx, baring his grief for what had become of his confidante and beloved companion of several aeons. Sedin had been brilliant, imaginative, and ambitious. To see her debased into a violent scavenger was both horrifying and heartbreaking. Even worse was contemplating the atrocities she had wrought on other sentient beings. Those were crimes beyond atonement.

Once, she had been a Caeliar scientist and poet. All that remained of her now was a tormented fragment of consciousness, a suffering with no name and no connection to its own greatness. Inyx imagined that Sedin, in a moment of weakness, had been unable to let herself disincorporate. She had clung too fiercely to life, lingering even after her faculties of reason had faded, rendering her little more than a sophisticated machine bent on feeding its own ravenous energy needs and perpetuating its own existence.

Taking the initiative, Inyx projected comforting impulses to Sedin, quieting her rage. Then he counseled her, It's time to let go, Sedin. Let yourself rest. Let the light fade.

She fought. Rage and fury pulsed through the Collective. Driven by fear and habit, Sedin lashed out, to no effect.

Inyx calmed Sedin's psychic rampage with a dulcet tone, a harmonizing thoughtwave of love. The Collective fell silent.

He reached out across s.p.a.ce and found Erika, teetering on the edge between resistance and surrender, and bolstered her with the will of the gestalt. Balance has been achieved, he told her. The next step is yours.

Hernandez's mind was clear as she got up from the deck inside the vinculum. The pack of drones that surrounded her retreated in confusion as she looked past them and met the panicked gaze of the Borg Queen, and they parted before her as she walked forward to speak to Sedin through the deposed monarch.

"Can't you see what you've done here, Sedin?" she said. The drones all were watching her, and through her bond with the gestalt-and the gestalt's new link to the Collective-Hernandez realized that everything she did and said here would be known by every Borg drone throughout the Milky Way.

Ascending the steps of the Queen's dais, she continued, "Did you forget everything you stood for? Nonviolence, pacifism, the Great Work...did they all lose their meaning for you?" As she reached the top of the dais, the Borg Queen stumbled backward and collapsed before her. Hernandez felt the Queen's dismay and discerned its cause: She was unable to make sense of what was happening. The nature of the Caeliar had caught the Collective by surprise; despite having believed they could a.s.similate nigh-omnipotent beings, the Borg had met their betters.

Standing over the fallen Queen, Hernandez understood that the Borg's figurehead was powerless now; she had become little more than another, glorified drone.

Hernandez turned away from her, shut her eyes, and extended her senses within the Borg vessel, throughout its armada, and then, with the power of the Caeliar gestalt, across the entirety of the Collective-all of which was one mind, one damaged sentience craving peace but not knowing how to find it. She lifted her hand, fingers parted wide, as a somatic cue to focus and direct the power of the Caeliar.

"Sedin, have mercy on all these souls you've stolen. You've held them all long enough, and you've done enough damage-to them, to the galaxy, and to yourself. This has to end." She quelled Sedin's fear and let the gestalt begin to place the wounded Caeliar sentience fully under control. "We have to lift this cruel veil from your victims' eyes," she continued. As the gestalt wrested the last vestiges of control from Sedin, the Collective dissolved, leaving behind trillions of minds still bound to one another by a shred of shared awareness.

She spoke now to the drones. "Awaken...and know yourselves."

Across the galaxy, a trillion drones reeled at the sudden absence of the Collective, as if an invisible hand had released its throttling grip on their throats and let them all breathe for the first time in six thousand years.

In unison, they inhaled and tasted freedom. Their numerical designations were stripped away, leaving some with nothing-and giving others back their names.

Clarity brought awareness...and then came bitter memories. Staggering mult.i.tudes of liberated psyches remained inextricably linked, their thoughts exposed and crowded in on one another, and the result was pandemonium.

