Anthology
The Survival of All of One
by Parker Gabriel
(parker_gabriel@juno.com)

The Survival of All of One

ABOARD THE U.S.S. VICO,
STARDATE 21534.4:

On stardate 21534.4, a child was born on board the Star Fleet science vessel U.S.S. Vico, which belonged to the U.S.S. Oberth's class, to two members of its crew--namely, its Chief Security and Tactical Officer, Commander Lee Wright, and its Science Officer and Second Officer, Commander Delores Wright. The Vico was on a survey mission to map out anomalies located near the Alpha and Beta Quadrants's shared border with the galactic core at the time.

"Fifteen hours, Delores," Lee complained to his wife as she rested comfortably in the obstetrics ward of the Vico's SickBay with their son Solomon, now barely two hours old. "Other Oberth-class ships must have made some studies of this damned region."

"No way, Lee," Delores retorted. "This ship is the first to reach this part of the galaxy."

That was when the klaxon signaled a ship-wide alert, condition red. Lee Wright blanched.

"Oh my God," he gasped. "Delores, we're needed on the bridge."

"I'll take care of your kid," the obstetrics nurse offered.

Hastily thrusting her newborn son into the nurse's hands and hurriedly straightening her uniform, Delores gasped, "His name is Solomon. You can call him Sonny."

The two officers scrambled to board the Vico's Main Bridge. Once there, Delores Wright headed to her regular post at the Sciences-And-Library Computer station.

"Where are we, sir?" Lee snapped as he took his own post at the weapons console.

"We were just on our final approach to Sector Alpha 43961 when all of a sudden we came across this--whatever the hell it is," the captain answered. "We had completely missed this anomaly before, and now it's caused a major shift in the local gravitational field."

A massive trembling swept the Vico immediately after the captain finished speaking.

"Gravitational anomaly," the helm officer reported. "Attempting to compensate."

"Science Officer, do you have any idea what kind of gravitational anomaly it is?"

"That binary star system's contracting, sir!" Delores reported from her board. "It's pulling us into its gravitational field along with the surrounding systems!"

The captain knew of only one way the Vico could attempt to escape, and he promptly ordered its use, snapping, "Helm, bring us into a sling-shot course around the binary. It's our only chance."

But no sooner did the helm officer carry out that order than it was clear that the captain's plan would backfire on them. The new course instead sent the Vico heading for the galactic core.

"Captain, did you order us to accelerate as we took that sling-shot course?"

"Not on your life, Helm--why did you ask me that question?"

"When I fired the braking thrusters, we broke away all right, but we're off course!"

"We what?"

"I said we're off course! And we're tracing that wrong course at a dangerously high speed!"

"Oh my God. What's our velocity?"

"We're traveling at warp 9.635!" the helm officer called out. "This vessel wasn't designed to handle that speed safely!"

The ship's systems quickly went out, and the helm ceased to respond. Once the Vico was inside the galaxy's core, its warp engines proved to be unable to pull it out.

The now-panicked captain frantically ordered, "Bridge to Engineering--can you plunge the warp core into a deliberate anti-matter flux?"

"Aye, sir!" came the engineer's voice.

"Then make it so, and double-time it!"

This attempt to regain control accidentally propelled the Vico through a spatial interphase into trans-warp space, making it phase in and out of space and time through the core of the galaxy and, ultimately, into the Delta Quadrant.

Control was regained, and the crew set in a course back to the Alpha Quadrant. But they were too late. A nearby Borg ship captured the Vico, scuttled it, and assimilated all hands of the crew. Aboard the Borg vessel, little Sonny was given the designation One Of Fourteen, Quaternary Adjunct to Unimatrix One Zero One.

The Vico had been destroyed, with all hands lost to the Borg, in the line of duty.

