Embedded Files
“Captain’s log, Stardate 49231.7. T’ Psycho has a new warp core, and has been ordered out on a standard patrol. I am really glad that all this is over. Looks like we’re goin’ to get a rest for now. Just as well, because I’m startin’ to get nightmares. I keep thinkin’ I’m back aboard the bluidy Borg cube, as Linctus. Eee. Anyone would think I’m losin’ it. End log entry.”
He was alone. All around him was machinery, pipes and wiring. All of it cold, lifeless. Alien. He could feel himself as a tiny microbe in the immensity of the machine, which seemed to get larger, while a voice constantly whispered, “Linctus…”
Olding woke up. He was in his cabin on the Psycho, and the Borg were not just around the corner. Still, bit bluidy vivid, that nightmare. He staggered into his bathroom, and splashed some water on his face. That was a bit better. Olding stared at his reflection in the mirror. There were bags under his eyes, and his cheeks were grey. That does it, he thought, I’m definitely gettin’ some shore leave before long. He felt his cheek itch a bit, and scratched at it irritably. The irritation suddenly became a jet of pain, and, as Olding watched, horrified, a metal probe emerged from his cheek. It sprouted several antenna, which began to bleep as they clamped themselves to his face, and…
…this time he did wake up.
Olding jumped out of bed, and was practically out of the cabin door before he realised just what was going on. The computer was bleeping at him, telling him somebody wanted to talk to him. Hitting the panel, he said, “Olding here.”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Priority One message from Starfleet Command, Captain. Admiral Shiner.”
“Put him through down here.”
Olding threw on a uniform jacket over his pyjamas, and sat down behind his desk. This way, the admiral wouldn’t notice that Olding wasn’t dressed. As he frantically pulled on his uniform top, he found that the zip jammed. He pulled desperately. The zip refused to move. Olding exerted all his strength, and the zip broke. Olding cursed, and crossed his arms so that Admiral Shiner wouldn’t see the problem. As he did so, the monitor on his desk flicked on to reveal Admiral Shiner.
“Captain Olding, we have a problem. We’ve just received a message from DS13.”
“Yes I know. The Romulans.”
“Er, no…”
“The Klingons?”
“No…”
“The Breen?”
“No.”
“The Ferengi?”
“No! Captain, it’s the Borg. They’re heading for Earth.”
“We’re on our way.”
Admiral Shiner’s expression immediately changed. “Actually, we’ve got a different task for you…”
The next morning, Olding assembled the senior staff, except for Wall and Damerell who were returning from shore leave in the Liffey, in the conference room to explain the situation.
“… So Starfleet wants us to patrol the Neutral Zone border with the Klingons, just in case they decide to take advantage of our weakness caused by the Borg attack.”
The crew, surprisingly, looked disappointed. Olding could only suppose their success against the Jem’Hadar and the Khazi had gone to their heads.
“That’s not fair!” Hill grumbled. “We’ve got more experience with the Borg than most other ships in the fleet!”
“We have only been up against the Borg the once,” Counsellor Hill pointed out.
“Yeah, well, that’s one more time than most of the rest have done.”
“And we’re the most advanced ship in the fleet!” Stark said. He knew it, and the fact was giving him problems. He’d only just got used to the older equipment, and now Starfleet inflicted brand new gear on him. They’d taken the opportunity while installing the new warp core to fit all sorts of new gizmos nobody had the slightest idea how to operate.
“One of t’ most advanced ships in t’ fleet,” Olding reminded him. “And Starfleet’s deployin’ most of the other Sovereign-class to the fleet.”
“It’s still not fair,” Hill muttered.
“I know, but we can’t argue with Command.”
The music blared loud in Olding’s ears; painfully so, in fact. But he needed something to take his mind off the humiliation Starfleet Command had dealt him. He’d always known that Command thought the Psycho crew was a bit of a joke, but to have it confirmed like this was a bit of a slap in the face. Over the din of the music, he made the sound of door-chimes, and he yelled “COME IN!!”
Hill stuck his head round the door.
Olding bellowed, “COMPUTER, CEASE MUSIC!!!!!!” The ready room abruptly went deathly silent.
Hill came fully into the room.
“Yes, Commander?”
“Sir, the crew isn’t happy about not being allowed to join the attack against the Borg.”
“Hmph. I don’t know why. I spend most of my career with a crew full of cowards, and suddenly they’re all eager to go and get killed.”
“You know what they’re like, sir. They don’t think about the consequences too much.”
“I’d noticed.”
“But is it something we said? Why won’t they let us go?” The slight whine that entered Hill’s tone told Olding that for all his disparaging comments about the recklessness of the rest of the crew, his first officer was just as eager to have another go at the Borg as the rest of them.
“They don’t trust us. Command has always thought that we were a liability. They’ve been tryin’ to get rid of us for years, but somehow we always managed to pull something off that kept us together.”
Hill knew what he meant. The occasional acts of stupidity misinterpreted by the public as heroism had kept the crew popular amongst the public, and prevented Starfleet from splitting them up. Now, though, Starfleet had an opportunity to undo that.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, if, after t’ battle, they request that t’ crew be split up to replace casualties.”
Hill looked horrified. “Would they do that?”
“‘Course they bluidy would! And there’s nothin’ we can do abou’ it.”
Some hours later, they were on the bridge, listening in to the progress of the battle. The channel was staticky, but clear enough to paint a depressing picture.
“… This is Admiral Shiner aboard the Chipping Sodbury. Prepare to engage.”
There was a silence, then the channel became inundated with multiple transmissions. Battle had been joined.
“…Jellystone, break right!… We’ve been hit! We’re breaking u… Adopt attack pattern Delta…”
Then, another voice dominated the channel.
“We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. Lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.”
“Guys, guys, change the script!” Counsellor Hill said.
They lost contact with the fleet.
“We have to go and help!” Hill blurted.
Olding shook his head. “I can’t order you to disobey direct orders from Command.”
There was a silence as the crew sat impotently. Then, there came a sound from Tactical, rather like the electric equivalent of a throat being cleared.
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… I think I speak for the entire crew, captain, when I say, bollocks to our orders!”
Olding turned to face Bleep. “Thank you, Mr Bleep.”
He looked around. “I am about to disobey direct orders from Starfleet Command. Anybody who objects to this should say so now so I can enter it in t’ log.” Nobody said anything. “Thank you. Helm, plot us an intercept course!”
Wall’s replacement tapped in the commands, and said, “Ready, sir.”
“Engage!” Olding’s fingers clenched involuntarily, and he thought, too bad Wall and Damerell can’t be a part of this.
Wall and Damerell were in fact a part of it, and a far more direct part than they wanted to be. Their shore leave had been an unusual one. Forgoing the traditional destinations, such as Risa or Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet, they had instead stopped off at Agamemnon IV, where they had obtained a second-hand starship’s photon torpedo bank, with torpedoes to go with it, an impulse drive, and some heavy duty phasers. They had then spent the rest of their leave doing to the Liffey what they had done to the Ooze, namely, grossly overdoing its weapons capability. On their return from the leave, they had been playing one of their CD’s and singing away, and so had not noticed the battle going on ahead of them until they were on top of it.
They had dropped out of warp only to discover that they could not see the stars. The cause of this curious phenomenon was the fact that they were so close to the Borg ship, they couldn’t see anything else.
“Pull up!!!!” Damerell screamed.
Wall did so, noticing that they seemed to be only a few metres from the Borg ship’s hull. A nasty thought crossed his mind. It was confirmed a second later when Damerell started to yell “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!!!!!!”
“What?”
“We’re inside their shield perimeter!!!!!”
“How’d we manage that?”
“I dunno! We must have flown in through a gap!”
“Nyaaargh!”
“Exactly!”
The Liffey shot upwards, skimming the Borg ship’s hull. Around them, photon torpedo strikes and phaser blasts got awfully close.
“What do we do now?” said Damerell.
“I don’t know!”
There was a pause, during which Wall pushed the runabout through a ninety-degree turn, and set off along the upper edge of the Borg cube. Then, he grinned evilly. “You know, we’ve got all this new gear aboard… Seems a shame to waste it, just sitting there.”
Damerell paled. “Oh no!”
“Oh, yes!”
Damerell attempted to stop his fingers trembling long enough to start pressing buttons. A second later, he reported, “Phasers and photon torpedoes locked on target.”
“Fire!”
The Liffey opened up at point-blank range, and caused devastating damage, as the Borg ship couldn’t train her weapons on the tiny runabout, or reduce their shield perimeter to cope. Wall’s job became a lot more interesting as he tried to dodge bits of rubble as well as fly in close formation with the cube. “How long do you think we can keep this up for?”
“I’m trying to find another hole in the shields! Hang on!”
“What then?”
“We run for it!!!!”
“Excellent idea!”
The Psycho arrived on the scene at the same time as the Enterprise.
“They must have had the same idea,” Counsellor Hill commented.
“Hmph.” Olding didn’t trust himself to say anything. The sight of the Borg cube filled him with loathing. He wondered if Picard was feeling the same thing.
Just then, Bleep reported, “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Message from Enterprise, captain. She is sending us co-ordinates to fire on.”
Olding moved over to take a look. “I see where they’re aimin’ for,” he said. “Lock all weapons on target and fire!”
The Liffey was just passing the co-ordinates in question when the remnants of the fleet opened fire.
“Oh, crap! What have we done now?!” Wall muttered, while Damerell screamed, “Stop shooting!!! We’re on your side!!!”
