Starfleet Command—the Bunker
-i-
“THE BUNKER” WAS THE NAME LEFT OVER FROM hundreds of years ago, referring to a structure typically constructed of steel and concrete. Bunkers were usually small, secure locations where top military brass went to ride out enemy assaults.
The bunker to which top senior Starfleet brass had retreated was a far cry from those early incarnations. Three kilometers deep and eight kilometers wide, the bunker walls were constructed from castrodinium. If the entirety of Earth were blown to rubble, the bunker would be left floating, awaiting rescue. That, of course, assumed that there would be anyone left to rescue them.
Those thoughts crossed Edward Jellico’s mind as he watched assorted Starfleet brass monitoring the situation of the oncoming Borg cube and the available fleet’s attempts to try and impede it.
Jellico had no particular function in situations such as these other than to oversee what was happening. Considering that both offense and defense were being coordinated by some of the finest tactical minds that Starfleet had to offer, he knew they were in good hands. Technically he could take charge of the situation, but why would he want to?
He took a slow, controlled walk past the assorted arrays that charted every aspect of the current battle scenario. He knew that, even now, valiant starships were going head to head with the Borg cube…
…and losing.
Constant visual feeds were being provided by several observation vessels that had only one function: to maintain visual contact with the cube while staying far enough away not to be sucked in by the oncoming behemoth.
Jellico was having trouble believing what he was seeing.
A voice at his side said softly, “Having a flash of déjà vu, Edward?”
He glanced over and saw Admiral Alynna Nechayev standing next to him. He had known she was in the bunker with him but hadn’t seen her until just now.
“No,” said Jellico after a moment. “Actually, this is worse. Worse because this cube is making it look even easier than the last time…and worse because…”
“Kate Janeway is involved somehow?”
“We don’t know that for certain.”
“Don’t kid me, Edward,” Nechayev said with a touch of scolding in her tone. “I’m head of Starfleet internal security. Do you seriously think I wouldn’t have read the reports of your discussions with Seven of Nine? She had some sort of ‘insights’ that Janeway has been delivered into Borg hands, and suddenly a massive cube is attacking us. Am I not supposed to put two and two together?”
“We don’t,” he repeated with conviction, “know that for certain. I’m going to hold out both judgment and hope until we know definitively.”
“Who would have thought that Edward Jellico was an optimist?”
“Keep it to yourself,” he said.
Their tone may have sounded light, but that was only to cover the concern that was pounding through them. They were watching good people, good ships falling one after another as the Borg cube kept moving implacably toward Earth. It had not yet reached the outer rim of the solar system, but unless something dramatic happened, that was inevitable.
The bunker continued to be a whirlwind of industry around them; they remained the eye of the hurricane. “Would you be out there?” Nechayev asked.
“Pardon?”
“If you had the choice: you could be here in a secure location, or you could be on the bridge of one of the ships fighting for your life.”
“There. Out there,” he said without hesitation. “You?”
“Absolutely.”
“And yet we’re here. Stuck on Earth as witnesses, unable to get our hands dirty. Here we are, admirals, and we have no say in our own fate.”
“No one ever has a say in his fate, Edward. That’s why it’s called ‘fate.’”
“If I believed that, Admiral, then everything we do here would be pointless.”
Nechayev was watching ship after ship fall to the overwhelming power of the oncoming cube. “That may well be the case, Edward.” She paused and then said, “We may need a miracle to survive this one.”
“The Enterprise should be here soon,” said Jellico. “Picard hasn’t let us down yet.”
“Hasn’t let us down? This is all Picard’s fault,” Nechayev growled.
The comment surprised Jellico. “Is it?”
“Damned right. He had a means of disposing of the Borg right there, right in his hands, years ago. His people had developed a virus that they could have implanted into a Borg drone they’d captured. They could have used him as a carrier to infect the Borg. The entire race would have been obliterated.”
“I remember that,” Jellico said slowly. “As I recall, his defense was that he couldn’t condone genocide. That if we simply annihilated an entire race, we’d be no different from them.”
