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ligerligerRating: R/NC-17 later
Summary: Captain Jung Yunho of the USS Valiant wants nothing more than to take his ship out into deep space and leave the memories of Earth behind; however, when he and his crew come across a destroyed Borg cube and a drone in need of help, he finds himself battling old demons and unexpected emotions. In the end, it’s the drone, struggling to remember what it means to be human, who teaches him about forgiveness, healing and maybe even love.
Warnings: Violence and language. I just wanted to write a story about the Borg. OTL Fic takes place in the TNG/DS9/VOY-era.
chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | side story one | chapter four | chapter five | chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine
Chapter 1: The Destroyed Hive
Captain's log, stardate: 45033.4: It's been six months since we've left space dock at Deep Space 7, and we are nearing our first checkpoint at the edge of the Sol System. We will soon be headed beyond the Kupier Ice Belt to see what, if anything, we can learn about the formation of our own solar system. I am honored to lead such a distinguished group of scientists and am excited by the findings our five-year mission will uncover. Before we take off fully, however, we'll be making a special trip to the Neptune way station to pick up the final member of our crew.
Jung Yunho walked quickly through the corridors of his ship, acknowledging passing members of his crew as they stood to attention. He smiled, his spirits high, and greeted each by name. As captain, he couldn’t have asked for a better assignment: he had a good crew — dedicated and hard working — and a brand new ship, the USS Valiant.
He had been captain of the newly commissioned science vessel for less than six months, but that was more than enough time for him to fall completely in love with it. The ship was small compared to others in Starfleet’s armada — containing a mere five decks and a crew of roughly 60 — but she was quick and was one of the most technologically advanced ships he'd ever served on. Capable of achieving speeds up to warp 9.9, Yunho’s crew of scientists and explorers would be able to make trips to the far reaches of the quadrant in a few short years rather than decades.
From what he'd overheard, a few crewmen had dubbed the ship “The Bumblebee.” A fitting, if somewhat childish, nickname, he thought.
He strolled excitedly into the transporter room and nodded to the crewman stationed at the controls.
"Energize," he ordered.
"Aye, sir," the crewman acknowledged. Soon the figure of his long-time friend materialized on the transporter pad. Still dressed in typical Vulcan civilian clothes and carrying a medium-sized suitcase, the tall officer looked out of place in the sparsely furnished room. He saluted quickly before stepping off the pad.
“Lt. Cmdr. Changmin, reporting for duty.”
"Better late than never," Yunho said brightly.
"I apologize for my delay, Captain."
“I’m sure you had perfectly logical reasons.”
“Of course.”
When he didn't offer them, Yunho prompted him for more. “And they are?”
“They are of a personal nature and I’d prefer not to share.”
“Personal reasons kept you from reporting for duty on time? That's not like you, Commander.”
The Vulcan looked uncharacteristically frustrated for a moment before staring Yunho in the eye and answering. “I was undergoing the pon farr.” Despite the embarrassing nature of his confession, his voice remained as flat and unemotional as ever.
At this, Yunho grinned broadly. “You had to report for duty six months late because you had to have sex with your wife?”
“I had to report for duty six months late because I had to take part in a personal Vulcan ritual,” Changmin clarified. “Considering my life was on the life, delaying my rendezvous with the Valiant was the more logical choice.”
"And I'm sure the more enjoyable one."
"Time spent with Seohyun is enjoyable no matter what we're doing."
"Well, that's not fair. There's no way me and my little ship can compete with her company."
Changmin frowned, his gaze flickering at the chuckling crewman. Upon realizing he’d been caught laughing at an officer, the man straightened, faced flushed with deep red, and saluted nervously. "I'm not comfortable with this line of conversation, Captain."
Yunho turned to give the crewman a pitying look before motioning that he was dismissed. "Don't tell me Vulcans are embarrassed to talk about sex?” he asked as soon as they were alone. “It's a reality for nearly every humanoid life form. Acting as if it's something shameful seems ... highly illogical."
"I have no problem talking to you about sex. I find it uncomfortable to talk with you about sex and my wife."
Yunho grinned and led his friend out of the small transporter room. "I apologize. I'm sure I should apologize to Seohyun, as well. Taking you away from her for so long. There was a reason I recommended only single officers volunteer for this mission."
The Vulcan arched one ink black eyebrow. "You believe my marital status will somehow impede my ability to work under you?"
