Exploring the Cube

Posted on Fri Dec 6, 2019 @ 7:37pm by Commodore Michael Aravan & Warrant Officer William Fontaine & Captain Madelina Weisz & Lieutenant Commander Arrda & Lieutenant Commander Kelani Tetanal & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes

Mission: The Nanjing
Location: Borg Cube
Timeline: MD 1 || 1200 Hours

The away team members had been selected and sent to Transporter Room One with orders for full environmental suits and orders to shoot first and question later if they encountered any Borg. Despite the reservations he had about the negative life sign readings that Science had claimed, Michael knew that they had to be sure.

"Find out what can strip a Borg Cube dead in space and wipe out ten thousand or more drones, Commander," Michael told Maddy. "I'm putting the team in your capable hands."

"Understood, Commodore," Maddy said with a nod. She turned toward the transporter pad and stepped onto it, grateful she'd already checked her equipment a few times. There was something nasty out there, and the Captain had no doubt they'd eventually find whatever it was. She just hoped it wouldn't do the same to them when they crossed paths. "Alright, everyone, mount up."

Kelani checked her tricorder and other equipment as she waited to begin transport. She tried not to let her nervousness show, but the fact that something or someone had taken out a Borg cube, then stripped it made her extremely uneasy.

Barnes was already standing on the transporter pad, armed with a phaser rifle, wrist tricorder, and a tool strip strapped to his left leg. The strip was simply a folded piece of cloth with magnetic ribs which would allow him to easily slip various tools in and out should he need to for any reason. The derelict remnants of the cube certainly fascinated him, and any opportunity to bring home a sample or two to study would be welcome.

Arrda gave his equipment one last go-over as he stepped onto the Transporter Platform. He did not like the idea of stepping boots on a Borg cube, derelict or otherwise. Often, a wounded animal was more dangerous than a healthy one. He expected the Borg to be no different... if any were still functioning. But his mind was also on what could do that to a Cube. Species 8472 could likely, but they hadn't been seen since Voyager helped them get home. So that left... what? Something new? He nodded readiness to Captain Weisz even as his thoughts whirled around the possibilities.

Kelani stepped onto the Transporter pad her senses extended—if there were any living Borg on the Cube, she wanted to be able to warn the others—hopefully giving them an advantage. One thought whirled through her mind...what could possibly have done this to a Borg cube?

Willie got on the transporter pad after checking his medkit again, then gave a nervous nod.

Once everyone was ready to beam over, Maddy turned her attention to the person manning the transporter. "We're ready," she said. But, were they really? There was no telling what they would encounter on the cube, but if something was still there, they'd know about it soon enough.

With a musical hum of energies, the away team was sent from the ship to the Borg Cube. Instead of the hum and low background movement of Borg Drones, there was nothing but an eerie silence. A row of nearby recharging alcoves were dormant and no green lighting illuminated the area. It was as silent as a grave and more ominous than a fully occupied Cube.

Tom instantly activated his wrist tricorder; its holographic displays not doing anything to light up the area compared to the bright lights mounted on their EVA suits. "Life support's non existent," he reported instantly. "No life signs. I am picking up residual energy from the Borg power feeds. Looks like a power relay is about thirty meters ahead in an isolated room."

"Then, that's where we're heading. Everyone keep your eyes and ears open while we make our way through here," the Captain said, reaching for her own tricorder. "We might be able to pick something up that might lead to some answers." With that, she began to make her way in the isolated rooms direction, stepping over debris as she went.

Willie had taken his tricorder out and was scanning as he turned in every direction. "I'm picking up organic matter...but no life signs. What could kill an entire Borg Cube?"

"More importantly," Tom asked, starting to walk in the direction of the enclosed area, "why would they not wait around to see if anyone came looking? And how could the cube be destroyed so easily?"

"More importantly than that... it's only been about four hours since we got the message about the Borg. The sensors from DS10 picked it up from a transwarp conduit, and now... this," Maddy said, gesturing around them. "What in all seven layers of hell could have done this... to the Borg, no less, in that amount of time and gone undetected?"

Arrda had to agree with Captain Weisz. The more disturbing part was that whatever had done this had done it so swiftly and so covertly. That could not be accounted for simply by cloaking technology, so that brought a whole new series of potential problems into play. He tried not to think about them though as they moved through the Cube.

As they did, he noted the same stripped-like-a-Twentieth-Century-car-after-an-encounter-with-a-chop-shop look of the place that had been mentioned before. So they had scragged it, stripped it, and taken all the drones... or vaporized them? In four hours? Well, less given that they weren't here when the Triumphant got here. That was unsettling to say the least.

He pushed his feelings back, focusing on what was before him. Tricorder out, he began to scan for traps that might have been left to snare unsuspecting looters. "There don't appear to be any traps left behind," he informed.