Unfortunately, he had neglected to open a comm channel, so nobody except Wall heard him. Wall reasoned, correctly if stupidly, that the concentration of fire in that area would mean the shields would have failed there. So he set a course for that area. It only occurred to him when they were almost there that they were heading straight for the aforementioned concentration of fire. Luckily for them, the first shot to hit them only struck them a glancing blow, so, instead of destroying them, it only spun the runabout out of the direct line of fire.
A few seconds later, the Borg cube exploded.
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Sensors have detected the Liffey, captain.”
“Where?” Olding looked at the screen. He could just about see the small runabout tumbling away from the wreckage of the Borg cube. “Oh, right. Life signs?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Two, captain.”
“Beam ’em aboard.”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Stand clear of the doors please… Sensors have also detected a Borg craft, captain.”
“Have we brought Mr Wall and Mr Damerell aboard yet?”
The ensign manning Ops reported, “Aye, sir.”
“Then follow that Borg!”
The Psycho was a few seconds behind the Enterprise in their mad dash to keep up with the tiny Borg sphere that was speeding towards Earth. Just as Olding was about to give the order to lock weapons on target, the turbolift doors opened, and Wall, Damerell and Jackson spilled out onto the bridge.
“Captain,” Jackson said, “These two won’t let me cut anything off!”
“Do they need anything cut off?”
“Well, Wall has a grazed knee, and Damerell has a bit of a scrape on his elbow.”
“Then I think they’ll survive withou’.”
Grateful for the intervention, Wall and Damerell scrambled for their seats, evicting the two ensigns who had done quite well until then.
Once they had settled in, Olding addressed them. “Give us a bi’ more speed, Mr Wall. We don’t want to be left behind.” Wall immediately doubled their speed, forcing the Enterprise aside.
An instant later, the Psycho was jolted by something. “What was that?” Olding asked.
“I dunno,” Hill said, “but it’s big!”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… The Borg have generated a temporal energy vortex, captain.”
“Okay.” Olding didn’t like the sound of that. The Borg ship then promptly vanished.
Damerell’s next comment added to Olding’s rapidly growing sense of disquiet. “Captain, I can’t pick up any of the other starships that were following us.”
“What?!”
Then, the final straw. “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… captain, Earth.” Olding and the others looked at the screen. The blue-green Earth they all knew had turned a polluted murky brown, and silvery lines stretched out across it.”
“Mr Damerell, scan the planet.”
Damerell did so. The readings he got were so definite, even he could interpret them. “Captain, I am detecting 2.5 billion lifeforms. All Borg.”
“How is that possible?” The counsellor was horrified.
Olding suddenly understood. “Time travel! They went back, changed Earth’s history!”
“How come we haven’t been affected?” Jackson asked.
“We must have been shielded from it by the effects of the vortex. Mr Wall, give us everything you’ve got!!! We have to go back, repair whatever damage they’ve done!!!” Olding was really angry now.
The Psycho flew into the vortex.
When they emerged on the other side, it was to find a peaceful Earth, and the Borg sphere firing at the surface. “Lock all weapons onto it and blow it away!!!” Olding ordered. A barrage of shots from the Psycho did precisely that.
“They were firing on an area of Montana, Captain. North American Quarter.” said Hill
“Montana?” Olding frantically scanned through his memory of history. “Mr Damerell, I need to know exactly when we are.”
Damerell went back to his console, and puzzled over how the hell he was going to pull this one off. Eventually, by dint of trying everything he knew the console could do, he got an answer. “Uh, judging by the pollution content of the atmosphere: radioactive weather fronts, fractured ecosystems, six hundred million dead, I guess we are about ten years after World War III.”
“Not accurate enough, Mr Damerell.”
Damerell turned back to his console. Inspiration struck him, and he set the computer to scan through transmissions emanating from the planet. That gave him the answer he needed.
“April 6th, 2063.”
That date was engraved on the minds of everyone on the bridge. “It’s the day before first contact!” Hill gasped.
Olding nodded. “They’ve come back to sabotage t’ first bluidy contact! We’ll have to beam down and find out what’s happened.” Olding thought abut the composition of his away team. “Doctor Jackson, Counsellor, Mr Bleep, you’re wi’ me. Get Mr Barfoot and Mr Stark to join us.”
Hill grabbed his arm, and said, “Bleep?”
“He’s a walkin’ encyclopaedia on things like this. We may need him if t’ warp ship is damaged. You have t’ conn, Mr Hill.”
Down in Engineering, Stark pulled at his collar. It was getting flippin’ hot down here, he thought. Must be more of those damn gizmos Starfleet had fitted.
“Chief Earley!” he shouted.
Earley looked up from where he was cleaning the dilithium crystals. Judging by the radioactive charge his toothbrush must have received, Stark wondered idly whether the Chief’s teeth were going to glow in future.
“Get into Jefferies tube No. 3 and see what’s happened to the heating.”
Earley headed off into the tube, and Stark and Barfoot left for the transporter room. Earley crawled into the tube. It was incredibly hot in there, and he was soon sweating profusely. He paused by the heating controls. Someone had tampered with them. They were raised to much higher than the standard temperature. But, before Earley could reset the controls, something unpleasant happened to him that meant he would never have to worry about brushing his teeth ever again.
The away team beamed down into a straggly encampment. They had dressed in period costume, except of course for Mr Bleep, who had an unfortunate tendency to rip anything weaker than steel, and so had to remain his normal metal self.
While Barfoot and Stark scanned the encampment with their tricorders, Olding looked around him. Even to a hardened cynic such as himself, there was something quite amazing about standing in the middle of one of the most famous sights on the planet. Of course, it wasn’t famous yet, nor would it be unless they found out what had happened and repaired whatever the Borg had done.
“Come on. And keep an eye out for Zefram Cochrane.”
He led the way towards the old missile silo that had been modified to launch the warp ship. With some difficulty, they got inside, and proceeded towards the ICBM that was shortly to change history. They found themselves on an inspection gantry about one hundred feet above the floor of the silo. Bleep carried out a scan of the warp ship, the Phoenix, while Olding looked around the chamber. There were obvious signs of damage from the Borg’s attack. He wondered if they would be able to repair enough to make sure the launch went ahead on time. They had to, Olding realised, if history was to take its normal course.
It had to be this crew that got lumbered with this responsibility, he thought ruefully. What did I say to t’ counsellor? They weren’t such a bad crew in their way? They’ll have to be bluidy brilliant to pull this one off.
“What’s the damage?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… The Phoenix has suffered major damage, Captain.”
“Is it possible to repair it by one o’clock tomorrow afternoon?” That was when the Phoenix was due to fly.
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… It may just be possible, Captain.”
Olding tapped his comm-badge, and said, “Mr Stark, Mr Barfoot, I’ve got a little job for you.” he was about to explain further, when they heard a shout.
“Get away from that ship!!!”
An instant later, they heard bullet strikes pepper the walls around them. Olding instinctively threw himself against the far wall.
“What the bluidy ‘ell’s goin’ on down there?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Stand clear of the doors please… I believe I can solve the problem, captain.” With that, Bleep stepped off the platform they were standing on, and dropped like a stone towards their attacker.
Lily Sloane was having a bad day. She had been outside with Cochrane, enjoying a walk under the stars, and talking about nothing in particular, when suddenly death and destruction had rained down on them from the sky. She had lost contact with Cochrane after that, and had crawled back to the Phoenix, to check the damage to her ship. Never mind that Cochrane had designed it, Lily had been the one who had built it, who had scraped together the materials necessary to build the most advanced ship on the planet, and she thought of the Phoenix as her ship.
So she was really annoyed when she saw strangers standing up by the nose of the ship, and apparently fiddling with it. The easiest solution was to open fire, which she did. When the metal object dropped on her, she kept firing into it, even though the bullets just ricocheted off. The object kept dropping, and as it got closer Lily realised it had arms and legs.
What the hell? she thought, but kept firing. The metal object hit the floor, broke straight through it, and dropped through to the room below. Lily ceased firing, and dropped to her knees to take a look. The machine was moving uncertainly around on the floor below, surrounded in the debris from the metal flooring it had ripped through. At that moment, Lily suddenly felt very weak, and she passed out.
Jackson joined Olding on the floor of the silo, while Stark retrieved Bleep from his accident. He shook his head as he looked at Lily. “She’s suffering from radiation exposure as a result of the Borg attack.”
“Get her to Sickbay, Doctor. And keep her unconscious! And for cryin’ out loud, don’t cut anythin’ off! Just give her medication! Understand?”
Jackson nodded reluctantly, and then called for a transport to Sickbay. Olding knew they had to save her, but he couldn’t risk letting her get a good look at the technology of the future. This is gettin’ more and more bluidy complicated all the time, he grumbled to himself.
One of the Engineering ensigns who Barfoot had called down to help repair the Phoenix tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Excuse Oi, zur, but Mr Barfoot be wantin’ to tell ee that we’ve found Mr Cochrane, loike. He’s unconscious, loike, but ee’ll be as roight as rain in a little while, just you wait an’ see.”
“Thank you, ensign.” Olding saw Stark and Bleep ascending towards the top of the missile, and went to join them. Repairs were underway, they had found Cochrane, and now there wasn’t a lot Olding could do. It would be useful to take a break, and besides, he had something he wanted to do.
When he reached the nose of the Phoenix, he was able to do it. He stood by the cabin, and slowly, reverentially, placed his hand against the side of the ship. It was something of a thrill to be able to touch the most famous space ship ever.
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Is there something wrong, captain?” Bleep was watching him as curiously as an android with a fixed expression could.
“No, Bleep, I’m just tryin’ to imagine what it must have been like, erm, I mean, will be like, um, well…” Olding got tangled in the temporal paradoxes.
Fortunately, Bleep appeared to understand. “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… And touching the ship helps you to understand?”
“Aye, I suppose it does.”