“We’d be alive and they’d be dead,” Nechayev said. “That’s sufficient difference as far as I’m concerned. I’d far rather be on the plus side of that equation. Wouldn’t you?”
“True enough.”
Fleet Commander Galloway approached them with obvious concern. “Two minutes until outer rim. We project that Pluto is directly in the cube’s path. We’re having the remains of the fleet regroup in Neptune’s orbit to form a defensive line.”
“Estimated time of arrival to Earth?”
“At current rate of speed, if the fleet is unable to stop them? Thirty-seven minutes.”
Nechayev and Jellico exchanged worried looks as Galloway went back to the command post. “Evacuation procedures on the outlying worlds?”
“Almost finished.”
“So at least some of our race will survive,” said Nechayev.
The pronouncement was chilling. It was as if Nechayev was tacitly admitting that the defensive measures being taken by the fleet were doomed to failure. Jellico didn’t comment on that as Galloway headed back to command central.
“At least there’s nothing for them to assimilate on Pluto,” said Nechayev after a moment. “The only planet in the system that doesn’t have some fool colonists trying to turn hell into paradise.”
Jellico looked up in surprise. “Planet? You mean dwarf planet.”
“No. Planet. They changed it back again.”
Jellico moaned. “Not again. This makes, what, the tenth time in the last three centuries? Can’t they make up their damned minds?”
“I suppose they would if the ‘they’ didn’t keep changing.”
“My God, Alynna,” Jellico said abruptly. “We’re discussing matters of trivia while our people are dying by the thousands.”
“What would you have us do, Edward?”
Jellico considered it and then admitted, “I’ve no idea.”
“Welcome to the club that no one wants to be a member of.”
They said nothing but instead headed toward command central where Galloway and the others were busy barking orders at the fleet. A proximity hologram was showing the Borg cube drawing ever closer to Pluto, hanging there dark and icy in the vastness of space.
“It’ll go around it,” Nechayev said, watching the cube approach the planet. “There’s no reason for it to do otherwise. It’s a ball of ice and rock.”
“It doesn’t appear to be doing so,” said Jellico.
“Borg cube is on collision course with Pluto,” confirmed Galloway. “Estimated time to impact, on my mark: forty-five seconds. Forty-four, forty-three…”
The countdown continued and, courtesy of the observation ships, they were able to see every moment of it.
“Perhaps they don’t see it for some reason,” suggested Jellico.
Nechayev was skeptical. “How could they not? They’re on a damned collision course with it.”
“Maybe they’re blind to it because it’s not technology based.”
She considered that a moment. “That could be,” she said slowly, although she didn’t sound convinced.
“If that’s the case, maybe we’ll be lucky, and they’ll collide with the thing and be destroyed.”
“I have trouble believing this could end that easily,” said Nechayev, but she did allow a small bit of hope to creep into her voice.
Galloway was counting down steadily. The constant flow of chatter had dwindled and now every eye was upon the bunker’s main screen. The computer had placed graphic circles of red around Pluto and blue around the Borg cube that had transformed into red when the collision appeared inevitable.
“Five,” droned Galloway, “four…three…two…one…impact.”
Jellico wasn’t certain what he was expecting to see when the Borg cube came into contact with Pluto. Would the cube actually break apart, or would Pluto be slammed out of its orbit, sent flying away like a frozen billiard ball?
At first it was impossible to discern what was happening. It seemed that the two of them, Borg cube and planet/dwarf planet, were simply up against each other.
And then…
“Is that right?” Galloway was studying the readouts. The lieutenant commander in front of the station nodded in confirmation. “That can’t be right,” Galloway said, but it was more a weary protest of amazement than anything resembling a conclusion.
“What’s happening?” demanded Jellico.
“Pluto is shrinking and the Borg cube is growing.”
“What?”
“It’s eating Pluto,” Nechayev said in wonderment. “It’s absorbing the sphere’s mass; it’s eating the damned world.”
“That’s impossible,” said Jellico, knowing that it was in fact anything but.
