Mobile Processing Center 539
Pergamum Nebula
Spock awoke fighting.
He did not awake to fighting, though it would not have surprised him if he had, given that the last thing he remembered before he was drugged was struggling against the armored attackers on Susquatane.
No, he found that he was the one in armor now, and that he was punching another warrior. Hard.
“Keep at it,” shouted a gruff voice into his ear. “We know you have a circulatory system. Get it working!”
For a long moment, Spock thought he was having a dream, or some kind of aftereffect from the sedative. But the material encasing his body was real, as was the motion of his arms and the impact—much muted—when his blows struck the other party. He could also feel tiny prods touching his skin near his joints, generating tingling electrical impulses. Those, Spock surmised, were combining with the mechanical armature inside his armor to produce his movements.
Movements that were involuntary on his part—but certainly according to someone’s will.
Spock’s protected fists slammed against his opponent’s headgear. It was no helmet, he saw, but more of an angular dome: it resembled half a dodecahedron, with a flat side on top and the forward, left, and right faces appearing as blackened window panes. Spock had the same three ports to look through—and now he noticed data projected on the inside of the panels. A visual interface. Text appeared superimposed over his fellow pugilist’s massive form: “539A-2/Green-3” moved as his opponent moved. The characters were recognizable to Spock, if their meaning was not.
Since the combat seemed to pose him no danger, Spock took the chance to look out his left and right ports. Two other titans—Green-4 and -5, his interface read—clashed with one another. Both were two and a half meters tall. Spock realized part of his disorientation came from the fact that he, too, was made taller by bulky boots and what he now perceived to be a sizable amount of gear mounted on his back.
“Your center of gravity’s going to be off for the first couple of days,” the voice said. “The gyros in the unit will accommodate—until you start adjusting. You cretins might as well start now.”
Spock looked around for the speaker, whose voice seemed an odd mix of erudition and meanness. All he could see were black walls, with glowing red lights beaming down, defining a round room a dozen meters in diameter. Too small for an arena, he thought. Inferring that he was sparring rather than fighting, he guessed the room might be a gym.
It was time to say something. Not knowing the appropriate protocol between marionette and puppeteers, Spock simply said, “Greetings.”
“Ah, another sleeping fool has decided to join us,” responded the voice.
“I am Lieutenant Spock, of the United Federation of Planets Starship Enterprise.”
“You’re Green-Two until I say otherwise.”
Spock threw another punch. “I wish to stop this activity.”
“I’m muting you now.”
Spock’s further entreaties went unanswered. Nor was he able to communicate with the individual he was trading punches with. The pointless pummeling went on for another three minutes before the motions of his opponent subtly began to change, becoming less robotic, more uncoordinated.
“Looks like our last one’s finally awake,” the voice said. “At ease. Stow headgear, all units.”
All four combatants stopped punching. The compartment around Spock’s head snapped open at the seams, with the left, right, and forward panes withdrawing into his armor like an automatic door into a wall. Above him, the solid top casing folded and retracted into the bulk on his back.
As his eyes adjusted to the low light—it was much harder to see without the faceplate in front of him—Spock found that his legs were immobilized. He could move his arms, however. The armored limbs were overly large relative to his body, but with the servos assisting, he was able to move them with surprising ease.
In the suit of armor across from him, Spock made out the narrow, frightened face of his opponent.
“I’m so sorry,” the gray-haired male said. Spock could not place his species. “I don’t know why I was striking you.” He looked down at the armor encasing him, clearly disoriented. “Who are you?”
“Spock.”
“I am Malce. What is this?”
“It would seem we are prisoners.” To the side, Spock saw the other two pugilists had been revealed as Connolly and Ghalka. Each of their suits had a single small, green light glowing near the left shoulder assembly; Spock hadn’t noticed that when his headgear was in place. He looked back to his opponent.
“Mister Spock, where are we?” Connolly asked, tense.
“Unclear, Lieutenant.” The air outside the armor wasn’t as fresh as what he was breathing when his suit’s cupola was closed. He felt a light tremor, followed by a wash of light as the walls of the room descended into the floor, revealing a much larger space. What had been their gym, he saw, was one of five round structures encircling a wide pentagonal dais. It was too tall to see if anyone might be atop the platform, but he could make out a railing.
In the better light, Spock realized he knew Malce’s species. “You are Antaran. But there are no Antarans on Enterprise.”
“My colony ship was cutting across a nebula. We were attacked.”
Then we were not alone, Spock thought.
Malce winced. “I feel like I’ve been out for days.”
“That is possible.” If their captors were in the habit of drugging their victims, he could see recovery rates differing. How long had any of them been in this predicament?
Another rumble, and the massive dais started to retract into the floor. It stopped with a meter’s height to spare, revealing several armored figures inside the railing, bustling around a circle of consoles. Some of the individuals’ gear was bulkier than others’. A warrior with black shoulder plates stepped to the railing to address Spock and his companions.
“So this is Green Squad,” he said in the same voice they’d heard earlier. The words were audible through the faceplate of the speaker’s armor—and Spock realized he was hearing a translation coming from his own. “I’ve seen better-looking warriors in graves.”
“What is this?” Connolly asked. “Why are we here?”
Spock had his own question—inspired by the Federation’s recent state of war. “Why can’t we see your face?”
“I do the talking!” The black-shouldered warrior gestured—
—and Connolly turned and gave Spock a teeth-jarring slap with the back of his reinforced hand. Immobilized in the armor, the senior officer had little chance of avoiding it.
Connolly looked at Spock, horrified. “Lieutenant! I didn’t—”
“Do not explain,” Spock said, doing his best to ignore the pain. “We do not control our actions here.” He turned his head to focus again on the speaker on the dais. “Who does control them? Are you Klingons?”
Black Shoulders simply laughed. “Klingons!”
“What’s a Klingon?” asked a voice from the middle of the crowd on the dais.
When the speaker stepped forward, Spock recognized the older, pocked armor worn by one of his attackers on the ice. “You were the one that abducted us. Who commanded you to do so?”
“History did. And in this fleet, I’m the one who commands.” The battlesuit’s cupola retracted, revealing a ruddy brown face that could have been seen on a Vulcan lizard. Golden eyes, little more than slits between the scales, looked down upon the foursome. “My name is Kormagan,” she said, pointed tongue slipping out. “I am of the Boundless. And now so are all of you!”