Bleep approached the Phoenix until he stood next to Olding, then extended his hand. Unfortunately, Bleep did it with such force that he punched through the skin of the Phoenix. Olding sighed and tugged on Bleep’s hand to extricate it, bracing himself against Bleep’s chest to give him support. Yet another little problem for the engineers to fix. While he was pulling at Bleep’s hand, the counsellor appeared behind them.
Seeing the Captain and Bleep locked in an apparently intimate embrace, she quipped, “Do you two want to be left alone?”
“Eh? No, counsellor. What’s t’ problem?” Olding freed Bleep’s hand, and stepped over to join the counsellor.
“We’ve just had a call from the Psycho. They’re having problem with their heating system, and power from other systems is starting to fluctuate.”
Olding knew instinctively what the problem was. The Borg.
“Have Commander Hill come down here and take over the repair operation. Mr Bleep and I are returnin’ to t’ ship.”
As Olding beamed up, he was thinking that he wasn’t entrusting Hill with the task of removing a possible Borg infestation from the Psycho. It was only after he had stepped down off the transporter pads that he realised that, while the ship was now safe from Hill’s potentially disastrous if well-meaning attempts at coping with a crisis, Olding had entrusted the whole of future history to the Commander instead. Oops.
Just as he was about to change his mind, there was a lurch, and the transporter operator said, “We’ve just lost all power to the system, Captain!”
A few moments earlier, a junior engineer, curious as to why it was taking Chief Earley so long to fix the heating problem, had tried to get into the environmental control room. He found the door appeared to be locked. Forcing the door open, the engineer peered into the darkness. He had an eerie sense he wasn’t alone in there. This was confirmed when a red light blinked on in the darkness. It was soon followed by several others, and the Borg began to move. The engineer’s hideous scream was abruptly cut short.
Olding arrived on the bridge and immediately started giving orders.
“Evacuate the secondary hull! Mr Bleep, set up a security lockout on our computers! Hurry!”
Bleep moved over to a console, and type in a rapid series of numbers so fast that no-one else could read them. Once he had finished, he drew back a fist and punched the console out.
“Thank you, Mr Bleep. Very, um, very secure.”
“What now, sir?” Damerell asked.
Olding narrowed his eyes. “Now, Mr Damerell, we go on a bug-hunt.”
The corridor was deserted. Damerell poked his head round the corner. A second later, Wall’s head joined him. A second after that, Mr Bleep attempted the same trick. Unfortunately, the delicacy of the manoeuvre proved too much for him, and he overbalanced. The rest of the team, Olding included, wasted precious minutes picking him up. Then they proceeded on their way.
They were all carrying phaser rifles, even Olding, who was simmering with irrational fury at the Borg for having the temerity to come aboard his ship. He was so angry he had agreed to Wall’s request to carry two phaser rifles (set to different frequencies, of course) without really listening. That had worried the others, even Wall, in the midst of his joy at getting away with his outrageous suggestion. Olding was starting to crack under the pressure. It was obvious from the way he behaved. He was striding down the corridors so quickly that the others had to run to keep up with him, phaser rifle thrust out in front of him aggressively. No-one had ever seen him like this before, and no-one really wanted to see him like it again.
As they hurried down the corridor, Damerell, whose trembling was so great he was getting blurry at the edges, said, “Sir, I’m scared.”
“So?”
“Do I have to come?”
“Of course you’ve got to come! Stop bein’ such a cry-baby and get on wi’ it!!!!!”
Damerell, startled by this outburst from Olding, tripped over his own feet. Olding tapped his foot impatiently while Damerell got up again. This time, the Operations officer stayed well away from Olding. The Captain didn’t seem to notice. Round the next corner, they found the Borg. Damerell leapt into the air, before flinging his arms around Wall’s neck and hanging there. With great difficulty, Wall was able to detach Damerell before he ran out of air.
Olding, fighting back the urge to open fire, said, “No sudden movements. They don’t perceive us a threat. Just keep goin’.”
The small group moved cautiously past the Borg as they went about whatever tasks they were supposed to be doing. Wall, whose natural reaction to moments of extreme tension was to start acting the fool, walked up to one Borg, and waved. When that got no response, he stuck two fingers up at it. Fortunately, Olding pulled him away before he could prod the Borg in the eye. They were almost past the group when one Borg moved to block their path. Olding got the group to halt. He watched as the Borg raised its arm. On the end of the mechanical attachment was a sharp needle. It moved purposefully towards him. Olding, realising that the charade was over, opened fire. The Borg fell backwards, and Olding yelled, “Plan B!!!!”
One of the younger ensigns on the group, who hadn’t been with the crew long, said, “Plan B?”
“Run!!” explained Wall, as he did so.
“Oh, right,” the ensign said. As he did so, he felt a sharp object enter his neck, and he was paralysed.
The counsellor had been watching over the unconscious Cochrane, with instructions to keep him out of the way of the repair parties, or anybody, in fact. He, more than anyone else, had to be kept ignorant of the true identity of the strangers in the encampment. So when he had come round, and groaned, “I need a drink,” the counsellor had agreed.
He had taken her to the encampment’s bar, one of the few structures left standing, and fished out several bottles of beer. He had then set an ancient jukebox playing a tune that the counsellor recognised from Wall and Damerell’s collection. It was only after her third bottle that the counsellor realised that this wasn’t synthahol.
Shtill, ish too late now, she rashunalised.
Each of the search and destroy teams Olding had ordered into the rapidly growing Borg hive were ambushed at the same moment Olding’s was. Many were split up in the panicked rush that ensued, and a good few were assimilated. Even Olding came perilously close to it once or twice. Very quickly, the team leaders realised that they were not going to be able to sneak into the centre of the Borg hive, as originally planned. So, instead, they ran for it.
Olding hurried down a corridor. Ahead of him were Wall and Damerell, who were demonstrating their natural talents for legging it, and behind him were the remnants of his security force and Bleep. Olding paused to let the others get ahead of him. As he did so, he saw one of the ensigns trip a few metres behind him, and a Borg got to him. As Olding watched, the ensign’s face grew grey, with blotchy dark veins.
“I say, old fruit, would you mind awfully helping me?” the ensign groaned, and Olding suddenly realised that it was Ensign Cholmondely-Smythe, only son of the Cholmondely-Smythe who had briefly held the command of the Psycho-A.
“With pleasure,” Olding said, and shot him. It was only afterwards that he realised that maybe that wasn’t the help the ensign had in mind.
Bleep was just passing a door, when it opened slightly at the bottom, and two hands reached out and grabbed his legs. As he toppled to the floor, he said, “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Captain!”
“Bleep!” Olding rushed to grab the android, but it was too late. Bleep was through the door, which had sealed again. Olding looked round. He was surrounded. His only option was to get out through a Jefferies tube. Olding dived for the tube, ripped the hatch cover off, and crawled off down the tube. He was safe, just.
In this manner, the Borg slowly took possession of the lower decks of the Psycho. In Sickbay, Doctor Jackson realised that they had to evacuate. His only patient was Lily. He was about to grab a gurney and get her out when fists began to pound on the door. The fact that they were leaving marks on the solid duranium door convinced Jackson that the door was no longer an acceptable escape route. Which left only the air vents.
“Quick, get the cover off that vent!” he called to a nurse, who did so. The one problem with the air-vents was that they could not carry the unconscious Lily through them. Jackson grabbed a hypospray to bring her round.
Before he could apply it, his nurse grabbed his arm, and said, “I’ll do it, sir.” The new medical staff had very quickly realised the extent of Jackson’s skills, and were fearful of letting him have too much to do with the recovery of such a vital patient. While the nurse brought Lily round, Jackson looked at the door. The Borg were almost through. They needed some way of slowing the Borg down, and sticking a chair in front of the door probably wasn’t an option.
“Computer, activate Emergency Medical Holographic Program!”
“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”
“Twenty Borg, about to come through that door! You’ve gotta stop them!!!!!”
“I’m a doctor, not a doorstop! How am I supposed to stop them?”
“I don’t know!!! Improvise!!!!!!”
The EMH program looked thoughtful. As it had been based on Jackson (Starfleet Medical’s idea of a joke), it contained some of his behavioural patterns. So, as Jackson and the others escaped through the air vent, the first Borg to burst into Sickbay received a blow from an axe that split it straight down the middle.
Inside the air-vents, Lily’s weakness meant that the rest of the medical staff quickly passed her as they frantically crawled upwards, towards safety. She didn’t know where the hell she was, she didn’t know who these people were, but she deeply suspected that they were the ones responsible for the attack on the encampment. She took the first opportunity to get away from them, clambering out of the tube and onto the deck when they weren’t watching her. There was nobody around. Lily jogged off down the corridor, wondering where the exit from this building was.
When Hill found the counsellor and Cochrane, they were singing along with one of the tracks from Cochrane’s music collection, and knocking back shots of something highly potent. As the commander entered, Cochrane pointed at him.
“You know him?” he asked Counsellor Hill.
“Yup,” she giggled.
“Who is he? Your husband?”
“Nah. He’s my great-uncle.”
“What?”
“‘S the troof.”
“Get outta here!”
“Serioushly!”
Cochrane beckoned to Hill, who joined them reluctantly. “Are you her great-uncle?”
“Yes.”
“Wow!”
“Whatever. Look, can I have a word with you?” He dragged the counsellor away from Cochrane.
“You’re drunk,” he told her.
“Yup!! Absholutely trousered!!”
“Trousered?”
“Trousered. But it hasn’t affected my effish… eshiff… work, in any way.”
“Oh?”
“Do you wan’ my offishal opinion on him ash shipsh counshellor?”
“Please.”