"Not at all," Yunho informed him. "I'm just not in the business of breaking up families."
“I will be away for no more than five years. You are hardly breaking up my family.”
“Considering her background, you could have brought her with you.”
“She had her own responsibilities to attend to. The Federation Council has established a task force to strategize a plan for the increasing Borg threat.”
“Any luck?”
“Not as much as she had planned. As the sole Vulcan representative on the task force, she usually finds herself puzzled by the emotions of the other representatives that often impede progress.”
Yunho gave him a sympathetic smile before slapping him on the back affectionately. “We can be difficult at times. Come on, I’ll show you to your quarters.”
On the way, Yunho offered the other officer a brief tour of the ship, pointing out key locations on board, including sickbay, engineering, and the scientific library.
“You were not exaggerating when you called this a ‘little ship,'" Changmin remarked.
Yunho scoffed. “I’m sure you know better than to insult a man’s ship, Commander.”
“I was not insulting; I was merely making an observation.”
“She may be little, but she’s powerful. Trust me, after your first shift on the bridge, you’ll come to love her like I do.”
Changmin shook his head. “I will never understand the human predilection for forming emotional bonds with inanimate objects.”
Yunho stopped in front of a door and keyed in the security code before allowing the younger officer to enter before him. “This from the man who refused to speak to me for two weeks after I spilled a cup of coffee on his favorite Bajoran philosophy book.”
“I did not refuse to speak with you, Captain. I merely had nothing to say to you for that period of time.” He looked around the small sitting room of his quarters before nodding in satisfaction. “This is more than adequate. Thank you.” He disappeared into the bedroom to drop off his bag.
“No thanks necessary.” Yunho flopped onto the couch. “You would have gotten a room with a better view, but Yoochun called dibs on it.”
“Yes,” Changmin answered from the other room. “I heard you had selected him as your first officer.”
“I hope you’re not upset.”
“Vulcans do not get ‘upset,’” Changmin replied, coming to stand before his captain. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
Yunho smiled. “To spare you, of course. He’s much easier to deal when he’s not worried about someone pulling rank on him.”
“Park to the captain,” Yunho's combadge interrupted them. “Please report to the bridge.”
He tapped his badge. "On my way." He gave Changmin a mischievous grin before standing and straightening his uniform. “He doesn’t know you’ve agreed to be a part of this assignment.”
Any other species would have classified the look that passed across the Vulcan’s face as “amused,” but as Vulcans did not indulge in frivolous activities such as humor, it would have been more correct to call it “intrigued.”
“Really?” he questioned. “If I may, I’d like to join you to the bridge and take the time to inform him.”
At that, Yunho laughed out loud and motioned for Changmin to follow along after him.
"What position were you expecting to be offered?" he asked as they left Changmin's quarters.
"Chief tactical officer."
"Tactical? On a research vessel?"
"Since my services as first officer will not be required, I would be just as satisfied serving in a position that would allow me some peace and quiet."
"Peace granted, Commander."
+++
"Report," Yunho ordered as soon as he exited the turbolift onto the bridge. Yoochun rose from the command chair to allow Yunho to sit. Changmin, still dressed in his civilian clothes, followed behind him to take his place at the bridge's tactical station.
“Commander,” Yoochun commented drily. “I didn’t know you’d be joining us. Things get too exciting back at home?”
“My home life is extremely fulfilling, Commander,” Changmin replied, not even looking up from his station. “Thank you for your interest.”
“Report!” Yunho repeated forcefully.
“Sir, we’ve picked up a distress call from 2.5 light years away,” his communications officer told him. Yunho racked his mind to remember the young lieutenant's name. Lee Hyukjae. A recent transfer from a much larger battle cruiser. Yunho made a mental note to find out why the young officer had made the sudden career change from the military to the sciences.
“Put it on screen.” The lieutenant hurried to display the message. When it appeared, the video was garbled and full of static. A frantic crew could be seen through the video's snow before a single man turned suddenly to speak to the screen.
"Mayday, mayday! This is the cargo freighter Nova 23521. We're under attack. We've lost our shields, and we have few weapons. We request any assistance that —"
The audio interrupted abruptly, and the recorded image of the crew disappeared. A moment later, the view screen was filled by a massive cubicle-shaped ship. Soon after, the sound of billions of robotic voices speaking as one flooded the ship’s speakers. Their voices were calm and slow, contradicting the cruelty of their message.
