Unwelcome Arrival

Posted on Tue Jan 4th, 2022 @ 6:48pm by Lieutenant Commander Rin

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: USS Everest
Timeline: Year 2388 (9 years ago)
1249 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

The USS Everest was cold.

Tavara was a hot, desert world, much of it inhospitable even to the native sentient species, with some environments off-limits even to the former-Borg drones. For the first time in her memory, Rin shivered.

The Everest was also cramped. Tavran buildings were sprawling affairs with lots of open spaces. Of course, spaceships must be far more compact and efficient in their use of space, but that didn’t change the fact that it felt a bit like, well, transporting into a Borg cube.

Everyone to a man stared as she stepped off the transporter pad with Captain Lazzan and a four-man security crew. The captain had alerted them she was coming aboard, but no one was even slightly comfortable with someone still looking half-Borg appearing in their midst.

For the first time in memory, Rin was surrounded by strangers.

The Tavarans had never encountered the Collective, so they had never viewed the orphaned drones as inherently hostile. That was most certainly not the case here. These were people who knew the terror of the Borg, people who had lost loved ones, people familiar with what worlds became after being touched by the Collective.

They were angry, and they were scared, and they were confused why this thing had just been brought on board.

Lazzan motioned for her to follow him from the room and down the adjacent corridor. His mannerisms were a bit like how one might guide a child, and, while she never let down her standard stoic demeanor, there was a certain childlike quality to her as she measured up her new surroundings in this cold, cramped little box full of people who didn’t want her.

“Does any of this look familiar?” Captain Lazzan asked.

There was a momentary recognition, memories of traversing corridors similar to this one. Memories of people shooting and screaming and running. Memories of her inexorably marching on to fulfill whatever task was assigned to her in the assimilation of any one of countess ships which had fallen to the Borg.

“It does not,” she lied.

They made their way to Sickbay, two guards in front, two in the rear, creating a perimeter absolutely no one wished to invade.

“You still ready to do this?” Lazzan asked.

Rin nodded. She wished to understand where she came from, what she had been, who she had been. That meant leaving behind what she could of the Borg. While the Tavarans had removed some of her implants, she had been assured Federation medical technology was superior and could bring her much closer to who she had originally been.

“Rin, this is Dr. Tavar, our Chief Medical Officer,” the Andonian captain said, introducing her to a middle-aged male Vulcan.

“Good to meet you, Rin,” Dr Tavar said honestly.

“Explain to me what is to be done,” she said dispassionately.

“I’m going to take some scans to better understand your biology. Then we’ll remove what we can while you are sedated. You won’t feel a thing.”

“I can deal with pain.”

“But you don’t need to. My job is to alleviate pain, not cause it. We need to sedate you. I promise you’ll be safe. But we’ll only do so with your consent.”

She didn’t particularly like this idea. The surgery would make her vulnerable, but she had mostly come to terms with that. It was necessary. But being on this strange ship surrounded by angry crewmen made her second guess a decision which already left her uneasy.

And that was when her head went quiet.

Her gaze hyper-focused on the doctor, but she could see nothing to indicate he had done something to her. Her attention flicked momentarily to Lazzan to gauge his reaction, but his demeanor hadn’t changed in the slightest.
She would press for answers in a moment. First, she needed to deal with the four people with guns.

The first she took down with a punch square to the solar plexus before she knew what hit her. Rin grabbed the gun arm of the second and hurled him across the room, disarming him in the process. The third fired and missed, and she took him down with his companion’s weapon. The fourth winged Rin, knocking her off balance, and she stumbled away, finding a moderately defendable spot in Sickbay.

“You will cease disrupting my connection with the Collective,” she demanded, leveling the phaser at Lazzan.

The Captain looked legitimately confused as he kept his hands visible. “Rin, you told me you haven’t been connected to the Collective in years.”

“You will return me to the Free Collective!”

Lazzan recognized her term for the other drones on Tavara. “We can return you if you wish, but you need to put down the phaser.”

There was a long, anxious pause as no one seemed to know what to do or really what was going on.

“Do you still have a neural link with the other drones?” Tavar asked.

“You will reactivate it!”

“Damn it,” Lazzan said. “We probably just went to warp. You’re out of range. I didn’t realize you still had a connection. Rin, I’m sorry this happened the way it did, but you’re safe. We didn’t mean for this to happen. We can take you back, or you can continue with us, but that will mean being separate from the other drones. You said you want to know who you are. This is the first step. Please trust us.”

Rin’s gaze darted around the room, sizing up her situation. The room was tiny and cramped and cold and everyone was very angry or scared or both. Medical personnel were seeing to the downed security officers. She knew others had secured themselves in adjacent rooms. More security would be on the way.
She tossed the phaser to the ground but continued to shrink from everyone, every muscle tense, waiting for a reason to react.

“Have you ever been scared before?” Lazzan asked.

She had. Not often, but she was familiar with the sensation. What she had felt when fleeing the Cube had been something like fear. Waking up finding herself disassembled had elicited a similar feeling. Since then, it really hadn’t been something she experienced. And she didn’t like it. It clouded her mind. She couldn’t think clearly. What was she supposed to do? Was this what it would be like all the time with the Federation? Why would she return to this?

She was so utterly alone.

“Sedate me,” she said with resignation. “Sedate and disassemble me.”

“We’re not going to do that. Not like this.”

“I need to be something. I’m not Borg. I’m not human. I’ve lost my Collective. I’m not…anything.”

“You’re…Rin. Can that be enough for the moment?”

She considered. In truth, no, that was not enough. But she recognized it would have to be if she was to move past this. So she nodded in agreement.
Lazzan carefully approached, still keeping his hands in full view and being careful not to make any sudden moves. Such an odd thing, he thought. I’m trying not to panic a Borg drone.

He approached the door of an empty room, which opened at his gesture. “Then let’s let things calm down, and we’ll figure out what to do next.”

 

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