Later the Borg's Queen sent the ship to the Alpha Quadrant to assimilate species 7335 to 7339 in sector 90844. That assimilation mission exploded into the Queen's face when, on stardate 45893.1, the numerous Borg drones in Alpha Quadrant Sectors 90844 to 73629 were all, somehow, de-assimilated and became individualized. Panic ensued amongst the drones after their de-assimilations, and in an unsuccessful effort to restructure itself, the Alpha Collective diminished and was severed. One Of Fourteen escaped from the general chaos to head for the nearest star system in a Borg pod. He scanned a Class L planet, located a small grouping of ruins of an ancient city, and landed on the surface.

For some reason he could not explain, One Of Fourteen had become curious about such unusual conditions in proximity to this planet as temporal anomalies he had detected but could not explain. He found its surface, climatically, dry, dark and cold. The low levels of both temperature and humidity interfered with the operations of his mechanical components, and he found that he was having difficulty moving.

Snow-covered rocks stretched on farther than the de-assimilated drone's eye-piece could judge. The only light was from the planet's primary, a dying red dwarf which the drone vaguely remembered was catalogued as UFC 465537. And it was not sufficient light for the drone to tolerate. For this planet was too far away from too many other spatial bodies for its loneliness to be imagined. And to a Borg drone, however recently de-assimilated, loneliness is the one quality that is intolerable.

On his approach to what appeared to be a doughnut-shaped piece of carved stone, a voice spoke to the drone, saying, "I am the Guardian Of Forever. I have been here since before your sun burned hot in space, before your race came into being. I have existed when this area of space was so filled with young suns that night was unknown on this planet." The material of which the doughnut-shaped piece of what appeared to be carved stone was actually made somehow defied all of the drone's attempted sensor analyses, and it radiated light whenever the Guardian Of Forever spoke.

The drone responded, "All this is irrelevant. Can you remove me from this place or this time?"

The Guardian's images, though they did not stabilize, led the Guardian itself to declare, "Behold, a gateway to your past."

The drone said, "That period will be perfectly acceptable. Is it possible to travel back into it?"

"Yes, it is possible to go back," the Guardian cautioned, "but not wise. Man and non-man must live in the present. All that was must remain as it is so that what will be will not change."

The de-assimilated drone would not be dissuaded. "Your objections are noted. I believe I will step back into this year. It offers no apparent resistance, and I believe I could blend into the period and among the people without difficulty."

With that, he jumped through the "hole" in the doughnut-shaped piece of carved stone. When he recovered his orientation, he discovered he was aboard the U.S.S. Sovereign. It was stardate 45893.11--less than two hours and twenty-four minutes BEFORE he had located the Time Planet, as he realized, too late, that it was known.

Moreover, the temporal anomaly that had sent him here could not be duplicated. Thus he was trapped in the extremely-near-recent past.

ABOARD THE U.S.S. SOVEREIGN,
STARDATE 45893:

Christopher Thomas Robinson was not particularly comfortable with cybernetic organisms, or cyborgs, of the type that the Borg had proven to be. He viewed cyborgs as a necessary evil, and considered the ideal cyborg to be a human amputee whose amputated limbs had been replaced with bionic and cybernetic limbs that looked as much as possible like what they replaced. The Borg, by contrast, made no effort to conceal their partially mechanical nature.

"They sound to me like a slew of some of the most dangerous enemies the UFP has ever had to face off against," he was observing in the course of a discussion he was having with Commander Selek. "In the case of their existence, it's almost as if the 'melting pot' that terrestrial sociologists were talking about in the 20th and 21st Centuries were also a vacuum cleaner sucking all other races into itself." The two were in the Science Officer's astrophysics lab at the moment.

"They do say to us that resistance is futile, and they threaten all of us with assimilation," Commander Selek noted. "They claim to wish to add our uniqueness to theirs."

"So did Nazi Germany, Commander," Robinson shot back. "But races that are as interdependent as the Borg are highly vulnerable to the power of the individual, or, if you will, the power of the one against the many--and that's a power the Borg do their worst to try to hobble."

That was when the Borg drone once designated One Of Fourteen, Quaternary Adjunct to Unimatrix One Zero One, suddenly materialized in Selek's sciences labs.