“We are the Borg. Prepare to disarm your weapons and surrender your vessel. You will be assimilated. Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”
"That's all there is, Captain."
"Captain," Changmin began, "we are the only Federation vessel in the sector. The nearest ship is more than 15 light years away and would take three days to reach the freighter."
"Hail the ship," Yunho ordered Hyukjae.
The young officer shook his head in frustration as he tapped quickly at his display screen. "They're not responding, Captain."
Yunho leaned forward in his command chair and watched as the message replayed on the viewscreen. "Helmsmen," he began, "how long will it take us to reach the source of this message?"
The helm officer, Lt. Kwon Yuri, turned in her seat to face her captain. "An hour and a half, sir, if we travel at top speed."
"Lay in a course." He turned to look back at Hyukjae. “Lieutenant, send a message to Starfleet,” he ordered tersely. “We will be diverting from our previous flight plan to aid a vessel being attacked by the Borg.”
He grinned tightly at Changmin who had already begun making numerous adaptations to the ship's defense systems. "I apologize again, Commander," he told him when he caught the other's eye. "Looks like this won't be as restful as I originally planned."
+++
The Federation didn't know much about the Borg; however, what was known was enough to make them the Federation's biggest and most mortal threat.
The Borg were half-human, half-cybernetic beings that had only one mission: Attain perfection.
They did this by taking technological and biological advancements — ships, computers, people — and forcing it to adapt for their own use. Whether the subject was willing was of no importance to them; the phrase “resistance is futile” was no intimidating exaggeration. Most of the time, it was the honest truth.
They consumed everything they came across in the galaxy. Their massive cube ships could overtake ships of all kinds in only a few seconds, and the Borg themselves, robotic, zombie-like creatures, had the ability to swarm in and turn entire cities of people into drones in less than an hour.
The Borg did not kill, did not enslave, did not steal. They assimilated. Ships were ransacked, stripped of any and all technology the Borg thought they could use and modified to fit their own personal vessels. Assimilation of the person was a violation. A hijacking of the body and mind. The drones took their victims and altered them to suit their purpose by adding cybernetic attachments, implanting sensor devices, and even removing limbs and replacing them with prosthetics. And as soon a new drone was created, the personality and will of the individual was bound and at the mercy of the Collective's hive mind.
"They're a fucking cancer," Yoochun said, eyes glued to the view screen as they approached the last known coordinates of the distressed freighter. He was lounged in his chair, his chin resting on one palm. He turned to look at Yunho and frowned. "If they ever got it in their giant, conjoined mind to attack Earth — or any planet in the Federation for that matter — we'd never survive it."
There was no sense in denying his first officer's claim because everyone on the bridge — from Yunho to the young ensign at ops who'd only recently left the Academy — knew it was true. The Borg had remarkable defensive and offensive capabilities that made the Federation's entire fleet look like nothing more than children's model toys. Borg ships had the ability to not only regenerate from weapon attacks, but to adapt and prevent those same weapons from causing further damage.
"Try not to think about it then, Commander," Yunho said. "The last thing we need is for them to assimilate you and learn how completely defenseless we are."
“We’ll never reach their level; you realize that, right? It takes us decades to come up with the same technology they can steal in a day."
"Morale, Commander," Yunho reminded him coolly. "Remember crew morale."
"We're approaching the coordinates, Captain," Yuri piped up. Yunho rose from his command chair to view the helmsman's screen.
"Drop us out of warp, Lieutenant," he commanded. "We don't want to jump into the middle of a firefight."
"Yes, sir," Yuri acknowledged. She slowed the ship and took a quick evasive maneuver, guiding the ship around the perimeter of the scanned area. "I'm not picking up any ships nearby, sir."
Yunho turned in his seat and spoke to his operations officer. "Ensign Lee, scan the area. Are you able to locate the ship?"
"No, sir," Jinki replied. "There's something out there, though. It's large, but there's too much radiation and distortion for me to make out."
"Do what you can to clear it up. Changmin?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"What do you make of this? Could the message have been a trap?"
"The Borg have no need to entrap us, Captain. They could easily overpower us in a fair confrontation." Changmin read the data flowing on his screen, before frowning and turning to look at the ops officer.