“He’s NUTS!” She waved an arm in Cochrane’s direction. He waved back. “I really don’ know how we’re gonna get him to fly tha’ damn ship. All he talks about ish money!”
“I think we’re going to have to get both of you sobered up.”
With that, Hill grabbed the counsellor by the arm, and, pausing to collect Cochrane, pulled both of them out into the night. He’d seen a water-trough earlier that ought to do the trick.
Olding staggered out of the Jefferies tube, and moved off down a thankfully deserted corridor. He had had to discard his phaser rifle in the tube, and so he was now down to his hand phaser. That would be enough to beat any Borg he came across, he told himself. He glanced about. He was still in the bowels of the ship, where the Borg reigned supreme. He had to climb a few decks if he was to get clear. At a junction, he stopped to get his bearings. He needed a turbolift shaft or something to climb.
Jackson clambered clear of the ventilation shaft, to find himself confronted by several phaser rifles. “Don’t shoot! I’m on your side!!!” The security team, all of whom had been through Sickbay at one time or another, were reluctant to lower their weapons, but did so eventually. Jackson moved aside to allow the other escapees from Sickbay to get out of the tube. When the last one was out, Jackson looked around, vaguely aware that someone was missing. Finally, it hit him.
“Where’s the patient?” he asked. The nurses looked at each other.
“I thought she was with you,” they said as one.
Jackson sighed. “The captain’s going to go potty.”
Olding backed around a corner. As he did so, he collided with somebody, dropping his phaser. He spun round, and went to pick it up, but the other person was faster.
Lily held the phaser uncertainly, and said, “You! Get me out of here! Now!”
Olding recognised her instantly, and also recognised his problem. “Look, I think I ought to tell you…”
“Shut up and move!”
With a phaser pointed straight at him, Olding didn’t argue. He led her towards one of the storerooms he knew was located by the ship’s hull. He had one chance to calm her down.
As he walked, he said, “I assure you, I’m on your side.”
“Yeah, right!”
Olding searched his memory. “Please, trust me! I’m not a member of an Eastern faction!” That was about as much as he could remember of 21st century political history.
“Oh yeah?”
As they entered the storeroom, Olding said, “Can I show you something?”
Lily nodded, but didn’t lower the phaser. Very slowly, Olding leant over, and tapped the control which opened the shield over the window. As the shield slid open, Olding saw Lily’s eyes widen in shock. Through the window, she could see the Earth turning slowly.
“We’re in space!”
“Aye.”
“How? No-one’s got a space station in this high an orbit!!”
“We’re not on a space station. We’re on a starship.”
“A… starship?!! Who are you trying to kid?”
“No-one.” Olding was starting to lose patience. He was trying to break the Prime Directive, to tell this woman exactly where she was, a difficult enough thing for him to do, without her trying to make it more difficult for him. “You see, I’m not from this time.”
“Oh no? Where’re you from then?”
“T’ future.”
“The future? Don’t make me laugh!”
Olding was getting really annoyed now. He stuck his hand into the window. The forcefield that held in the atmosphere glowed as his hand came in contact with it.
“A forcefield?” Lily’s voice had acquired a hushed tone.
“Aye, lass. Now do you believe me?” In answer, the hand holding the phaser dropped. Olding gently relieved her of it. Glancing at the weapon, he said, “This was set to its highest setting. If you’d fired, you could have vaporised half the deck.”
“It’s my first ray-gun.”
Hill watched as the counsellor and Cochrane dried themselves. His simple, brutal, yet effective cure for drunkenness had been to dunk their heads into the water trough until they sobered up. After about half an hour, the two of them appeared to be sober. Certainly the counsellor’s earlier good humour had evaporated, and she was now glaring at him frostily.
While Hill had been getting the two of them sober, he had told Stark to find the Psycho in orbit using the big telescope that Cochrane had set up in a clearing close to the forest. Stark had been having difficulties, but, as Hill walked over to join him, he gave the commander a thumbs up. “Found it!”
Hill glanced through the telescope. Sure enough, he could see the Psycho clearly through the telescope. “Right.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Tell him everything.”
Cochrane stared astounded as Hill explained precisely who they were, where they came from, and why they were there.
When he had finished, Cochrane said, “Let me make sure I understand you correctly… Commander. A group of cybernetic aliens from the future has travelled back in time to enslave the human race… and you’re here to stop them.”
“That’s right.”
“God, you’re heroic. Can you fly, too?”
Hill sighed. Cochrane was quite obviously taking the piss. “No, but you have to tomorrow.”
Ignoring this, Cochrane said, “And your ship’s in orbit right now?”
Stark pointed through the telescope. “Take a look.”
Cochrane, chuckling to himself, squinted through the eyepiece. His other eye widened as he saw the impossible. “How’d you do that?”
“It’s your telescope. You tell me.” Stark failed to keep the defensiveness out of his tone. He was just about getting to grips with technology in general, and couldn’t help but bristle when somebody questioned something he’d done. Now, if this was a soufflé, he thought, I’d be on firmer ground.
“Holee…” Cochrane rubbed at his forehead. He could feel a headache coming on. “So, you’re fixing the Phoenix?”
“Yeah. All you have to do is fly her tomorrow at one.”
Cochrane frowned. “Wouldn’t it be safer to just leave it ’til later, until we can do decent safety checks?”
Hill shook his head vehemently. “No!”
“Why? Look, I don’t want to fly her if she’s not safe.”
“You don’t understand! It’s vitally important that you fly that ship tomorrow at one, as planned.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you!” Hill didn’t want to tell Cochrane everything; he could tell the man was nervous, and he figured that telling him that aliens would detect his warp signature tomorrow and come round to visit wasn’t going to make things any better. “Look, just trust me. If you make that flight tomorrow, you’re going to change the way people live forever. Hunger, poverty, war, they’re all going to be wiped out in fifty years. If you fly tomorrow at one.”
“Yeah, yeah, alright.”
Cochrane stomped off, and Hill glanced at the counsellor. “It is going to be so difficult to get him into that warp ship.”
“You said it.”
Olding led Lily through the corridors of the Psycho, slowly making their way up through the Engineering decks, while trying to avoid the Borg.
As they walked, Lily said, “Is this duranium?”
“Aye. T’ hull’s made out of it.”
“God! You would not believe the amount of trouble I had trying to find enough duranium to build a ten-foot cockpit.”
Olding remained silent. He didn’t want to engage in too much conversation. He was acutely aware of the fact that, if all went well, Lily would have to be returned to the surface, and he didn’t want to tell her too much. They walked in silence for a while, until Lily said, “Why are you here?”
“To help you get t’ Phoenix into space on time.”
“Oh, right. So what am I doing up here?”
“You were ill. We had to help you.”
“You had to help me? Nah, I don’t buy that. What did you have to gain?”
Olding was tempted to tell her, but decided to limit his answer. “I didn’t have anything to gain.”
“So you just did it out of the kindness of your heart.” Olding could recognise sarcasm when he heard it, in fact, it was usually him using it, and so phrased his next reply as politely as possible. Keep it calm, Chris, he told himself, you can’t just blow your top over nothing.
“If you like.”
“No-one does something like that for nothing. The human race is screwed up. Always has been, and always will be.”
Olding’s answer slipped out before he could control it, “Bluidy right, er, I mean, we’ve improved. I’ve seen t’ future. We can be a noble, compassionate and caring race. We can rise above the sum of our flaws, our petty conflicts, our historical mistakes.”
“The way you say it, I almost believe it,” Lily told him.
Olding thought, I just hope she doesn’t meet Mr Wall then. Now there’s a walking historical mistake if ever I saw one.
Mr Bleep’s systems, which had been temporarily shut down, slowly re-booted themselves. His eyes were the first to come up, and showed him a view of Engineering. There appeared to have been some changes to Engineering, though. Some extra equipment had been installed around the consoles, and loose piping hung from open hatches. Bleep consulted his internal clock. It read, 2237, October 21st 1982. So only one hour and thirty-two minutes had elapsed since his systems had been shut off.
Bleep waited patiently as the long list of faults scrolled past his view, telling him just what was wrong with him. The conclusion was that he was operating at 23 percent efficiency. This was almost peak condition for Bleep. He attempted to move his arms, and it was then that he discovered a problem. His arms could not move. Bleep moved his head from side to side, and discovered that he was locked into a machine of some sort. He had been securely locked down, and could not move either his arms or legs.
While Bleep considered his situation, he heard a female voice say, “So, you’re awake.” Bleep moved his head to focus on the source of the voice. A Borg female approached him, a look of amusement in her eyes. Bleep watched as she pressed a control, and the machine he was locked in rotated him from the vertical to the horizontal. She stepped up to him, leant over him, and said, “Do you know who I am?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Analysis of Borg culture suggests you are the Borg Queen.”
“Hmm. Simplistic, but it’ll do. Do you know why you’re here?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… I would surmise…”
“You’re here to be assimilated into the Borg Collective. We need beings such as yourself. Superior life-forms of an artificial nature.”
The Queen looked at him seductively. Unfortunately, Bleep’s emotion detection subsystem had been lost down the back of Graham’s sofa seventy-five years before, and he did not recognise what the Borg Queen was trying to do.
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Stand clear of the doors please… I would surmise I am here because you desire the security lockout codes to access the ship’s systems.”
“Oh well, there goes all the romance. Are you going to give the codes to us?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl.. I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave… Negative.”
“Oh, I think you will. How do you fancy… an oil change?”
Bleep squirmed involuntarily. A message had just flashed up on his diagnostic screen advising him to accept the offer, as he was in dire need of an oil change. It was the one thing that everyone had forgotten to check, as Bleep’s dipstick had been lost some time ago, and no-one thought to question what the hole in his side was.