Severely enervated physically from his loss of contact with the Borg's collective consciousness, more than a little disoriented to person, place and time, and uncertain where or even when he was, One Of Fourteen felt his knees buckle like soft cheese, and he collapsed to the deck.

Robinson tapped his communicator badge. "Robinson to Doctor Who--medical emergency in astrophysics. We have captured...a Borg drone."

Michael Keemer was looking over the drone, who had regained consciousness, within the hour.

"He was evidently assimilated as a baby, whoever he once was," the Chief Surgeon reported. "He was human--that much I was able to gather from his DNA trace. I've got my entire staff running ID cross-checks on him now."

"Let me know the minute you find out anything, Doctorr," Fleet Captain Siandierra Annjulee Beautelier ordered. "I am anxious to know morre about this Borrg."

"As you wish, ma'am," Keemer acknowledged.

"I strongly recommend caution, Doctor Who," Robinson urged. "The logs of the Enterprise V, Contract Number NCC-1701-D, contain the warning that all de-assimilated Borg drones attempt to rejoin the Borg's collective consciousness. This one may be no different."

"I'm with you," said Keemer nervously. "He'll be kept in isolation and cut off from all possible contact with the collective till we can figure out what happens to him."

That was when a slow, dull murmur came from the bio-bed on which the drone was being kept restrained for his own protection. All turned to listen as he slowly regained consciousness and tried to re-orient himself to person, place and time. He spoke in a weak voice. "You may refer to this drone as One Of Fourteen, Quaternary Adjunct to Unimatrix One Zero One."

"One Of Fourteen, you call yourself?" Robinson asked in a harsh whisper. "If you really are one of fourteen, then where are the other thirteen drones in your adjunct to the unimatrix into which you were assimilated?"

"We were all de-assimilated, and we all developed individual selves and identities, when our adjunct was sent to assimilate species 7335 to 7339 in sector 90844. Then, on stardate 45893.1, those of us who were in Alpha Quadrant Sectors 90844 to 73629 were all, somehow, de-assimilated and became individualized. Panic ensued amongst us. We made an unsuccessful effort to restructure the Alpha Collective, but it instead diminished and was severed. I escaped from the chaos in one of our pods to head for the nearest star system. Upon finding it, I scanned a Class L planet, located a small grouping of ruins of an ancient city, and landed on the surface.

"For some reason, I had developed a curiosity about the unusual conditions, in particular temporal anomalies I had detected, in proximity to this planet. I cannot explain what had made me so curious. But I found the surface dry, dark and cold. The low temperature and even lower relative humidity interfered with the operations of my mechanical components, and I found movement difficult.

"Snow-covered rocks and ruins stretched on farther than the eye-piece over my right eye could judge. The only light was from the planet's primary, a dying red dwarf which, as I now remember, you catalogue as UFC 465537. And it was not sufficient light for me to tolerate. For this planet is so far from so many other spatial bodies that its loneliness cannot be imagined. And to any of us, however recently we have been de-assimilated, loneliness is the one quality we find intolerable.

"On my approach to an artifact resembling a doughnut-shaped piece of carved stone, a voice spoke to me, saying, 'I am the Guardian Of Forever. I have been here since before your sun burned hot in space, before your race came into being. I have existed when this area of space was so filled with young suns that night was unknown on this planet.' The material of the artifact, though it appeared to consist only of carved stone, actually defied all the sensor analyses I attempted to conduct, and it radiated light whenever the Guardian Of Forever spoke.

"I responded, 'All this is irrelevant.' To the extent that I was able to understand its apparent function, the Guardian was neither entirely a machine nor entirely a being. But all I wanted to know about it was, 'Can you remove me from this place or this time?'

"The Guardian Of Forever, as it had called itself, responded to my inquiry by displaying images in its center. These visual images did not stabilize. However, they led the Guardian itself to declare, 'Behold, a gateway to your past.'

"I said, 'That period will be perfectly acceptable. Is it possible to travel back into it?"'

"'Yes, it is possible to go back,' the Guardian cautioned me, 'but not wise. Man and non-man must live in the present. All that was must remain as it is so that what will be will not change.'