"Ensign, adjust your sensors to look for warp particles. My sensors are picking up evidence of massive explosions, but no trace of weapon fire."
Jinki rushed to do as he was told. "Yes, Commander, I'm reading it, too. There are an unusually high number of warp particles in the area and they're from two different ships."
"Two ships?" Yunho began. "Well, where —"
"Lieutenant!" the young Ensign interrupted, shouting toward the helm. "Something is approaching our port side fast!"
"I don't see anything," Yuri said before the ship began shaking violently. The entire vessel shuddered as it rammed into the side of an unseen object and members of the bridge crew stumbled and fell from their stations.
"Yuri, back us up! Get us out of the way of whatever's flying around."
"Trying, sir." Yuri grasped the helm's station, her knuckles turning white as she struggled to stay in her seat. "New heading laid in."
The shaking of the bridge grew less intense as the ship moved away from its previous coordinates. "What the hell was that?" Yoochun shouted when everything finally stilled.
"I'm not sure," Jinki answered. "But whatever it was, we nearly lost our port nacelle along the side of it."
Yunho turned on him angrily. "Clear that damn view screen up, Ensign!"
“Yes, sir,” Jinki replied, obviously frustrated by his own lack of abilities. “I’ve got something, Captain. I’m putting it up on screen now.” The entire crew looked up to wait for the garbled view screen to clear. When it finally did, a Borg cube lay dead in front of them.
"Red alert!" Yunho shouted. "Yuri, full reverse. Changmin, raise our shields and prepare to fire. Everyone, battle stations!"
Crew members ran across the bridge to their stations, ready for the expected fight. Yunho gripped the arms of his chair, tension thrumming high through his body. He waited, heart racing and breath still, for the other ship to react.
After a few tense but quiet moments passed, Yoochun stood and studied Changmin's tactical readings over his shoulder. "Why aren't they firing at us? We just plowed right into them."
"Maybe their sensors can’t see us?" Jinki offered. “We had a hard time finding them.”
"Impossible." Yoochun motioned toward the view screen. "Even if they didn't sense us, surely they must have felt us."
"Should I fire, sir?" Changmin asked.
Yunho studied the image on the screen. The cube was small — most likely containing no more than a few hundred drones — and appeared badly damaged. The ship's outer hull wasn't regenerating, and trails of smoke and plasma plumed out of its surface.
"No," Yunho responded. "Ensign, where's the freighter?"
Dim light reflected off the young officer's face as he leaned close to read through the data pouring in on his display screens. His brow furrowed as he sorted through the information.
"I believe the freighter is in the cube, sir. Or was. I think ..." he turned to look at Yunho, his face stricken with horror. "I think the crew set the ship to self-destruct, then allowed the Borg to assimilate it."
"If that's true," Changmin added, "and the ship exploded while on board the cube, even with all their defense capabilities, the Borg would not be able to withstand a warp core breach that took place in such close proximity."
"A kamikaze maneuver," Yunho remarked softly.
"A more accurate comparison would be a Trojan horse."
"Either way," Yoochun remarked, glaring in disgust at Changmin's apparent coldness, "they killed themselves rather than let themselves assimilated by the Borg. Someone promise me we'll do the same if we ever find ourselves in a similar situation."
"Morale," Yunho reminded him again, eyes still studying the cube. "Jinki, scan the cube for life signs."
"What the hell do you think could have survived?" Yoochun questioned.
The young ensign hurried to follow his captain's orders. "There are none as far as I can tell, Captain. But I'm sensing extremely high levels of radiation that are still interfering with my scans."
"Radiation?"
"As far as I can tell, the whole cube is flooded with plasma radiation from the freighter's breached warp core."
"If there was anybody on that ship, they would have destroyed us by now," Yoochun commented. He left tactical and went to join Jinki at his ops station.
"Could an away team survive the levels of radiation on the ship?"
"Are you nuts?" Yoochun shouted out. He stormed away from the station to Yunho’s command chair.
Yunho ignored him. "Ensign?"
"Not without hazard suits and only for a short amount of time," Jinki replied.
"What are you thinking?" Yoochun asked.
"You're going to lead a team to that cube."
"You're ordering me to my own assimilation?"
Yunho grinned. "Hardly."
Yoochun shook his head. "The Borg never leave their technology to be scavenged or retrieved by others. Either they'll return for this cube or it's set to self-destruct."
