Claxon in the Void, part 2

Posted on Tue Apr 14th, 2026 @ 4:02am by Commander Rin & Commander Sthilg

Mission: Interlude
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: After Departing Phoenix's Ready Room in Claxon in the Void, Pt 1
1428 words - 2.9 OF Standard Post Measure

After taking a few minutes to compose herself, Rin set to work with updating search parameters to try and find the signal. She decided to hand it off to Cardel and Reece. She wasn't thinking straight. It was better to have fresh eyes on it. She hated not being on top of this, but at the moment her ... expertise ... was not particularly applicable.

She tapped her badge. "Rin to Sthilg. I'm on my way to sickbay. I need you to see me with...discretion. I can walk in, but we need someplace private, and we need to do it now."

Sthilg was having his lunch as he heard his combadge beep and Rin's message. Hearing his freinds voice he nooded to himself as he began cleaning up. " Off courssse my friend, come to my office when you get here." He said into his badge as he prepped his office.

RIn stomped through Sickbay like a woman on a mission. She wasn't rude, per say. It was just very clear she knew where she was going, and she didn't need - or want - conversation. She was always a pretty matter-of-fact kind of person, but this was different. Among other things, when things got serious, she generally jogged, not stomped. She was rational and calculating. This...this was Rin trying to contain everything going through her head right now.

This was anger. Anger at a lot of things, not the least of which was that she couldn't trust her own body about this. And there were memories. And she didn't have time for that.

The door to Sthilg's office parted ways for Rin and she swept inside, pausing just long enough for the door to slide closed behind her. Her eyes were still slightly red from crying.

"I apologize for my entrance," she said forcefully. "Every time I'm down here seems to be an emergency. But we know my diagnostics aren't what they used to be, and I can't trust what my systems are saying. Or...maybe I don't want to trust. I'm not a very trusting person, and I hate that I'm directing that toward myself. But I've got to know that my systems are working properly, because they are telling me there's Borg out there, and that makes no damn sense."

She took a breath. "I possibly should have broken that to you differently, but I don't feel like there's time."

" No need to appolgissse my dear. Now pleassse take a seat and let'sss sssee if we can get to the bottom of thisss." Sthilg replied as warmly as he could tapping the room's bio bed as he did so.

Rin did a bit of a double take before following his directions. "You took that remarkably calmly. You might put a Vulcan to shame."

She paused a moment as she interfaced with Avalon, mentally checking the doctor's service record. "You're one of the few people old enough to have encountered them," she said quietly. "You were stationed at Starbase 856 during the last incursion. What was your experience, if you're willing to say?" She paused again. "And before it gets weird, I wasn't involved on either side. I was out of the Collective by then but hadn't returned to the Federation. Your experiences would actually be more up to date than mine."

" Chaosss mossstly." The old gron replied, though his fingers did start fidgeting slightly. " I wasss part of the medical team trying to get the wounded onto one of the evacuation ssship'sss. I only came face-to-face with one. We were evacuating a recently laid clutch of Zortan egg's when it beamed into sssickbay. "

The lizard's eyes drifted to the klingon boarding shotgun secured in it's gun safe on under his office desk. " It'sss odd all i rember one of the nurssse ssscreaming. I don't remember grabbing the drone and throwing it againssst the wall before i crushed itsss head. I didn't even remember what ssspecies it had been."

"It's species was Borg, Doctor," Rin said reassuringly. "Whatever and whoever it might have been previously is irrelevant. It was Borg. It was an appendage of the Collective mind. Regardless whether it was blue or scaly or had forehead ridges, it was Borg. Every once in a *very* great while, one of us disconnects from the Collective and survives. But until that happens, a drone is Borg."

" I whisssh i could sssay that Rin, but all i sssaw wasss a poor indvidal abducted from their home, mutilated and forced to do the same to othersss. And i killed them." The old doctor replied. " I whisssh pain on very few people, but i hope whoever created the borg hasss an appoitment with the dark one in the hunting groundsss. "

"We could probably have a lively and thought-provoking debate on the matter, but after this crisis," RIn said. "Assuming it is a crisis, but I'm pretty sure it's a crisis."

" Indeed. Now i want you to run through your sssystemsss and let'sss sssee what we can sssee." The old lizard replied.

Rin did so, verbally noting each one and whether she believed it was working properly. Her diagnostic systems were old and not without fault. They both knew that.

"...emotional regulator, pretty damn sure that's completely broken..."

She was continuing through her systems when she picked up the signal again. "There, that's the signal I'm picking up."

Sthilg pused as he his white eyes stared at the data coming across his screen. " Rin thessse resssultsss aren't an error. There'sss a borg sssignal out there."

"Yeah," Rin confirmed. It was just about the only thing she could get out as her jaw clenched in anger. More and more, she was identifying what she felt as anger. Some fear, yes, but mostly anger.

And then, a chuckle. Totally inappropriate for the situation, of course. A momentary moment of hysteria, perhaps, or an appreciation for the irony of the situation. Or both.

"I'm supposed to be the only source of Borg nanites in the whole damn galaxy. I've even made contingency plans to make sure those didn't fall into the wrong hands. Yet, here they are, again. A whole galaxy away, yet here they are. They're like cockroaches. We can't ever be free of them."

And then, a memory.

Chaos had erupted on the London. The corridors were bathed in emergency lighting as these...things....just kept marching. They didn't chase. They didn't need to. Nothing was stopping them. They just kept marching. And shooting. And... reproducing. They weren't in a hurry.

Rin turned yet another corner as shew found her way blocked. They were getting boxed in. She knew it. Her mind raced, trying to find a possible escape. She and her team were far too far from the shuttle bay. She assumed the bridge was already taken. Engineering, perhaps. Maybe the Jeffries tubes?

Ahead, another drone stepped from a side corridor. Rin directed people down another passageway.

They were being boxed in and there was nothing she could do about it.

A panel blew out as something inside ruptured, slamming into the crewman taking up the rear. Rin motioned for others to keep moving as she took the few steps backward to reach him. He was bloodied, but alive and conscious. Rin threw her shoulder against the panel to shift it enough for him to crawl free.

A shadow fell over her as another drone came up behind them. It caught her by the throat, and something sharp pierced her neck. It burned. She had never felt something so painful. It was like something was crawling under her skin, thought her veins, across her nerves. She would have screamed if she could, but her body was no longer responding.

A last thought: James wasn't onboard. He would survive.

"I love you."

And then everything went black.

"We all the Borg. Resistance is futile."

That was it. That was the memory. Various bits and pieces had come to her over time, mixed in with plenty of false memories. She had given up trying to sort fact from fiction. But that was it. That was how it happened. As clearly as she knew that signal was real, she knew that was how it happened.

In Sthilg's office, Rin had gone silent. One second. Two seconds. Three. Then she gasped and looked to the doctor.

"I am not about to lose a second ship."

Sthilg artificial hand had already begun assembling a sedative when Rin word entered his ears. " You won't, Rin. " he said in his best calming tone. " The Elyssium isss ssstrong."