"I found its argument irrelevant. 'Your objections are noted. I believe I will step back into this year. It offers no apparent resistance, and I believe I could blend into the period and among the people without difficulty.'

"With that, I jumped through the 'hole' in the doughnut-shaped carved stone. When I recovered my orientation to person, place and time, I discovered I was here. Wherever here is."

"You had stumbled onto a world we call the Time Planet, One Of Fourteen," Robinson explained. "Captain James Tiberius Kirk and the crew of the Constitution-class U.S.S. Enterprise I discovered the Time Planet, and the Guardian Of Forever, in the 23rd Century. When they did, Kirk found himself having to undo a distortion of history that would have wiped out human society if it had not been corrected. He had to allow Sister Edith Keeler, the woman he loved in the year One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Thirty, to die in order to allow history to take its rightful course."

All of a sudden, the Borg drone who had identified himself as One Of Fourteen spared a glance at the chronometer on the wall.

"It's stardate 45893.11--less than two hours and twenty-four minutes BEFORE I located the world you said you call the Time Planet. And I am now too late to return to the time from which I came. The temporal anomaly that sent me here cannot be duplicated. It would appear that I have been trapped in the extremely-near-recent past."

"So you are. When you identified yourself to us, we expected all of fourteen drones to board, and now here we are, dealing with all of one."

The drone's mood became more attentive. "All Of One. Hmm. It appears now to be a more fitting designation than One Of Fourteen. Acceptable. You may now call me All Of One."

Sudden beeps of alarm interrupted the exchange. Sparing a quick glance at the diagnostic indicators on the bulkhead, Keemer snapped thick and fast, "Well, we're gonna have to call you dead if we don't get you into surgery right away--your immune system's rejecting your cybernetic implants as foreign!" Then he turned to the others. "All the rest of you--get out of here, double-time, so my team and I can save this machine's--this man's--life!"

Robinson and Selek darted out of the SickBay. As they did so, the former said, "We'll let Doctor Who do his work--maybe he can save the life of that drone."

It took eight hours for Keemer and his team to finish their exhausting work. But as Keemer emerged, pulling off his blood surgical hood, his expression was one of visible relief. He turned to Siandierra, Robinson, and Selek.

"He'll live. I had to remove ninety-three percent of his Borg implants, but he looks more human now than he did, and he's biologically more human now than he was before. I was able to regenerate his hair follicles, and he can grow hair and whiskers again. When I did, I discovered something really interesting."

Keemer tapped a panel on the wall. It showed the image of a normal human male, racially black, with full whiskers and a rather handsome visage. Next to the likeness was a data sheet headed by the name "Wright, Solomon, aka Sonny."

"That's what our passenger would look like as a normal human. His original name was Solomon Wright, and he was nicknamed Sonny. He was born to Lee and Delores Wright, both of whom were members of the crew of the U.S.S. Vico. As you'll probably remember, the Vico was an Oberth-class science vessel, just like the Tsiolkovsky and the Grissom. Star Fleet lost the Vico on stardate 21534.8, during a survey mission to map out anomalies near the border that the Alpha Quadrant and the Beta Quadrant both share with the galactic core."

"I remember the loss of the Vico," Selek said. "It was in the vicinity of an undetected anomaly located near Sector Alpha 43961. That anomaly caused both a shift in the local gravitational field and the contraction of a nearby binary star system."

Robinson bowed his head in sorrow. "The Vico must have been pulled into the gravitational field of the collapsing binary along with the surrounding systems. The captain probably gave prompt orders to take the Vico into a sling-shot course around the binary, thinking it was their only chance."

"But the captain's plan backfired on them, most likely," Selek remarked. "The new course probably sent the Vico heading for the galactic core instead. My guess is they ended up traveling at warp 9.635, a speed Oberth-class vessels are not designed to handle safely."

The three could all guess what had happened to the Vico from there. Ship's systems out, helm unresponsive, and once the ship was actually inside the core of the galaxy, warp engines unable to pull it out.