But his loyalty subroutine had kicked in, with its Starfleet-inspired message of death before betrayal of Starfleet principles, and he said, “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… I shall resist you for as long as I can.”
“We shall see.”
Olding and Lily had rounded a corner, to find themselves confronted by Borg drones. They were modifying the ship’s command systems, trying to get into the central computer. Olding hid his phaser, and said, “Don’t make any sudden moves. If we just move slowly, they won’t attack us.”
Lily, clearly disgusted by what she saw, said, “What are they?”
“They’re just cybernetic aliens who are hell-bent on enslavin’ us all. Nothing at all to worry about.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.”
They passed several Borg, who ignored them. But, as they were about to get clear, several Borg refused to move. They could not squeeze past.
A Borg approached Olding, scanned him, and said, “Who are you?”
Olding thought fast, then said, “I am Linctus of Borg. You will stand aside,” in as imperious a voice as he could manage.
The Borg stood aside, and Olding breathed a sigh of relief.
“What was all that about?” Lily asked.
“Someone I met once,” Olding replied.
They were walking away from the group of Borg, trying not to go too fast, when a Borg voice said, “Alert! Linctus of Borg is an enemy! Linctus must be assimilated!”
“Oh, bugger!” Olding and Lily started to run.
As they ran, Lily said, “What the hell are we going to do?”
“We have to lose ’em somehow!” Olding thought fast. Suddenly, the answer hove into view. “Hang on,” he panted. He tapped away at the control panel by the door they had stopped by. Lily watched over his shoulder. She saw a sign flash up, reading, ‘It’s grim up North’, before the doors slid open, and Olding pulled her inside. As she walked in, she saw her drab clothing get replaced by… more drab clothing, but this time with a sheepskin trim. Olding’s uniform was replaced by a grubby blue boiler suit, and they set out into the crowd of people who were milling around in the room.
“Where are we?” Lily said.
“At a whippet-racin’ track,” was Olding’s cryptic response.
“What?”
“No time to explain! Just look miserable!”
“Shouldn’t be difficult.”
Olding tugged her through the crowd. Behind them, the holodeck doors slid open again, and two Borg walked in. To their right, Lily could see the track. A race had just started, and many of the people who had just appeared out of nowhere were watching it. While she glanced around nervously, Olding was talking to a group of rough looking men who were sat round a table, clutching pint glasses.
“Evenin’, lads,” Olding said.
One of them, a stocky man with a large scar running down the side of his face, said, “Evenin’, Chris. Does tha want a pint?”
“Not this evenin’, Brian,” Olding said, ‘I’m after somethin’ a bit more… lethal, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do. Got cash for it? If you think I’m handin’ it over withou’ cash, you’ve got another think comin’, lad.”
“You owe me, Brian! You’ve owed me for a long time!!” Olding grabbed the table, and turned it over, scattering beer all over the place. The men round the table dived clear, and, as they did so, Olding grabbed for a stuffed whippet that sat under the table.
“What are you going to do with that?” Lily hissed, trying not to look at the Borg, who were slowly but surely coming towards them.
Olding twisted the tail sideways, and the stuffed whippet split into two, the halves falling away to reveal a tommy-gun.
“Brian Oglethorpe never did have any taste,” he said grimly. “Stand back.” Olding strode forwards, and yelled, “Oy! Borg! I’m over here!” As the Borg turned towards him, Olding opened up with the tommy-gun, in a long burst that sent people flying, and ripped into the two Borg. They went down almost instantly, but Olding kept on shooting, and yelling as he did so.
Eventually, Lily shouted, “Okay, I think you got ’em!!!”
Olding ceased firing, and dropped the gun.
He hurried over to one of the Borg, and began to dig under the Borg’s armour.
“Oh, gross! What are you doing?”
Olding didn’t look up as he talked. “Every Borg has a mission chip that they carry with them. It details what they must do, what the collective’s current task is… aha!! Got t’ bugger!” Olding fished it out triumphantly. “Now, to link it wi’ a tricorder…” He fished out a tricorder, and began to pull out great sheaves of wiring from it, which he plugged into various parts of the small chip he had retrieved from the Borg. As he worked, he produced wiring seemingly from nowhere, and slowly the contraption he was building got larger and larger.
Lily, who was examining the Borg bodies, said, “Hey! This guy was one of yours!” Sure enough, there was a Starfleet comm-badge tucked under the Borg armour.
Olding gave the body a cursory glance, and said, “Aye. That was Ensign Oakley.”
“And you just shot him?”
“Believe me, it was a kindness.” Olding carried on working. Very soon, the contraption was so large that he could no longer hold it, and it had to be placed on a table. Finally, Olding flicked a switch, and the wires started to pulse, lights flashed, and the tiny screen on the tricorder lit up. Pushing aside some of the forest of wiring, Olding peered at the screen, reading off the instructions to the Borg. His eyes widened as he saw their plan. He grabbed Lily’s arm again. “Come on, lass, we have to go.”
They made their way up to the bridge and, while Lily stood gobsmacked at the displays, Olding consulted Damerell.
“Mr Damerell, would I be right in thinkin’ that t’ Borg have ceased their advance?”
“Er, yes sir. They’ve taken the secondary hull, but they’re not making any moves towards the primary hull.” Damerell looked questioningly at Olding. He and Wall had been the senior officers on the bridge after they had got split up, and had been following the progress of the battle with a growing sense of fear.
The Borg’s slow, insidious takeover of the ship had been even worse than the tribbles, and they had been quite glad when the Borg appeared to have stopped. Now, though, Olding’s tone made it sound as if this were a bad thing. Damerell, ever sensitive to the possibility of disaster, began to tremble again. Olding looked around the bridge. Other than a few crewmen, he, Wall and Damerell were the only ones there. “Come on, we have to stop them.”
“I thought they’d stopped themselves.”
“Mr Wall.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
As they clambered down three decks, Olding explained the plan to them. “T’ Borg are intendin’ to use t’ main deflector dish to send a signal to t’ Borg of this time tellin’ ’em to come and assimilate Earth pretty damn quick, and prevent t’ Federation from ever startin’. We have to stop ’em. They’ve already started to modify the dish, so we’re goin’ to have to detach it.”
“Cor! I didn’t know you could do that!” Wall said brightly.
Damerell started to whimper again. He carried on right the way though their suiting-up, only stopping when the helmet was locked down, and no-one could hear him any more. Wall was the next one ready and as Olding was just finishing off, Lily, who had accompanied them, put on her best Yorkshire accent and said, “Ay oop, lad, be careful out there.”
“Bluidy right,” Olding said, and locked his helmet into place. He made sure the three of them all had their phaser rifles, then motioned the other two into the airlock.
Once the airlock had cycled, the three of them stepped out onto the lower hull of the disk. “Mr Damerell, do you remember your zero-g combat manoeuvres?”
The answer was a long time in coming, and didn’t actually relate to the question. “Sir, I feel sick.”
“Well, hold it in and don’t look at the stars.”
Olding immediately realised his mistake, and regretted it, as Damerell disobeyed the latter and consequently failed the former. After the liquid sounds had died away, Olding, whose own stomach was starting to curdle, said, “Are you okay?”
Damerell’s voice sounded much clearer as he replied, “Actually, yeah! You know, it’s amazing how much better you feel with it all out…”
“Thank you, Mr Damerell! I don’t really want to know.”
“Sorry, sir.”
The three of them set out towards the deflector dish.
They paused on the lip of the dish, and peered in over the edge. In the centre of the dish, several Borg were building some sort of skeletal attachment to the main panel. It was obviously almost done. They didn’t have much time to waste.
Olding hurriedly pointed out the three panels set around the dish. “Once you’re there, you’ll be able to read the instructions. Provided we don’t look like a threat, the Borg won’t come anywhere near us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mr Damerell, I’m positive.” He slapped his phaser rifle reassuringly.
In fact, Olding wasn’t in the least bit sure, but he knew he couldn’t tell Damerell that, as he didn’t want his Operations Officer freaking out in his spacesuit. The three of them set out across the dish; Olding cautiously, Damerell ultra-cautiously, and Wall as if he was going for a stroll in the park. If it wasn’t for his magnetic boots, Olding was sure Wall was trying to skip.
Despite this, they reached their targets without interruption. Olding set to work, scanning through the instructions on the plaque by the screen before twisting the large handle to the right through half a turn, as specified in Stage 1. He then tapped in the code that the computer required as verification, before twisting the handle the rest of the way. The resistance seemed to be much greater now, something that Olding knew was deliberate to ensure that the dish couldn’t be released by accident, but which meant that it was taking him much longer to get through the turn.
Damerell, his strength augmented by panic, frantically yanked his handle round, tapped the code in, got it wrong, tapped it in again, then yanked the handle round the rest of the way long before Olding had finished, and was rewarded by the sight of one of the clamps lifting. However, it also attracted the attention of the Borg, and some of those working on the transmitter moved away from their work to deal with the unexpected nuisance around them. Damerell saw them, and began to gibber, “B-B-B-B-Borg!!!!!!” In his fear, though, he neglected to turn his suit transmitter on, so neither Olding or Wall knew what was coming.
Wall was quite enjoying himself. He’d always liked going EVA, and getting to fiddle with systems he normally wouldn’t get to fiddle with was an added bonus. He worked his way through the instructions, and tugged mightily on the handle. Agonisingly slowly, it completed its turn. Wall looked up, expecting to see the clamps lift. Instead, he saw a Borg about two feet away. Before he could run for it, it had punctured the glass of his faceplate and stuck the needle into his neck that began the assimilation process.