Yunho stood and leaned over the command railing to watch the adrift ship. "As you said, Commander, the Borg never leave their technology for others to find. This may be the best opportunity we ever get to learning more about their weapons, shields, engines — everything." He turned to look at his disgruntled first officer. "We are on a research mission."
"That kind of mission would be better carried out by a battle cruiser or a ship with better armaments, don't you think?"
"Maybe," Yunho answered. "But we're the only ones out here, and as you mentioned, this cube will be long destroyed before we get help. Don't worry, Commander. We promise to keep a transporter lock on you and beam you back before anything bad can happen."
Yoochun frowned before rolling his eyes and turning away. As he headed for the turbolift, he motioned at the tactical and ops stations. "Changmin, Jinki, you're with me."
The officers moved from their stations — Jinki barely containing his own excitement — and followed Yoochun to the lift.
"Captain," Yoochun called, hesitating before leaving the bridge. "If the Borg come back while we're still on that ship, you better bust your ass to save us."
"Acknowledged," Yunho returned. "Good luck."
+++
The first thing Yoochun thought, as he and the others beamed onto the destroyed bridge of the Borg cube, was how grateful he was that this away mission required the use of environmental suits. The crewman working the transporter had done his best to beam them into a part of the ship that had the least concentration of radiation, but it was still, as Changmin had put it, "incompatible with life."
The suits — heavy, bulky things made out of a strong and flexible material — not only protected them from the chemical hazards on the cube; it provided the false sense of being untouchable.
Not that he really had anything to worry about. He scanned his surroundings with his tricorder, noting the fatally high plasma levels and low oxygen. There was no way any living tissue — Borg or not — would have been able to survive unprotected for longer than a few minutes.
The perimeter of the cube was lined with hundreds of deserted drone alcoves, most of them sparking and empty. Bodies of dead drones lay on the floor. A few teetered dangerously as they lay slumped along the railing, threatening to fall into the black void of the cube's interior.
Changmin turned, his normally nimble movements made clunky by his suit, and opened a comm channel with the other two.
"I will go and try to find access to their tactical information. If we can figure out how they're able to adapt so easily to our weapons' fire, we'll have a distinct advantage in future conflicts."
Yoochun nodded in agreement. "Good idea. Don't travel too far, though. Jinki and I will go and look at their engines and warp drive and see if we can figure out how they're able to reach speeds faster than warp 9."
"Aye, Commander. I will stay within comm range." Scanning the area in front of him, Changmin began making his way carefully across the cluttered bridge.
"Let's go, Ensign," Yoochun called out, turning to the younger officer. He grinned when he saw the younger man taking in the destroyed vessel with his eyes and mouth open wide.
"Close your mouth, Ensign, or something will fly in," Yoochun remarked, his voice teasing.
Jinki snapped his mouth shut. "I'm sorry, sir. I've just never seen the inside of a Borg cube before."
Yoochun's face turned serious as he looked around the vast interior of the ship. "Not many have. Or, at least, not many who were able to return home afterward."
"We'll defeat them, Commander." Jinki reached a heavily gloved hand out to touch a nearby alcove.
"You sound very optimistic, Lee. Do you know something I don't?"
"No, sir. Only that all armies, all civilizations, have weaknesses. We just haven't found theirs yet. But we will."
Yoochun picked up a broken piece of machinery and tossed it over the railing. "I hope you're right, Ensign. For humanity's sake."
+++
Changmin sighed as he made his way carefully through the cluttered ship, before quickly chastising himself. With the comm link between himself and the other two still open, it would not do for them to hear him expressing his frustration in such a human manner.
Still, searching for any sort of computer console in the destroyed vessel was proving to be more difficult than he thought and he began to consider that unfortunate option that there may not be anything left of the cube's computers.
He walked to the edge of the deck, and gripping the railing, leaned out and searched the dark void of the humongous ship for any clue as to where he should search next. He squinted, the weak lighting of the ship and debris preventing him from seeing more than five feet in front of him. Through the haze, however, he was able to see the light of a command console blinking only a deck away. If he could reach it, he could access the ship's computer and download the information he needed to analyze the ship's shields and weapons system.
That was easier said than done. The interior of the Borg cube seemed to consist of nothing more than open air and one or two narrow catwalks. Quite an illogical design for such a highly populated ship, Changmin thought.