"I knew the captain perrsonally," Siandierra remembered. "He prrobably orrderred Engineerring to plunge the warrp corre into a deliberrate anti-matterr flux. Doing this must have accidentally prropelled the Vico thrrough a spatial interrphase into trrans-warrp space, making it phase in and out of space and time thrrough the corre of the galaxy and, ultimately, into the Delta Quadrrant. By the time they rregained contrrol and set in a courrse back to the Alpha Quadrrant, it was obviously too late forr them. A Borrg ship was evidently nearrby, and it must have capturred the Vico and assimilated all hands of the crrew. Aboarrd that Borrg vessel, little Sonny Wrright was prresumably given the designation One Of Fourrteen, Quaterrnarry Adjunct to Unimatrrix One Zerro One."

"And now he's here with us." This from Robinson.

Keemer nodded. "That he is. However, his life functions, including his bioelectrical signature, are approximately two hours and twenty-four minutes ahead of the norm for us."

"What do you recommend, Captain?" Selek asked.

"We do have warrp shuttles, yes?" Siandierra asked.

Robinson nodded, volunteering, "Let me guess, ma'am--the light-speed break-away factor?"

"By the Prrey, we'll make a captain of you yet, RRobinson--make it so!"

Commander Sybil Sixteen, the genetically bio-engineered were-bat who was Siandierra's Number One, was in the Sovereign's Main Shuttle Hangar with Major Palanx, the ship's Operations Management Officer. The two were discussing his future in Star Fleet.

"Are you sure you won't change your mind?" Sybil was asking. "We need an efficient officer at Ops, and you're as efficient as they come."

"It isn't worth the extra burden," Palanx complained. "Half the time, I feel as though I'm leaving my brain and central nervous system in a state of what they used to call attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the other half, I barely have the energy to get through a single day. I'll have to take medical leave to figure out what in the hell is the matter with me, but as of today, I am officially resigning as Operations Management Officer of the U.S.S. Sovereign."

"It's up to you," Sybil conceded. "Maybe the prodigal geniuses at Star Fleet Medical can solve your problem. Dr. Keemer sure as hell can't."

"If the doctors at Star Fleet Medical can figure out what I've got and return me to duty, then more power to them. I just won't be coming back here to resume my duties."

At that moment, Robinson and All Of One, as the de-assimilated Borg drone was now calling himself, boarded the Main Shuttle Hangar. Palanx gasped in terror.

"Oh, my God--it's the Borg! Sound battle stations!" He snatched up his phaser rifle and was about to aim it at All Of One when Robinson stepped into the intended path of the rifle.

"No, Major Palanx! Hold your fire!" hollered the 23rd-Century survivor. "This Borg drone isn't dangerous--he's been de-assimilated somehow! He's an individual now!"

"The only good Borg is a DESTROYED Borg! Now STAND CLEAR!"

"NO, Major--YOU stand DOWN!" This came from Sybil, who then added more calmly, "I would hate to see you begin your new assignment in the brig for violating General Order Two."

"Siandierrrra to Majorr Palanx," came a voice over Palanx's com-badge.

Tapping his com-badge with the hand he ordinarily used to steady his phaser rifle, the SFMC major said, "Palanx here."

"Majorr, that Borrg drrone is not ourr enemy any longerr. He has been de-assimilated, and all he wants to do now is rre-synchrronize his life functions to the norrm forr us."

"He can do that just as easily by letting himself be destroyed and letting his organic body rot for as far ahead of or behind us as he is now."

Sybil tapped her own com-badge. "Sybil here, Captain. Major Palanx has his phaser rifle trained on the Borg drone, and the only thing stopping him from firing is that Ensign Robinson's in the way."

"Majorr, you will eitherr stand down orr face a generral courrt-marrtial. That means lowerring yourr weapon and rre-engaging its safety."

Palanx was chagrined. Downcast, he murmured, "Aye, ma'am." With that he snapped back a lever on the rifle and slung it back on his shoulder.

"I'm gonna note this on your record," Sybil snapped indignantly. "Exactly what in the hell gives you the right to decide who lives and who dies? You're not the captain, and even she doesn't always have that right, damn it."