In his last moments of individuality, Wall heard Damerell’s voice over the comm channel scream, “Noooooo!!!!!! You bastards!!!!” before he heard a sudden rush of voices into his head and he was assimilated.
Damerell had seen what had happened to Wall and was enraged. He could see a Borg approaching Olding, who had turned off his suit communicator and was engrossed in trying to get the handle round the rest of the way. Damerell began to lumber towards the Captain, trying to save him. Before he could get too far, he felt a Borg hand land on his shoulder.
Snarling angrily, he grabbed it and flipped the Borg over his shoulder and onto the hull, then aimed his phaser rifle and pulled the trigger. Another Borg went for him, and slashed his suit at the ankle. Damerell hit it with the butt of the phaser rifle, then shot it as it landed. Looking down, he realised he had a serious problem. He was losing atmospheric containment fast. Damerell, the anger still dominating his system, came up with the answer far quicker than he would normally do. He grabbed the arm of the first Borg he had killed, yanked it off, and used the pipes to secure his suit by tying it tight against his leg.
Olding finished turning the handle, and, like Wall, looked up to see a Borg right in front of him. Unlike Wall, however, Olding remembered his own words on zero-g combat, and backed up onto the slope of the hull, turned off his magnetic boots, and kicked off. He flew straight past the Borg, before managing to bring himself to a stop on the other side of the dish. The central portion of the dish, now free of the clamps that held it in place, began to float clear of the hull. Olding beat back another Borg, but slipped and fell. He looked up to see Wall, his face grey and blotchy, lift his boot and bring it hard down on Olding’s faceplate. It fractured the glass, but didn’t break it. He lifted his boot again, and Olding knew the next blow would break the plate, and he would be dead. Then, Wall was shoved violently aside, and Damerell grabbed Olding and dragged him away.
As soon as they were clear of the deflector dish, Damerell turned round, lifted his phaser rifle, aimed it at the central portion of the dish with the Borg transmitter on it, which was now some distance from the hull, growled, “Assimilate this!” and fired.
And missed.
Colouring slightly, he said, “And this!” and fired again. This time he hit the dish, and it exploded. With that, he and Olding headed back to the airlock.
Damerell’s bravado lasted until they were out of the space-suits, and Lily, who had been waiting for them, said, “Where’s the other guy?”, at which point, he broke down in tears.
Olding patted him on the shoulder, his own anger now back with a vengeance, and said, “Come on, we’ve got to get back to the bridge.”
With that, Lily led the very angry Olding and the pitifully wailing Damerell back towards the bridge.
It was the middle of the morning, and Stark had been trying to find Cochrane for ages. He had finally located the inventor at the edge of the encampment.
“Here,” he said, waving a padd, “Take a look at these figures, will you?”
Cochrane took the padd, and glanced at the figures. “Yeah, they look alright. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Before Cochrane could say anything, however, Barfoot came bounding up, grabbed Cochrane by the hand, and shook it vigorously. “I’d just like to say how honoured I am to meet you, Mr Cochrane,” he babbled, “It’s really amazing to be standing here, talking to you like this, and then working on your ship, wow! I mean, it’s like… look, could you autograph my tricorder?”
Cochrane raised both eyebrows, but took the proffered stylus, and signed the back of Barfoot’s tricorder.
Barfoot then skipped away, singing, “I’ve met Zefram Cochrane, I’ve met Zefram Cochrane,” over and over again.
Cochrane and Stark watched him go. “That’s what I was going to ask you about. Why does everybody from your ship treat me like some sort of god?”
“I guess they’re just excited. This lot are all engineers. It’s a bit of a thrill to meet an engineering hero, sort of thing.”
“But you’re the Chief Engineer, and you’re not going all gooey like that.”
Stark blushed, and said, “Um, that’s because I’ve never actually heard of you before.”
“I thought you said I was an engineering hero?”
“I’m not an engineer, strictly speaking.”
“You’re not… So what have you been doing to my space-craft for the past few hours?”
Stark turned defensive. “I’m learning! And anyway, the warp engine in the Phoenix is the most basic one around, so it’s a good one to learn on!!!” Stark stomped away, leaving Cochrane nonplussed.
When Olding, Lily and Damerell got to the bridge, it was to find that Jackson had finally managed to reach the bridge, and was taking reports from the last few security details still operating. From what Olding had heard, it was clear that the situation was hopeless. The Borg had begun their advance again, and the Security teams couldn’t stop them. They had adapted to all the phaser frequencies, and beating them off with sticks didn’t work.
Nevertheless, when the Security officer pitifully asked, “What do we do now, sir?” Olding barked, “Get back below decks and hunt ’em down!!!!!”
“But, sir…”
“Don’t ‘but sir’ me!!! Just bluidy do it!!!!!!!”
The others looked shocked, and Jackson said, “Captain, don’t you understand? We’ve lost the ship!! We have to destroy the Psycho!!!”
“Destroy t’ Psycho?!!!!! You’ve got to be bluidy kiddin’ me!!!!!!!”
Damerell shot past Olding, into the conference room, sobbing wildly. Olding followed him, not to comfort him, but with the intention of getting him to pull himself together and get back out there. As he left the bridge, the others looked at each other.
It was Lily who said, “I’m going to talk to him.”
Jackson and the others looked dubious, and muttered things like, “Ooh, I dunno, he might not like it, I mean…”
Lily ignored them and marched after Olding.
She found him sat at one end of the conference room table, cleaning his phaser rifle. He had a stack of data chips on the table in front of him, and had arranged them in a neat line. “What do you want?”
“We have to talk.”
“There’s no time.” Olding just kept on working, modifying the rifle’s compression frequency so it would once more be effective against the Borg.
“Dammit, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Fighting the Borg is suicide!”
Olding sighed impatiently. “Lily, I don’t have time for this.”
“For what? Your vendetta?! Your revenge?!!!! You’re out of control!!!”
“You don’t understand.” Olding’s tone was icy. “It’s not about revenge.”
“Bullshit, Captain Ahab!!!” Olding’s head jerked up, and Lily knew she had got through to him. “You’re out there hunting your great white whale. I saw you in the holodeck!! You enjoyed cutting Ensign Oakley down to size! He was one of your own!”
Olding hung his head in shame, and repeated, “You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand? I understand that I want to live, I want the crew to live, and I want you to live. The Borg have taken over almost the entire ship. You can’t beat them. If you stay and fight, you’re condemning all of mankind to death. Do you hear me?! All of mankind!!! Don’t sacrifice all that just for your revenge!!!!”
Olding snapped. “You don’t understand!!!” he bellowed. “You don’t know them like I do. Ever since this started, I’ve been hearing them in my mind! A little voice, repeating ‘Linctus’ in my head! You don’t know anything about what they did to me.”
“No, I don’t know. But I do know it’s insanity to stay! The ship is lost!”
“No!” Olding grabbed the phaser rifle, and slammed it into the display case, containing models of the other Psycho‘s. The case shattered, and the Psycho-A, which was closest to the attack, disintegrated. He stood, breathing heavily, and staring at the destruction.
Lily shouted, “Chris, blow up the damn ship!”
“No! I will not give up t’ Psycho! We’ve made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space, and we fall back! They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back! T’ line must be drawn here!!!!” He stabbed downwards with his finger. There was a silence, while they both glared at each other. The silence was broken by a scratching noise, and Olding looked down to find Damerell busy with a lump of chalk. “Mr Damerell, what are you doin’?”
“I’m drawing the line, like you said. I thought it… was… an… order. Hahahaha. Er, I’ll just be going now, shall I?”
“Yes, you shall.” Olding tried to growl, but his anger had been broken.
Lily moved over to the wreckage of the display case. She examined the small plaques under each model. They read: ‘USS Psycho, SMC 1234. Destroyed at Alpha Majoris 3. USS Psycho, SMC 1234-A. Destroyed at Verydull 3. USS Psycho, SMC 1234-B. Try not to blow this one up.’
“You broke your little ships,” she said quietly.
“Yes, I did,” he agreed. “Come on.”
Hill joined Stark by the opening of the silo. “Have you seen Cochrane anywhere?”
“I did earlier, but I haven’t seen him for a while.”
“No, neither have I. We’re less than an hour from launch, and Cochrane goes missing. We’ve got to find him.”
They set off round the encampment, until finally, Stark noticed a flash of movement in the woodland around the edge of the encampment.
“He’s running away!” Hill said angrily. “Come on, after him.”
They ran off in pursuit of Cochrane, slowly gaining on him despite Hill’s uncanny ability to find every exposed root in the ground and trip over it. When they got close enough to shout, Hill yelled, “Cochrane, come back here! We need you for the flight!”
A voice replied, “No way! I’m not doin’ it! It’s too much!!!!!”
Hill, thoroughly disgusted by the founding father of interstellar travel, pulled out his phaser, stopped long enough to check it was on stun, and shot Cochrane as he tried to make a break for it. The two of them then grabbed the unconscious inventor, and lugged him back down to the camp.
As they carried him, Stark said, “What’re you going to do? Give him a rousing speech when he comes round, persuade him that his is the single most important act in human history, that he has to do it for the benefit of all mankind?”
Hill gave this one due thought, then said, “Nah, I’m going to tie him into his seat on the Phoenix so he can’t get away again.”
“Good plan.”
Olding and Lily stepped back out onto the bridge, and Olding said, “Prepare to evacuate t’ Psycho. I’m goin’ to destroy her.”
The bridge crew, even though they had known this was going to come, were still shocked as they heard it. While Jackson gave the orders, Olding and Damerell went through the destruct sequence. As they completed it, giving themselves a half-an-hour countdown, Olding turned to Damerell, and said, “We have to find somewhere uninhabited to set down on.” Entering the parameters into the computer, Olding waited as the system went through the options. It presented him with one option, Gravett Island in the Pacific.
