Stardate 52014.5

Dand watched his viewscreen.  The Borg scout ship was taking heavy damage
from his new subspace weapon, one of the many weapons he had purchased from a friend
of his in the Son’a black market.  Dand knew it wasn’t enough firepower against a full size
Borg cube, but against one of these tiny scout cubes it was more than enough.  Dand
turned to his first officer, Ulrit, and said, "Have we killed it yet?"
	Ulrit replied, "It’s systems are shutting down.  We’ve knocked out
their power grid."
	Dand smiled, "Tractor it into the cargo bay.  I’m interested to see how much of
that Borg technology we can salvage."
	A tractor beam from Dand’s ship grabbed hold of the cube and began pulling it in. 
Inside the Borg ship, Carter laid on the floor, trying to scream but finding the effort
futile.  The Borg nanoprobes had infected his body and were quickly transforming it. 
They were making room inside him for the various devices that they would soon construct
there, and as a result his skin pigmentation was draining, leaving him a pale white.  He felt
his already damaged eyeballs fall into the back of his head as they were replaced with
mechanical eyepieces.  Every part of his body in fact was being reworked.  The
nanoprobes were hard at work incorporating Borg machinery into the already existing
flesh.  It felt like hundreds of insects crawling all over him, except that they were 
underneath his skin instead of on it.  He wanted desperately to stop it, but was powerless to 
do anything but lay there.
	Then he heard it.  He tried to fight the song at first, but it was both overpowering
and intoxicating.  The thoughts of billions of Borg entered his mind.  He couldn’t quite
understand them even though they were speaking in harmony.  He tried to keep his own
voice separate and distinct but there were so many that he eventually lost himself among
them.  He was becoming part of the chorus of voices.  Suddenly he felt the magnitude of
what he was hearing.  It was billions of life forms fusing their identities together to create
one supreme identity.  The name James Carter and the life he had no longer had any
relevance to him.  His physical body, which is the center of any individual’s existence, now
only seemed like an small part of the whole, the way a human would think of a single
strand of their hair.  James Carter had been successfully absorbed into the Borg collective.

*************************************************************************

	Captain Frank Mason stepped through the large door to main engineering.  The
place was a mess.  He had to step around a few removed access hatches and damaged bio
neural gel packs to get to where Syxx was working.  He was working feverishly at one of
the panels.  Something on it caught his attention and he looked toward the upper platform
and yelled, "Tate!  Reroute the signals to the plasma injectors!"
	Mason interrupted him, "Mr. Syxx, what’s our status?"
	Syxx turned around, Mason could tell he was under tremendous stress with
everything going on.  Syxx answered quickly, "There’s definitely been some type of
sabotage to the ship’s systems."
	Mason looked incredibly worried, "Sabotage?"
	Syxx said, "Yes sir.  Someone’s been causing these problems to the ship.  We’ve
seemed to have isolated the damage for now, though."
	The Captain thought for a moment, going over in his mind who could have
sabotaged the ship.  Too many people came to mind.  He looked at Syxx, "Fine.  As long
as the damage stays isolated we need to come up with some sort of contingency plan in
case that Cardassian ship decides to come after us.  We’re in no condition for a battle right
now."
	Syxx nodded in agreement, "You’re right, but to tell you the truth I haven’t had
time to give that any thought.  You might want to . . ."
	Out of the corner of his eye Syxx noticed something.  On the table where Elea was
lying, there was some movement.  Captain Mason looked and saw it too.  Elea’s hand was
moving.  Both of them ran over to the table.  Elea’s miscolored eyes opened slowly to see
Syxx standing over her.  Still weak, she muttered a few garbled words, "Virus . . . C30 . . .
recursive . ."
	Mason didn’t understand what she meant, but Syxx was already at work routing
the data from the diagnostic table to his workstation.  He ran back over to it with the
Captain right behind him.  Mason said, "What is it, Mr. Syxx?"
	Syxx frantically punched the buttons on the control panel, "She was infected with a
computer virus, a very complex one.  It’s encoded using C30 and employs a recursive
invasion loop to travel through and disrupt the ship’s systems.  That’s why we couldn’t
detect it.  It was covering it’s own tracks.  Those guys at Starfleet Cybernetics sure knew
what they were doing though.  Elea’s systems detected and eventually eliminated the
virus."
	As Mason listened he went over who on the ship had the know-how and
opportunity to plant this virus.  He shook his head and said, "Can you look at Elea’s
programming and adapt it to purge the virus from the Equinox?"
	Syxx kept watching the panel as he spoke, "I think so.  It’ll take a little time,
though."
	Captain Mason tapped his comm badge, "Mason to Mull.  I want you to launch a
distress beacon with the message that our ship is infected with a computer virus and we’ve
taken damage to several other systems.  Request assistance from any Federation vessels in
the area."
	Mull responded, "Aye sir."
	Mason tapped his badge, ending the communication, then tapped it again to open a
new one, "Mason to Carter."  No response.  "Captain Mason to Lieutenant Carter,
respond please."  Still no response.
	Syxx looked up from his panel.  James Carter’s never been known for being the
most hardworking officer in Starfleet, but he was in the habit of responding to
communications.  Mason said, "Computer, locate Lieutenant James Carter."
	The computer replied, "Lieutenant James Carter is not on board the ship."
	"When did he leave."
	"Lieutenant Carter was last on board at 0923 hours."
	"Were any shuttles launched or any transports initiated at that time?"
	"Negative."
	"Then how did he leave the ship?"
	"Unknown."
	Mason turned to Syxx, "Could he be our saboteur?"
	Syxx just glared at Mason.  He had gotten along fine with the new Captain so far,
but he didn’t like hearing this kind of accusation.  He and Carter served together under
Captain Winston.  Syxx was convinced that Carter wouldn’t sabotage the ship, and didn’t
like hearing this new Captain accuse him of it.
	Mason looked back at Syxx for a moment then just said, "Carry on," and walked
out of Engineering.

*************************************************************************

	Dand sat on the bridge of his ship, pleased with his new catch, a Borg scout ship.  
To a Cardassian renegade like him, such a prize, and the technology within, could come in 
very handy.
	Inside the cargo bay, inside the damage Borg cube, the fully assimilated Carter 
drone heard the doors to the bay open, and several Cardassians coming toward the ship.  The 
collective wanted to insure that this drone continued to function.  It would be too much of 
a risk for it to engage these lifeforms.  Within half a second, he interfaced with the Borg 
ship’s computer, made sure the transporter was still functional, chose a destination, and 
transported out.
	Dand glanced at Ulrit, "Anything else on long range sensors?"
	Ulrit shook his head, "Nothing but the Equinox."
	Dand smiled and said, "Are you still convinced that they’re following us?"
	Ulrit frowned, "For a while it looked like they were, I know we’re cloaked but maybe 
they found a way to detect us."
	Dand growled, "Fine!  Keep an eye on them and if you really think they’re following 
us we’ll go back.  Have the men looked at that Borg ship yet?"
	Ulrit called up a communication he had recieved, "They have.  These scout ships have 
a complement of five Borg each, they found all five dead."
	Dand nodded and smiled, "Good.  I want to take a look at our new catch."