Palanx rolled his eyes upwards. "Now she tells me."

Robinson shook his head. "Well, join the crowd, Major Palanx. If I had believed for one minute that this Borg drone, who has allowed us to agree his name is All Of One, posed even a minor danger to us in any way at all, then I would have shot him on sight myself. As it was, I allowed him to live because I realized that he himself was actually in danger." He gestured to the four warp-capable shuttlecraft in the hangar. "Which one do you choose to sling-shoot you around the nearest massive object, All Of One?"

All Of One pointed to the Red Dragon Six. "That one." He walked over to it. "I will need to regenerate after you retrieve me. My course will be for a collapsar you passed by ten minutes ago."

"Well, I'm getting off board right now," Palanx said bitterly. "No way am I staying on board a ship where Borg are treated like humans."

"I will not be treated like a human, Major Palanx," All Of One corrected. "Your shipmates recognize me as a Borg, and they will be at least partially suspicious of me. After all, we have indeed given them few reasons to want much to do with us."

He boarded the Red Dragon Six. As he did, Palanx headed towards the Rising Phoenix One.

The two shuttlecraft were out of the hangar within minutes.

After the hangar hatch had been dogged, Robinson turned to Sybil and asked, "What makes Major Palanx so bitter about the Borg?"

"He lost his entire family to them, and was only able to escape assimilation himself because their cube self-destructed before it could reach Earth."

"I was an only child, and I lost my own family to a sudden tragedy, as you'll remember," Robinson retorted. "The only reason I didn't seek revenge against the people who had killed my parents was knowing that, when it came to basics, they had not been responsible for the deaths. It's no excuse for bigotry or race hate."

Outside the hangar, the Rising Phoenix One was almost about to fire on the Red Dragon Six. But Siandierra had considered the possibility that Palanx might try something like that as soon as both shuttles were out of range of the Sovereign; none of the ordnance on either shuttle was capable of functioning.

Frustrated, Palanx headed on to his rendezvous with the Challenger, the Galaxy-class starship that would take him to Star Fleet Medical.

On the Red Dragon Six, All Of One was headed on course to sling-shoot around the collapsar. He was severely enervated, and he knew he was in serious need of regeneration. But that he could not permit himself, at least not yet.

From the Main Bridge of the Sovereign, Fleet Captain Siandierra was able to track All Of One's progress with Selek's assistance.

"I have positive track on Red Dragon Six, ma'am," Selek reported.

"Do you know wherre it is going?"

"It is heading for that collapsar we passed ten minutes earlier."

Collapsars, so-called stellar corpses that are also known as black holes, are comprised of matter that has become so highly compacted that not even light can escape their surfaces. Star Fleet flight-con protocols normally called for not passing within ten parsecs of them on the grounds that they supposedly broadcasted high levels of dangerous radiation. But they were also powerful gravity-wells that a starship could use to travel through time.

"Feed the time-trravel prrogrram coorrdinates into the shuttle's contrrol computerr."

"Transmitting now," Selek reported as he worked controls at both of his stations.

On the shuttle, All Of One was receiving and copying the transmission Selek was sending him. Though still weak from not having regenerated, he engaged computer control of the shuttle.

"I will see you in two hours and twenty-four minutes," he transmitted in an audio message, his voice weak from enervation. With that, he slumped in the pilot's chair.

Robinson was assisting FrioDraca in the conversion of one of the cargo bays into a Borg regeneration chamber. As they worked, he told his superior, "Once All Of One returns to his own time, he will need a regeneration suit built for him. Once it's been made, he can wear it under one of our uniforms."

"Have you told the captain about this possibility?"

"That will wait for when we retrieve the Red Dragon Six."

"That retrieval's not gonna be much longer now--we're just two hours and twenty-eight minutes from the planned rendezvous with the shuttle."

The Red Dragon Six was approaching the collapsar at low warp speed. All Of One was barely able to retain consciousness as the warp-shuttle approached the gravitational pull of the collapsar.

"Computer, go to transmission from Sovereign and execute instructions."