A billion minds panicked without the Collective's guidance, and a billion more laughed in triumph at the fall of their oppressor. Tens of billions emotionally imploded and filled the shared minds.p.a.ce with their plangent wails of grief. Searing tides of rage swelled and swept like a force of nature through the emanc.i.p.ated drones. What one felt, all felt, all at once.

The entire Borg civilization was in chaos. In the span of a single breath, it had descended into madness.

Hernandez couldn't breathe. She was only one woman, one mind, one spark of consciousness trying to stand against a tsunami of sorrow and terror.

She could hear the psychic voice of every drone calling out for succor, the doleful cries of those who had awakened to find their lives shattered beyond recognition, the misdirected fury of those who had tasted revenge and hungered for more.

A flood-crush of feelings and memories pummeled the gates of her mind. Souls masculine, feminine, neuter, and wholly alien to her all turned toward the light, the radiance of the Caeliar and their Omega Molecule generator, and they all saw Hernandez as the conduit to those long-sought perfections.

I can't finish this without your help, she told the gestalt. We've come this far. Take the final step.

The gestalt struggled to cope with the onslaught of negative emotions from the freed Borg drones. Such cacophony offended their precious harmony of mind, and all that Hernandez could do was hope that they would rise to the challenge it presented. Then came Inyx's reply. We're ready, Erika.

Strength surged in her chest like a river breaking through a dam. She felt Axion's generator increase its output by orders of magnitude, and suddenly the overmatched gestalt had a.s.sumed control. Its energy flowed within her and empowered her, and through her it found the Borg.

Hernandez gave the power a purpose. She shaped it, molded it, directed it. She spread it across the galaxy, to every last drone, on every cube, in every complex, on every a.s.similated world. In every corner of the galaxy that had been darkened by the scourge of the Borg, Hernandez opened the way.

Her body rose from the deck and ascended quickly toward the high ceiling above the vinculum. Freedom, she thought, and the core of the Borg cube obeyed her. The ma.s.sive supports and exterior structures of the vinculum peeled away and opened like a steel flower in bloom, revealing the great hollow core of the Borg Queen's domain. Her catoms burning brightly with the light of the Caeliar, Hernandez soared into the great emptiness above.

Open your eyes, she told her new brothers and sisters in the gestalt. See the future. It's here. Its time has come.

Jean-Luc Picard had never broken down like this. Not when Robert and Rene had died, not when he'd gone home after being liberated from the Borg for the first time, not when Gul Madred had nearly shattered him beyond recovery.

He collapsed onto his knees, unable to stand against the storm of emotions that raged against him. All thoughts of pride were forgotten now. He had no sense of the other people on the bridge of the Enterprise. In the final moments before he had been felled by the psionic barrage, Riker and Worf had moved to his sides to shield him from the crew's sight.

It doesn't matter, he realized, submerging into the ocean of his hopelessness. The center didn't hold. It's all falling apart. There's nothing we can do.

Doubts and fears dragged him deeper into his own bottomless despair. How could he ever have hoped to fight the Borg? He was only one man, mortal and weak, and the Borg were a force of nature. He'd failed to challenge them in System J-25, when he first encountered them. He'd underestimated them a second time and had ended up facilitating the slaughter of his own people at Wolf 359. If not for Data, he'd have been beaten by the Borg Queen. Arrogant enough to think he could fool them long enough to infiltrate one of their ships, he had tried to impersonate Locutus, only to succ.u.mb to a.s.similation again.

I'm a failure, he berated himself. I might have lived out my life in peace, but I had to tempt fate by starting a family. I've doomed us all.

Heavy sobs wracked his chest. He cried into his palms until his ribs hurt and his eyes burned and mucus filled his sinuses.

And across the galaxy, a trillion drones wept with Locutus.

A quarter-billion voices were screaming at Deanna Troi.

She pitched forward to the deck of t.i.tan's bridge, and Christine Vale was at her side in an instant. "What's wrong, Deanna?" Vale asked. Troi wanted to reply, but she could barely breathe through the avalanche of wild emotion smothering her.