He was so focused on the tricorder, however, that he missed one of the damaged parts of the deck, and his foot went right through it. Startled, he yelped then clamped his jaw shut, pulling his leg free of the deck, or what was left of it. Damn! Should have seen that! And yelping? Really, Arrda? What the hell? He sighed and returned his eyes to his tricorder, partly to avoid the other eyes around him and partly to distract himself by doing his job.

He panned the tricorder around again, looking for any other potential threats that might be lurking in this Cube From Hell. The fact that he wasn't finding any worried him just a little. Did it mean they didn't exist or that he simply couldn't detect them with his instruments? "Other than the state of the ship itself, I can't find anything hostile or threatening." It was like walking through a graveyard, eerie and wrong somehow that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Tom continued to lead the way, one eye on the tricorder, and the other eye on the deck plating to make sure he wouldn't make a misstep like Commander Arrda. He started to walk past the row of dormant alcoves. A glance upward told him the first alcove, the only one he could see, was empty, but was missing several familiar elements, like it had been stripped. Tom wasn't interested in the rest, and turned his attention back to walking ahead.

"Holy shit!" Tom shouted, his bulky figure suddenly jumping, reacting to something that had fallen on him. It wasn't any sort of metal or material, and it fell to the floor with a squish as it bounced off of Tom. The engineer spun around to look at whatever it was that surprised him, only to see half a humanoid face staring back up at him. Like most drones, the skin color was a sickly pale gray, devoid of the characteristic chemicals that would create a species' normal color, but it lacked the typical black tracing in the blood vessels where the Borg nanites would move back and forth, nourishing the organic components.

In fact, there seemed to be nothing left of the Borg implants. Bone, some muscle, and some flesh were all that remained of this female drone. "Looks like the cube wasn't the only thing stripped for parts," he remarked, still breathing heavily from the shock.

Willie had been startled when the massive Chief of Security yelped, then again when the Master made his grisly discovery. "Oh sweet baby Betazoid! This is a charnel house!" He came up to scan the corpse and then blinked. "There's no nanites in it. This is impossible."

The more Maddy heard, the more she didn't like their present situation. Who would, though? She maneuvered herself toward the others, being extra cautious of where she stepped. "It's not impossible because we're looking right at it, Mister Fontaine," she said as a chill crept up her spine. "It's possible we'll see more of this as we go, and whoever, or whatever did this could still be close by. Let's get to the room and see what we can find."

"Our destination is just ten meters ahead," Tom reported, spotting a couple glimmers of light ahead. "Tricorder is definitely detecting residual power signatures consistent with Borg technology."

Willie took her answer as an acknowledgement of how wrong things seemed and not a chastisement from the Executive Officer and continued to scan the corpse. "Ninety percent of its implants have been removed with such precision that only a machine could have done this," he said after a moment.

Like the others, Kelani had moved carefully forward to examine Tom’s discovery. She frowned, saying, “You are absolutely correct, Mr. Fontaine—no sentient species that I know of could remove these implants so precisely and in the small window of time between the first sighting of the cube and our arrival. What troubles me is how the nanites were removed....”. Again she stretched her abilities hoping to find some clue.

Rising from where she had knelt by what was left of the drone, Kelani moved with the others to the room which was showing residual Borg energy.

“It would be most helpful if the Borg kept a log as we do,” she said softly. “If they di, then perhaps we would have a clue to this mystery.”

"The Borg have a long memory," Tom stated, arriving at their destination. "We should be able to download some data to our tricorders, assuming we find a data node that's intact." Tom deactivated his tricorder and began to feel around a large piece of metal that resembled an emergency bulkhead. "Commander, can you give me a hand with this door?"

"No problem." Arrda tucked his tricorder back into its holder on his belt and moved to the door. Taking one side of the doors, he used his higher strength and his weight to pull it away from the side that Tom was pulling. At first, he thought the door was not going to budge. Then it came open all at once, causing him to have to quickly catch his footing.

When the door opened, a foul smell wafted out and there was only one small source of illumination in the room. That object, however, illuminated the still living body of a bald female Borg that looked partially decayed laying on the cold metal floor. It was a box with translucent layered sides and had a round glowing object in the middle of it.

That's not something you see everyday, the redhead thought as she looked into the room. She reached for her palm light and turned it on, then shined it inside to get a better look around before she, or her people, walked inside. The smell, however, didn't hit her thanks to the EVA suit she had on, but given the female Borg's state of decay, she could only imagine it was rancid in there. "I doubt she's alive. Mister Fontaine, scan her anyway."

Willie stepped forward with his tricorder and began to scan her when the Borg looked up at him with her remaining eye. "Take. It," she rasped even as the black lines on her face and throat began to fade.

Arrda did not move to keep the others from being attacked; it was obvious that this Borg was not going to be attacking anyone. So in that regard, his Security skills were not in play. They were, however, still alert for anything else that might threaten them.