He felt his way along the wall of the deck, clearing away large pieces of the cube's destroyed hull as he went. His progress was halted when he tripped over a large, but comparably softer, piece of debris. Kneeling to inspect the object closer, Changmin was surprised to find it was a young drone. Grateful he was the one to stumble across the drone as opposed to one of his fearful and trigger-happy human crewmates, he pulled his tricorder out to examine the body more closely.
He was unable to tell if the drone was dead or alive. Its skin — or, at least, the little amount of skin that wasn’t completely hidden by his cybernetic implants — was deathly pale, to the point of looking white; but that didn't mean much, as that was the natural skin tone for all Borg. Only one large almond-shaped eye was visible; the other was hidden beneath the large ocular implant that seemed to be attached to the large armor covering the drone’s head. And his body temperature, while low for most humanoid organisms in the Federation, was holding steady.
He fine tuned his tricorder to scan for the slightest sign of biological life — a pulse, respiration, anything — and was rewarded with a quiet beep as the machine picked up the barest sign of electrical activity in his brain.
He opened a comm channel with the ship. "Away team to Valiant."
"This is the captain," Yunho answered. "Go ahead."
"We found a survivor, Captain. He's alive, but barely."
"A drone?"
"Yes, sir. He is unconscious and requires medical help."
When there was no immediate response, Changmin tapped his badge again. "Captain? Shall I have the drone beamed aboard?"
“Negative,” Yunho replied.
“Sir?”
“Bringing that thing on board will present us all with an unnecessary security risk. You will leave it there.”
“Sir, may I respectfully remind you that are bound by our mission to provide humanitarian aid whenever necessary.”
“Do not argue with me, Commander. Leave the drone.”
Changmin frowned before relenting. "Aye, sir." He checked the sensors on his environmental suit. "We have 10 more minutes before we must leave the radiation. I'm going to try and access information about their weapons systems."
"Acknowledged. Contact us as soon as you're ready to beam out. I don't want you all over there too much longer."
"Understood.” Changmin gave the drone a final scan before preparing to leave. He barely had time to stand when an arm reached out and pulled him to the deck.
The Vulcan's surprised shout echoed in the open communication line he had with the others of the away team nearly a deck away. Yoochun twirled around, searching the darkness desperately for a sign of trouble.
"Commander?" He shouted into his comm. When the other man didn't reply, he grabbed Jinki's arm and headed off to search for the missing officer.
"Away team to bridge," he hollered as he opened a channel with the ship. "Locate Lt. Cmdr. Changmin."
"Away team, what's happening?" Yunho returned.
"We split up. Find Changmin."
Another officer cut into the line. "Sir, we can't read him. We're barely holding on to your and Ensign Lee's signal."
"Well you better hold tighter. I'm finding Changmin and you're getting all of us the hell out of this wreck."
Practically dragging Jinki behind him, Yoochun took off into the darkness of the cube.
+++
Nearly 200 meters away, Changmin lay sprawled on the ground as he tried to fight off the previously unconscious drone. His struggle was made all the more difficult by his own inhibiting environmental suit and the forcefield surrounding the drone's body. As he attempted to push the Borg off of him, all of Changmin's hits bounced uselessly off of the electromagnetic field.
Grabbing his arm, the drone twisted it behind his back and shoved him face first into the ground. Changmin twisted underneath him, bucking the drone off of him before jumping to his feet.
He quickly opened a line with the ship. "Changmin to transporter, emergency beam out."
He had no time to wait for the response as the drone sucker punched him in the gut, throwing him on his back.
Changmin lay on the deck, the feel of sharp debris threatening to poke holes into his suit, and fought to catch his breath. He forced himself to continue moving. He dragged himself backward in a hasty attempt to remain out of the drone's reach.
It wasn't enough. The drone was moving fast, propelled fearlessly by its own basic programming, and had the advantage of not being inhibited by a cumbersome hazard suit. The heavily armored body shot from the dark, falling on top of him, and straddled the Vulcan's chest. His lungs burned as the Borg's body weight forced out the little oxygen he had remaining in them. That was quickly replaced by an excruciating pain that shot through his neck.
"Commander!" he heard Jinki's voice shout out. The ensign froze where he was, face blanched. "He's being assimilated!" he cried.