“That’s it. Program the lifepods to head for Gravett Island.”
Damerell did so, and then headed for the turbolifts. When he reached them he turned and said, “Do you think they’ll build another Psycho, Captain?”
Olding thought, not bluidy likely, they’ve been longin’ to get rid of us for years, but said, “I should think so. There’s plenty more letters in t’ alphabet.”
Down in Engineering, the Borg Queen saw the indicators on the boards change, and realised what had happened. She went over to Bleep, who was still strapped to the table, and said, “How do you feel about that oil change?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… I will resist your attempts to conquer the ship by using me.”
“We’ll see,” the Queen purred. “How long has it been since your last oil change?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Seventy-six years, seven months, four days, eighteen hours, twenty-four minutes and forty-seven seconds.”
“Far too long. Come on, boys.”
Two Borg began the oil change sequence. Bleep shuddered as the new, fresh oil, coursed through his system.
When Cochrane came round, it was to find himself strapped into the pilot’s seat of the Phoenix. His arms were free, but the straps had been welded together, so there was no chance of him getting them off. He struggled for a while, then gave up when he realised it was useless.
Hill, who had now changed into blue overalls, climbed into the cockpit, and said, “So, are you ready now?”
Cochrane turned to him as best he could within the confines of the seat, and said, “You don’t understand. I didn’t build the Phoenix for the greater glorification of mankind. I built it for the money. I get sick every time I step in an aircraft! All I wanted was lots of money, so I could buy an island somewhere warm, and settle down with lots of desirable women.”
“Sounds good to me,” Hill said, grinning.
“But now you’re telling me that I’m gonna be this major world figure, that the future of the world hangs on my shoulders. I can’t cope with that!”
“Well, you’ll have to, because I’m not letting you out of that seat until after the flight is over.”
“What happens to me then?”
“You’ll just have to deal with it.”
“I don’t know if I can?!” Cochrane wailed.
Hill looked him straight in the eye. “History records that you did. And if you screw up history, I’ll be back with a baseball bat with a nail through the end of it, and some searching questions. Got it?!”
Cochrane nodded dumbly.
“Good.”
At that point, Stark clambered into the cockpit, and Hill turned to him. “Ready to make some history?”
“What? Oh, yeah, I suppose so.”
Cochrane, resigning himself to his fate, began to go through the prelaunch checklists as Hill and Stark strapped themselves in.
Most of the lifepods had been launched when Olding reached the embarkation area. Lily was about to climb into hers, an independently programmed one which would return her to Montana, when Olding handed her a padd.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Orders for Commander Hill and his team to find a quiet corner of North America and stay out of history’s way.”
“I see.”
Olding then turned away, and was about to leave, when Lily said, “You’re not coming?”
“No. I lost one good… one officer today, and there’s another on board who needs help. I’m goin’ after him.”
“Good luck.”
Lily climbed into her pod, and he watched as the door closed and the pod flew clear of the Psycho and descended into Earth’s atmosphere.
Olding climbed down into Engineering, shedding layers of clothing as he went and the temperature rose. Finally, he was down to his vest. With a groan, he realised it was the thermal one the crew had bought him for his birthday one year, which read, ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!!!’ Hopefully, the Borg wouldn’t be able to read it.
As he jogged down a darkened corridor, he paused as he heard movement up ahead. Pressing himself up against a bulkhead, he waited for the Borg to go by. He heard the Borg come closer and closer, but he couldn’t see anything. Then, a sixth sense told him to look down. He did so, to discover a tribble almost at his feet. The tribble had been Borgified, losing all of its hair, and now the proud owner of a large cutting tool implanted on its skin. As Olding watched, bemused, the Borg-tribble waddled off down the corridor.
He continued on his way. By a mixture of stealth, low cunning and good luck, he made it into Main Engineering. The place was obviously the central core of the Borg hive. The Starfleet equipment was almost completely covered by layers of Borg piping. Borg moved around, carrying out their tasks. As one of them walked past, he realised that it had ‘Borg to Rock’ on its back. Olding knew without looking that it was his former helmsman.
His disgust turned to horror, as a very familiar feminine voice whispered, “Linctussssss,” in his ear.
“It’s time,” Hill said, and Stark nodded. In their ears, they heard the counsellor’s voice start the countdown. She was acting as mission control for the flight.
“Phoenix, are you ready?”
“Cochrane?” Hill asked.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s get on with it,” came the reply.
“We’re ready, Control.”
“Okay, commencing engine start.”
Beneath them, they heard a roar and the ship began to shudder as the huge ICBM engine fired.
The counsellor’s voice returned. “Ten seconds to launch… nine… eight… seven… six… five… good luck, Phoenix…”
At that point, Cochrane started to throw himself around, obviously very agitated. “We can’t go yet! I’ve forgotten it!!”
“Forgotten what?!!!” Hill asked, but Cochrane had apparently found what he was looking for. He pulled a CD out of his pocket, and hurriedly stuffed it into the player he had mounted in the cockpit. Very loud rock’n’roll began to pour from the speakers, and in Mission Control Counsellor Hill yanked her earphones from her head as the music came through there as well. At the same moment, the Phoenix leapt clear of its moorings, and set out towards the stars, and history.
Olding spun round to face the Borg Queen. “You!” he said.
“You remember? How touching. Welcome back, Linctus.”
“I am not Linctus! I am Captain Christopher Olding, of the Federation Starship Psycho!”
“But you will be Linctus once again, very soon, I promise you. You will return to me, and together we can conquer the galaxy!”
Olding smiled grimly. “Not bluidy likely, lass. This ship will blow itself apart in t’ next few minutes.”
The Borg Queen waved her hand airily. ‘Oh, that. I don’t think so. Mr Bleep, kindly disengage the destruct sequence.”
Bleep stepped forwards from behind the warp core, and said, “At once, Majesty.”
Olding’s jaw dropped. Bleep walked smoothly to the console, and his fingers tapped lightly at the buttons for a few seconds, at which point, he turned back and said, “Destruct sequence disengaged.”
Olding stepped forwards, to try and confront Bleep, but several Borg stopped him.
The Queen smirked, and said, “You see? Bleep has learned his true place. Mr Bleep, take us out of orbit, and put the Phoenix on screen.”
Bleep touched a few more buttons, and one of the monitors changed to reveal the Phoenix shedding its first stage, and the covering over the warp nacelles. As Olding watched, the nacelles slowly unfolded, until they were a short distance away from the craft.
The Queen smiled widely. “Target two photon torpedoes and fire.”
“No! Mr Bleep, don’t do it! Think of your vows to Starfleet!” Olding pushed the Borg aside, but realising Bleep was beyond help, turned to the Borg that had been Wall.
“Mr Wall, help me now! You’ve got to fight it!” The Borg looked at him, then, an expression of extreme pain crossed its face, and it said, “I’m sorry, Captain.” Its expression then went blank. Bleep fired the torpedoes. They raced towards the Phoenix.
Inside the warp ship, blissfully unaware of the two large problems they had rapidly approaching them, Hill, Stark and Cochrane were just finishing the warm-up sequence for the warp engines. Stark checked his monitors, and announced,
“Containment field is on-line, warp power at nominal.”
“Right then. Cochrane, whenever you’re ready!” Hill said, as the torpedoes streaked ever closer.
Cochrane pressed the button, they felt the hum of the engines building up to full power, then, nothing.
“What happened?” Hill asked.
“I don’t know!” Stark said, pulling off an inspection hatch and rummaging around inside the guts of the warp engines.
“Maybe it’s… no, ‘s not that, now what about… no…”
Hill looked vacantly out of the windows as Stark fiddled around and muttered to himself. A couple of rather pretty blue streaks caught his eye. He wondered what they were. It suddenly occurred to him that he knew exactly what they were.
“Er, do you think we could hurry the repairs up a little bit?”
“I still don’t know what it is yet! Aha! Got it! The lateral transducer coupling’s broken loose from its parent ICS board. Did I get that right?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care! Can you repair it?”
“Oh yeah. Five minutes with a soldering iron and we’ll be in business.”
“We don’t have five minutes! It has to be fixed now!!!!! Hold it in place!!!!!!!”
“Er, do you think that’s safe?”
“Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!!!!!!!!! Just do it!!!!!!!”
“Well, okay, I’m holding it…” Stark’s voice, muffled by the fact that he was three quarters inside the engine compartment, nevertheless had a ‘are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ quality to it.
“Right!!! Engage!!”
Cochrane pressed the button that would activate the warp engines, there was a steady hum that built up in pitch, Stark began to yelp , and the Phoenix became the first ship to travel at warp speed. The torpedoes missed by inches.
Olding breathed a sigh of relief as the Phoenix went to warp. No matter what happened to the Psycho now, history was a fair way towards getting back on the right track. He knew that, somewhere in the solar system, a Vulcan science ship would be getting some fascinating readings on its instruments.
Now, he had to find a way to destroy the Psycho, to prevent the Borg from finding another way of assimilating Earth.
The Borg Queen’s smirk had vanished, and her voice was crisper as she said, “Bleep, the moment that they come out of warp, fire two more photons. And this time, don’t miss!”
“Yes, Majesty.”
Olding knew he didn’t have long to come up with a plan. He tensed himself. If he could reach the warp core in time, and open the dilithium chamber, then the engines would go off-line, and he would have bought the Phoenix more time. He prepared to jump for the core.
“C-C-C-C-C-C-C-Can I-I-I-I-I-I-I let-t-t-t-t-t-t g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-gooooooooooo yet-t-t-t-t-t?!!!!!!!”