The Borg's words caught him, and he frowned. Take what? The box-thing? What in the Abyss was it? Was it some Borg experiment gone horribly wrong? Or was it something set for them to find, a 'booby trap' so to speak? He sure as hell didn't want to touch it, but he didn't want anyone else touching it either. Stepping forward, but not too close, he took his tricorder out again and pointed it directly at the box-thing, hoping that maybe he could get somthing of use.

Tom reactivated his tricorder, trying to get a reading on the mysterious object. "Captain, the readings... I can't make heads or tails out of this thing, but it is what is providing power to several substations." He looked around the room, seeing that portions of the room hadn't been stripped fully like the alcoves they'd seen on the way over. He did spot a green flicker above them, an upside-down pyramid. "Borg data node," he reported. "It may still have log entries or clues to what happened here. We should take that with us too."

Maddy wasn't going to let any of her crew do that kind of dirty work. Especially, if there were some kind of chance that touching it would go very badly. "I imagine it's going to take some time to crack this thing, but you're right. We do need to take it with us," she agreed. The redhead took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly as she reached for the object, waiting for some kind of explosion or something to take place.

It didn't kill the redheaded Executive Officer and felt as if it were humming in her hand. The female Borg, however, sighed and the wires and tubes connected to her popped off and she seemed to deflate with her sigh until she was a mostly metal skeleton that had been stripped and no sign of life remained in her.

Tom had glanced over to the drone and watched it wither away. It had been a truly disgusting sight, and he didn't look away until it had finished. "This one's been stripped too," he reported. "But not everything was taken. I'm picking up trace amounts of tritanium and familiar composite alloys. This... stripping doesn't seem like it was completed."

"We'll take what's left with us. There might be something there that will tell us what we're up against. Or at least maybe lead to more clues," Maddy said. Unlike Tom, though, she did look away. She'd seen some truly horrible things in her career, but that was new to her. "We can put the remnants in this containment unit." The redhead set what looked like a toolbox on the ground. "I want all precautions taken while it's being studied, too."

Kelani had watched with a mixture of horror and pity as the drone was drained of life. No creature—even an enemy—should suffer such a fate!

At Maddy’s decision to take the objects back to Triumphant, Kelani spoke up, “If I may be so bold, I would strongly advise stasis fields when we return. Also, it may be prudent not to allow anything organic to touch any of these objects until we determine their nature.”

With the box the Borg drone once held still in her covered hand, Maddy turned her attention to the Science Chief. "Which is why I said, I want all precautions taken while it's being studied." the Captain pointed out as she opened the containment unit and moved it closer to the metal skeletal remains. Someone had to get them inside, and it looked like she was going to be the lucky one.

She set the small black cube in a safe place where it wouldn't be damaged, then took a deep breath before lifting the remains into the box. It was pretty heavy, but that's to years of training, she was able to accomplish her goal of getting it into the box. However, Maddy didn't know if she'd be able to carry it around while they were still on the Borg cube. "Commander Arrda, I'm going to trust this in your capable hands until we return to the ship," she said, closing the unit back up once everything was safely inside and taking the data node back into her hand.

Arrda took the containment unit from Captain Weisz with a nod. He wanted to point out to her that, if he was carrying this, he would not be able to protect them as effectively, but the words died without exiting his lips. This place was more dead than Death Valley. The only thing that might attack them here was the ship falling apart around them. So he simply nodded, hefting the unit and thanking the Mother Creator for the higher gravity of his homeworld.

Willie checked the remains and made certain that the containment unit was sealed, then everyone heard a massive groan that sounded as if the Borg Cube's stress limits were being tested. "Uh...what was that?" he asked.

"That was our invitation to get the hell out of here," Maddy said. "I've got a feeling this place is close to breaking apart, and won't care if we're still here or not."

Tom had been surveying the room with his tricorder, trying to ascertain if there was anything else of use when the groaning started. He quickly changed his tricorder to a broader range, sacrificing pinpoint accuracy for a view beyond the walls. "I'm picking up an increase in the plasma turbulence. Parts of the upper cube are disintegrating. We've got maybe... three minutes before it comes down on us."

Arrda had to agree with Weisz. "Then we should do whatever it is you need to do quickly and get back to Triumphant before this place decides to become dust." He did not want to be here when that happened.

Kelani’s lips tightened at Maddy’s retort but she said nothing. Her eyes widened at the groaning of the cube and her comrades’ assessment and she moved closer to the others, saying only, “That would be most prudent. Please, let us go!”

As she moved closer, Arrda looked down at the science officer. He smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. We have no intention of going down with this cube." It was meant to be light humor to ease her, but he hoped that the captain would not think he was wasting time or being frivolous or not paying attention. He was definitely doing that. Paying attention, that is. Even as he spoke to the smaller woman beside him, his eyes were tracking all around them, looking for potential threats.

The whole group was uneasy, the redheaded Captain knew that, and the fact the cube was minutes away from disintegrating around them meant they needed to leave. Now. "Weisz to Triumphant... bring us home."

With a tingle of incapacitating energies, the away team vanished from the Cube as it started to come apart.