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Disclaimer: Star Trek: The Next Generation and all its characters belong to Paramount Pictures; no infringement of copyright is intended. The story however belongs to me.
Resistance...
Note: This story represents an alternative ending to the episode "The Best of Both Worlds". Locutus slowly began to move. The collective directed his steps, telling him to go to the assimilation chamber. If he had still been able to think independently, he would have wondered what kind of operation they wanted to perform on him this time, but the way it was he simply obeyed. The hybrid of man and machine, a being that just a few days ago had been Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Federation's flagship, the U.S.S. Enterprise, moved through the maze-like corridors of the Borg ship, guided by the collective's voice. Reaching the assimilation chamber, he stepped inside, then looked around impassively, trying to figure out where he was supposed to position himself. The room contained two assimilation units, both of which were occupied at the moment. Locutus moved closer. On the first unit lay a man, tall, with broad shoulders and a dark beard. His eyes were wide with the horror of what was happening to him, but he was unable to move. Several Borg were moving around him, preparing different appliances. Locutus addressed the man, his voice void of any kind of emotion. "Commander William T. Riker. You will be assimilated into the collective. Resistance is futile. You will serve us." Riker tried to speak, but only a slight croak left his mouth. He stared at the man he had once known so well, trying to grasp what had happened. They had been sure that they could rescue Jean-Luc Picard, that he still existed somewhere inside the shell of the mechanical being he had been turned into. Kidnapping the captain from the Borg ship had been easier than they all had expected, and when Data succeeded in establishing the link between Locutus and himself, they were determined to find a way to destroy their enemies. At first, the plan seemed to work. Picard himself managed to tell them what they had to do, trying desperately to hold on to his humanity. But when Data attempted to access the collective mind to plant the command that would save the human race, something went wrong. The Borg, suddenly aware of the intruder, turned against Data. Without any effort at all, they overrode the android's programming, assimilating him into the collective. Data instantly turned against his fellow crew members, knocking them unconscious before any of them had the chance to understand what was happening. The Borg then invaded the Enterprise, using the knowledge they had gained from Data's memory banks to systematically take over the ship. Two thirds of the Enterprise's crew complement were killed, the rest transferred to the Borg ship for assimilation. The Borg accessed the Enterprise's memory banks and downloaded every bit of information they could find; this task completed, they once again started on their course towards Earth. They did not even bother to destroy the Federation ship, it held no value anymore and had therefore become completely uninteresting. In the assimilation chamber, the Borg began to work on Riker. Soon he would be no more than an animated shell of a being, controlled by the collective mind of the Borg. Locutus turned to the second assimilation unit. Another member of the Enterprise crew lay upon it, and the Borg's analytic mind deduced that this one was a female. He moved closer, looking into the woman's face, analyzing her expression. Beverly Crusher looked up into the face of the man who had once been her dearest friend; only that it was not his face anymore. Half of it was hidden behind mechanical appliances, and the part that was visible was pale as death. She desperately tried to find a trace of his old self in his eyes, but his glance remained cold. Since her body had been paralyzed by the Borg, she could neither move nor speak; she could only look. Crusher's eyes silently pleaded with him to stop this horror, to prevent what was happening. He continued to stare at her, and once she thought she saw a spark of recognition in his eyes, but it died as quickly as it had appeared. With it died her only hope of salvation. Locutus straightened, again following the command of the collective. For a fleeting moment, he had felt a stirring somewhere deep inside him, something that told him that he knew this woman and that he had to help her. He tried to hold onto that feeling, tried to strengthen it and to understand it, but the collective voice of the Borg cut through the last strings of self-awareness, effectively cutting his last link to humanity. Locutus turned and headed for the door. Resistance was futile. All humans had to be assimilated to serve the collective. In a few days, it would all be over. The end.
© 1995-2000 by Hester
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avid readers since October 5, 2000
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