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Part of USS Ride: Waylaid by Necessary Interdiction and Bravo Fleet: We Are the Borg

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The Droning Death

Starlight Lounge - USS Ride
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Captain Ejoma Nushif prided herself on her keen ability to understand social cues, navigate precarious conversations, and not stick her foot in her mouth. Tonight, due to a particularly grueling hike, and a tired body and mind, she’d accepted an invitation from Admiral Niana Tondro to have drinks in the ship’s lounge, and she’d done exactly what she’d told herself never to do: ask an El-Aurian about the Borg.

Admiral Tondro, to her credit, had leaned back in her chair, took a sip of her cocktail, and looked out the window with a sad sigh.

“A Borg cube, Ejoma, is unmistakable as anything else, on the sensors. It creates a lot of noise, so to speak, generates its own local system of gravity. Has its own satellites. That’s hyperbole, but you get the image. You’ve seen Romulan Warbirds, massive ships unto their own right. Shit, even the Ride is massive compared to most ships. A cube would dwarf her, handily.”

“I apologize Admiral, I didn’t…”

“And they’re coming, and coming, and then they’re there,” she interrupted. “They’re there, bringing ego death and annihilation in their wake. They flood every communication channel with that awful, droning cacophony of theirs. A thousand thousand voices that could be lifted in beautiful chorus, instead spelling out the ways they’ll destroy you utterly, wholly, and forever. Then they cut.” She emphasized the word by slamming her drink onto the table. “A hundred beams of light, tearing apart your hull to get to the people you’ve served with, grown with…loved…the screams, the crying, the smell of blood and oil and ichor all at the same time overwhelming your senses as your friends undergo the change.”

She turned her gaze toward the (now cowed) Bajoran woman, her eyes red. “I would say they aren’t a fate I would wish upon my worst enemy. But they are my worst enemy, Ejoma. They are the enemy of sentience and free will. And if Starfleet would authorize it, I would take every ship from every fleet to the Delta Quadrant tomorrow. I would hunt down every Unimatrix, every cube, every probe. I would destroy them, permanently, brutally, and with great malice.”

Standing, she gulped down the last of her drink, and said, “That, Captain, is what the Borg are like,” before exiting the Lounge.

Comments

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    James Neidlinger

    Damn, Admiral Tondro does not beat around the bush. She gives it straight. First, she reminds us of the incredible power of a Cube, and the almost certain outcome you can expect when you face one, and then she pulls the lens back and makes clear her perspective on the Collective as a whole. Genocide is what she’s talking about, and yet you almost want to sign up to charge in alongside her to do just that, even after she’s just warned you what it’s like to face a Cube. That begs the question of what comes next for the El-Aurian, and for the Bajoran XO, now that the Borg are moving once more.

    November 5, 2023
  • FrameProfile Photo
    Andreus Kohl

    Okay, now that is how you write a monologue about the Borg. Looking out the window with a cocktail in hand, it was practically a Shakespearian soliloquy. Picard should be shaking! Tondro's hyperbole about the sheer weight and gravity of a Borg cube was majestic enough in its own right and that was only talking about the mere PRESENCE of the Borg. The existence. Where her words got properly scary was describing what the Borg do. The way you characterized the sound of the Borg, the cutting action, was emotionally evocative to the nth degree. I can't wait to see how you write the shadow of the Borg as they move into THIS story, when their mere history was told with such reverberation.

    November 5, 2023
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    Noli Auru

    Sweet Jesus, what an opening. That monologue should be required reading at the Academy. I don't think there is a more apt, more fitting way to get across the terror that the Borg should evoke in everyone. The fact it was done in a bar, drink in hand, to one of her command team, makes it even more serious. Command officers share a unique bond, often confiding in one another their darkest fears and concerns. The Admiral has done that here, and in doing so, has hooked me into finding out how the story will unfold.

    November 6, 2023

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