Changmin looked down and saw that was indeed the stabbing pain he felt. The drone was still bent over him, with the assimilation tubules located shooting out from his arm and piercing Changmin's environmental suit and neck. He was bleeding, but as far as he could tell, he still had complete control of his mind.
"He's trying to," Changmin called out through gritted teeth. He pushed again against the drone, but his own fading strength was nothing compared to the injured Borg's. "But he is not succeeding."
“This is Park to the Valiant, beam us out! Send Lt. Cmdr. Changmin directly to sickbay!” Yoochun shouted.
“I can’t get an individual lock on you,” a nervous crewman responded. “Move close together. I’ll have to do a blind transport.”
"He'll beam the drone with us," Changmin observed, eyes closed and sweat glistening on his face. He continued to pull uselessly on the arm that was piercing his neck.
“Do it!” Yoochun ordered. Drone or not, they couldn’t waste anymore time on the cube. If there was one survivor, there could be dozens more that had already alerted the Collective to their ship’s presence. Another cube would be on its to assimilate them and their ship in a matter of minutes.
Changmin felt his pain cease for a moment as the prickle of the transporter beam removed them from the deck of the destroyed cube. Soon, everything went black.
+++
“I got them all, Captain,” the crewman replied. Yunho noted the edge of fear in his voice. “But, they’re not alone. A drone beamed in with them.”
Yunho shot up from his chair. “Beam it out!” he ordered.
“Sir, the drone is attacking the lieutenant commander. As far as I can tell, it’s trying to assimilate him. If I try to beam it out, with all that interference, the commander may go with him.”
“Transport them both to sickbay. Have a security team meet me there. Jung out.” Yunho hurried to the turbolift.
“Lt. Kwon,” he shouted just as the lift doors opened. “You have the bridge. Get us out of here.”
“Yes, Captain,” the lieutenant acknowledged. Without a second’s delay, she activated the ship’s warp drive and it jumped to warp 9. Starlight streaked past the main viewer as the ship and her crew hurried to put as much distance between themselves and the disabled Borg cube.
In the turbolift, Yunho braced himself to face the uninvited visitor that had been dragged onto his ship. A member of a race who, only less than a year ago, hurt him in a way that he thought he’d never overcome.
A/N: This is a repost because I accidentally deleted the original post because I shouldn't be messing with shit just sayin'.
I'm not sure if this is a DBSK fic in the Star Trek-universe or a Star Trek fic that features DBSK. I tried to explain most of the Trekkie stuff, but feel free to ask if anything's confusing.
[Two quick things: Changmin's official rank is "lieutenant commander," which gets shortened to "commander" when he's addressed by others. The reason is because it would be (or is, since Trek just steals rank stuff from the real navy) considered disrespectful to shorten his title to "lieutenant," as that's below his rank. Yoochun is a full commander and is also addressed by "commander."
Second, to clear up the different ways of referring to the Borg: the species name is "Borg"; individuals in the species are "drones"; and the name of their joined consciousness is "the Collective."]
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Date: 2013-03-28 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-04 07:30 pm (UTC)I had to do a lot of googling for the imagery and stuff but it was really fun lol I really like your detailed explanations, it makes
it a lot easier to understand~
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Date: 2013-05-07 11:13 pm (UTC)I hope you're liking the story so far and I hope it makes sense. I tried to explain things as clearly as I could without bogging down the story. If there's anything that doesn't make sense just let me know. =D
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Date: 2013-08-01 05:01 am (UTC)OKAY COHERENCY TIME. Seriously as a Star Trek fan (though I'm still fairly new to the fandom) and a DBSK fan for several years now this. Is. Perfect. Have you heard of aquariuslover's Expectations? It's also a Star Trek fic but her updates are fairly sporadic and I think I like yours so far better than I like hers. Out of curiosity, are there going to be any pairings in this fic? Besides Seohyun and Changmin ofc (WHICH IS A FLAWLESS AND INGENIOUS PAIRING CAN I JUST SAY) and like Vulcan Changmin is just so amazing and guh.
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Date: 2013-08-04 04:49 am (UTC)I'm pretty sure you've figured out the pairings by now, but the fic has YunJae, YooSu and Changmin/Seohyun (WHICH IS MAYBE MY FAVORITE EVER BECAUSE SMART-ASS MAGNAES ARE THE BESTEST <3). Thank you again for the love, tho. =D
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Date: 2013-08-04 04:56 am (UTC)