Hill watched in interest as smoke began to pour from the tops of Stark’s boots. In the pilot’s seat, Cochrane was watching the stars shoot by in fascination.
“Okay, that’ll do. Bring us back out of warp.”
Almost reluctantly, Cochrane slowed them down.
Once they were back in normal space, Hill said, “Okay, you can let go now.”
There was an electronic fizzle, and Stark slowly climbed back out of the engine compartment. His face and hands were blackened, his hair was standing up on end, smoke was pouring from his boots, his sleeves and his collar, and he looked decidedly unhappy. He glared at Hill as he took his seat, then swore as his hands touched something metal and he received an electric shock. Hill grinned maliciously, and said, “Think of it as your contribution to history.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Cochrane, take us home.”
Cochrane brought the warp ship about, and they began the long glide back to Earth.
In Engineering, the Queen barked, “Fire!”
Olding sprang for the warp core as Bleep’s hands reached for the controls.
As Olding reached the core, however, Bleep suddenly swung round, and his outstretched hands punctured a coolant tube. Coolant gas began pouring out. Olding realised what the android had done. The coolant gas was highly corrosive, and would burn away living tissue in seconds. The Borg were done for, even the Queen. Trouble was, so was he unless he did something. Reflexes taking over, Olding began to climb the warp core. In a few seconds, the environmental controls ought to purge the gas from the chamber. If he could remain above the gas for that amount of time, he would be safe.
He suddenly felt an arm grasp his leg. Looking down, he saw the Borg Queen tugging on his leg. Olding felt his grip slipping.
She was pulling him down…
Suddenly, her grip broke, and Olding saw a Borg rugby-tackle her, and throw her to the floor. As the Borg dropped away, he got a glimpse of the words ‘Borg to Rock’ on its back. Olding climbed again. A few seconds later, the floor of Engineering disappeared under the gas. As he reached the point where the deck closed around the core, Olding hugged the core, his head pressed against the ceiling of the giant two-level chamber, and watched anxiously as the gas continued to rise. It rose until it was less than a foot away from his feet. Olding closed his eyes, and prepared for the worst.
Then, with a sense of dramatic timing that could win Oscars, the vents kicked in and the gas was sucked from the room. Olding watched in relief as the floor was uncovered. Then, he began his descent. When he reached the bottom, he found Bleep collapsed by a Borg machine. “Mr Bleep? Are you alright?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… affirmative, captain.”
As Bleep continued his re-boot sequence, Olding looked around. All over the place were sludgy piles which had once been Borg. One body he recognised. It was now little more than a metal skull, but its features were still decidedly that of the Borg Queen. As he watched, the red light in its eye sockets faded and died. “Well, that’s that.” Against all the odds, they had beaten the Borg.
Then, Olding heard a sound from behind him. He spun round, to see the door of Stark’s fridge swinging open. A Borg emerged from within it, and Olding looked around for a weapon of some kind. He had nothing to defend himself with. Olding braced himself to meet his fate. And relaxed a bit as he realised the Borg’s walk was more of a stagger. Perhaps it was weakened enough for him to knock it down by hand.
Then, it groaned, “Jeez, I have a headache like you wouldn’t believe!!”
“Mr Wall?”
The Borg looked up at him, then grinned cheesily and held a thumb up in a gesture that could only have come from one person.
“Welcome back, Mr Wall.”
Wall grabbed the ring of metal encircling his head, and yanked it off. Surprisingly, it left only damp hair beneath it. “Ooh, that’s better,” Wall said, as he shook his head to get some feeling back into it.
As Olding watched incredulously, Wall discarded the other Borg attachments, until he was left in just his rumpled uniform, and with a skin colour slightly paler than normal, but otherwise okay.
“How did you do that?” Olding asked.
“Do what?”
“Break free of t’ Borg like that?”
“Um, well, you know when you asked me to help? Well, I couldn’t move or anything then.”
“That’s when you apologised.”
“Yeah. Well, I just started sort of singing to myself in my head, and that kinda blocked the Borg thoughts.”
“You blocked out t’ Borg transmissions? How?”
“Well, they were pretty boring. I mean, ‘Death is irrelevant. Freedom is irrelevant. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.’ After a while you want to listen to something else just as a change.”
Olding considered his helmsman’s words. Other men who had survived the Borg, such as himself and Jean-Luc Picard, had done so through sheer force of will. Wall had done it simply by being his usual moronic self. It was a case of what you didn’t know not being able to hurt you taken to ridiculous extremes.
Olding shook his head incredulously. “Well, that’s enough faffin’ abou’. We’ve got to get t’ crew back up here.”
That evening, after all the lifepods had been beamed off Gravett Island, and they and the crew returned to the Psycho, Olding and the senior staff collected in the encampment in Montana. There was a short celebration, full of congratulations for all concerned, and comments on Stark’s new hairdo, which flatly refused to comb flat. Cochrane was steadily getting drunk, and Wall and Damerell were itching to join him, especially when they heard the music he was playing. But Olding had forbidden them, telling them that they should be sober for what they were about to see.
While the others had chatted away, Olding had joined Lily, who was standing to one side of the crowd. “I guess you’ll be leaving soon, huh?”
“Aye, pretty soon.”
Lily sighed. “I wish I could go with you. From what I’ve seen of it, the future looks pretty cool.”
“Your future’s going to be interesting enough, Lily.”
“Oh? In what way?”
Before Olding could answer that question, there was a musical hum from overhead, and a faint red glow appeared.
Both Psycho crew and members of Cochrane’s team gathered in a little huddle on the edge of a large area of flat ground. The red glow grew, and before long the outlines of a ship could be seen.
Behind Olding, Wall muttered, “I’d laugh if he crashed it on landing! I mean, that would be really funny if…”
Olding elbowed him in the stomach, and Wall took the hint and shut up.
In the event, the three cornered ship touched down neatly in the centre of the flat ground. There was a hush as the spectators stared at for what was for most of them, their first look at a ship from another world.
Cochrane said, “What do we do now? Who’s going to talk to them?” to which Hill replied, “I think they’re going to want to talk to the guy who flew that warp ship today.”
Cochrane looked anxiously at the ship. A hatch on one of its landing legs slid open, revealing a silhouetted figure standing there. The figure stepped out, took in its surroundings, raised its right hand, and spread the fingers in the unmistakably Vulcan gesture, before saying, “Live long and prosper.”
Cochrane pushed his way through to the front of the crowd, and, wiping his hands on his jacket, held out his hand.
“Er, hi,” he said.
The Vulcan looked at the outstretched hand blankly for a second, then extended his own hand, and shook Cochrane’s.
Olding let the crew stare at this historic tableau for a few more seconds, before saying quietly, “Come on, we’ve seen enough. Let’s go.” The group slipped away into the trees, where, away from the prying eyes of human or Vulcan, they were beamed back up to the Psycho.
When they stepped out onto the bridge, it was to find everyone else manning their posts. Quickly, the senior staff took their posts. Olding waited until everyone else was in position, before he took his seat, and said, “Mr Damerell, can you recreate the temporal vortex to take us home?”
“Um…” After a few minutes in which, Damerell, Hill, the counsellor and Stark all clustered round Damerell’s position, pressing buttons and holding muttered arguments, Damerell said, “Here it comes, sir.”
On the screen, Olding saw the greenish circle of the vortex appear, and he said, “Mr Wall, full impulse. Take us home.”
Wall activated his controls, and the Psycho flew into the vortex.
In Montana, Lily Sloane looked up to see a faint green glow in the sky, and a white blob accelerate into it. Instinctively, she knew what she had just seen. She watched the night sky for a few more seconds, then smiled to herself, and returned to the more pressing matter of preventing Cochrane from getting the Vulcans pissed out of their alien skulls.
Back in the twenty-fourth century, no sooner had the Psycho come to a halt, than Bleep reported, “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Captain, Starfleet is requesting that you report to Spacedock for debriefing and for crew transfers to replace fleet casualties.”
All work on the bridge stopped, and heads turned to see what Olding was going to do. A hundred nightmare scenarios were running through the crew’s minds: getting busted back to ensign and posted to toilet cleaning duties at Utopia Planitia, awkward questions asked about the unauthorised modification of Starfleet runabouts beyond acceptable safety standards, being posted somewhere where there were no computers to fiddle with, and so on. In Olding’s own mind was a whirl of thoughts. He had known Starfleet had been itching to do this for a long time, but he still wasn’t prepared for it.
Bugger it, he thought, I’m not goin’ down wi’out a fight!
“Tell ’em, request denied.”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Captain?”
“Request denied, Mister.”
Bleep sent the message, then reported, “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Stand clear of the doors please… Captain, Starfleet replies ‘We strongly suggest that you report to Spacedock at once!!'”
“Reply, Bollocks to t’ lot o’ ye!”
A titter swept across the bridge as Bleep sent the message, a titter accented by the fear that Starfleet wasn’t going to take this lying down.
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Starfleet replies, ‘Very well. Report to Throid IX for new mission orders.'”
Olding breathed a huge sigh of relief, as the crew cheered triumphantly.
Once the cheering had died down, he said, “Mr Wall, set course for Throid IX.”
“Aye sir.”
Throid IX, Olding thought. Their last visit there had been… seventy-six years, three starships, one space station, five shuttle-craft and three runabouts ago. It had been the point where this rather eventful period in their careers had started. And now they were going back there. Was this a good omen or a bad one? Olding didn’t know.
“Course plotted and laid in, sir,” Wall reported.
Olding stood up, and stepped forwards a pace. Whatever the future held, he was ready to face it.
“Helm, Warp six, engage!”
And with that, he was thrown back into his seat as the Psycho jerked forwards into warp space, and destiny.
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