The visual on the screen began to match what the instrumentation was already telling them. Pluto was becoming smaller and smaller, while the Borg cube was increasing exponentially.
It was a slow, painful process to watch as Pluto continued to shrink. The Borg cube swelled like a mosquito or a tick siphoning blood.
“How the hell is it doing that?” wondered Jellico. “There’s nothing technologically based…nothing…”
“It’s mass,” said Nechayev. “Matter. Matter that the cube is transforming into energy and back into matter again, along with the starships and the…bodies it’s absorbed.”
It took five minutes. Five minutes for the Borg cube, which had gained nearly a third in size by Galloway’s estimates, to finish devouring Pluto.
“Well, at least that solves the issue of whether it’s a planet or not,” Nechayev commented. Jellico looked at her, appalled at the seeming callousness, and then saw beyond her deadpan observation to the barely controlled horror that was reflected in her eyes.
In short order, the cube also polished off Pluto’s moons of Charon, Nix, Hydra, and Elysium. Jellico felt as if he were watching someone devour dessert mints after a sizable meal.
The Borg cube hung there in space for a long moment. The starships were ready to battle it, and Jellico felt sick at heart because he knew beyond question that they were not going to be able to stop it. Nothing was going to be able to stop it.
But as more time passed, the Borg cube continued to make no forward motion at all. “What’s it doing?” Jellico said finally.
“Digesting, perhaps,” suggested Nechayev. When she saw Jellico’s look, she said, “I’m not joking. Perhaps it needs time to process the ingestion.”
“Should we order the fleet to attack formation?” Galloway asked.
“No,” said Nechayev immediately. “I suggest we wait and see.”
“I concur,” said Jellico.
They waited. And then they saw…
-ii-
There had been no mention of an incoming hail from comm central, no report that the Borg cube was endeavoring to contact them. The screens all over the bunker, including the main screen on the wall, simply went blank for a moment. Then they were replaced by an image so alien that, at first, Nechayev didn’t understand what she was seeing.
It was the image of a woman with grayish-white skin and an array of tubing in her head. She was staring at them imperiously, as if she were some sort of royalty. The creature appeared vaguely familiar, but somehow…
“Oh, my God,” said Jellico softly, and then Nechayev recognized her as well.
“Kate.”
The creature who had been born Kathryn Janeway stared out from the screen. She smiled, but it evoked no human connection.
“Surrender,” said Janeway. “You have no choice. Certainly you must know that.”
“Can we reply to her?” asked Jellico.
“Negative,” said Galloway. “It’s one-way transmission only.”
“Our terms are simple: Seven of Nine and Jean-Luc Picard. Give them to us and we will allow you to live.”
With that pronouncement, the erstwhile Janeway blinked out of sight.
“Borg cube is holding its position,” Galloway informed them.
“Contact the Federation Council,” Nechayev said immediately. “Find out what they want to do.”
“Find out…?” Jellico looked stunned. “Find out what? You don’t seriously believe the council will accede to this…this blackmail? We’re talking about the Borg! The Borg aren’t really going to bargain with us! They’ve no reason to! They’re the damned Borg!”
“You know that. I know that. Chances are the Federation Council will know that,” said Nechayev. “But if they act as if they’re going to give in to the Borg, that could buy us time.”
“It’s insane!”
For the first time, Nechayev was on the verge of losing her temper. She pointed angrily at the screen and said, “They ate Pluto! I think we have to be prepared to throw all previous definitions of sanity out the window, Admiral!” She paused, pulling herself together, and then said tightly, “Get in touch with Enterprise. Find out where she is. I want to be able to report to the council that we are, at the very least, giving the appearance of providing the Borg with what they want.”
“Picard is on his way.”
“Do you know that?”
“Of course I—”
“Don’t tell me that he’s following the orders you gave him. Do you know for a fact that Enterprise is en route to Earth?”
Jellico looked ready to argue the point, but then said slowly, “I will verify her range to Sector 001.”
“Do that. And if he’s heading anywhere else but Earth, God help him…and God help us all.”