The shuttle's control computer ran the time-travel program the Sovereign had downloaded into it. This program now executed the course that would pass the shuttle close to the collapsar, whiplash it away, then ignite the braking thrusters to prevent the shuttle from overshooting its target time of two hours and twenty-four minutes ahead. Since this would exhaust the shuttle's fuel, the Red Dragon Six would drift in space till the Sovereign reached it. The Sovereign, for its part, was traveling so slowly that by the time it came up on the Red Dragon Six's location, four minutes would already have passed.

Four minutes passed. On the Main Bridge, Selek reported, "Rendezvous coordinates now, Captain. Red Dragon Six now in visual range."

"Trractorr beam," Siandierra ordered. "Doctorr Keemerr, have Sick Bay stand by to rreceive one patient."

"Standing by," Keemer's voice responded from the SickBay.

The tractor beam locked onto the shuttle. At the same time, the transporter room was trained on the cockpit. On board the shuttle, All Of One became a standard transporter silhouette and was gone.

In the SickBay, Keemer finished tending to the patient.

"He's gonna need to regenerate," he informed Siandierra. Turning to Robinson and FrioDraca, he asked them, "How are you coming along on the conversion of that cargo bay?"

"Even if we both keep working on it, and as a team, for two days straight, we're still not gonna be able to finish the job on our own," FrioDraca confessed. "Captain, can you possibly pull both of us off the job and have Engineering take care of the rest of it?"

"Since when did you develop telepathy, FrrioDrraca?" Siandierra asked in audible surprise.

"I beg your pardon, Captain?"

"I was just about to rrelieve both you and RRobinson in favorr of rregularr Engineerring perrsonnel when you made yourr little rrequest."

"Fair enough," Robinson said. "I'm tired anyway. Requesting relief from duties."

"Grranted."

Robinson left the SickBay.

As the Intelligence Officer entered his quarters, he had to unlock the door, which he promptly relocked. On the left bulkhead, there hanged the duty uniform he had been wearing when originally rescued, complete with his decorations. Robinson would sometimes switch to it as a reminder of how things used to be for him.

It was the one constant contact with his old time that he still had left.

In a case in the center of the forward compartment, there was a steel model of the Enterprise II, the ship he had once served aboard. Its configuration had been drawn from that of the Enterprise I after that vessel had undergone an engineering refit. However, as that refit had shown the need to mount heavier engine nacelles on the ship, the refit had evolved into a redesign of the entire vessel. But Robinson was not in the mood for remembering construction or engineering history at that point; he was tired. All he wanted to do was sleep.

Entering the sleeping compartment of his quarters, he regarded the image that faced his standard twin-size bed. It was a non-holographic likeness of the nine best-known members of James Kirk's command crew as they had been when Robinson had served under them. Lowering himself to the bed without bothering to remove his uniform, he released the safety from a phaser at his bedside. This was so that he could be ready for duty in case of a red alert. He always kept several such weapons at the ready at all times, with fingerprint and DNA-trace locks guaranteeing that only he could fire them. Robinson preferred to use archaic pistol-look phasers which, to him, had proven to be much more powerful than modern phaser weapons of cobra-head design.

He maintained seven distinct executions of each of his permitted uniforms, Star Fleet and Star Fleet Marines alike, and switched between them three times a day, maintaining them on hangers for the purpose. Otherwise, the decor of his quarters was spartan without seeming uncomfortable.

Pulling the covers over himself, he slipped into sleep.

When the buzzer sounded eight hours later, the spy was rested and refreshed.

"Enter."

As Robinson rose from the bed, the doors to his quarters were unlocked and opened. All Of One entered, outfitted in a Star Fleet Support Services Section uniform. Over it, he wore an unsecured mantle with pockets for tools.

"My compliments to your tailors," the 23rd-Century survivor went on. "I can't even see your regeneration suit under that uniform."

With that, All Of One reached for the back of his inner tunic collar. Unsecuring it, he pulled it down to show the regeneration suit inside it.

"It will be necessary for me to continue to wear this suit inside my uniform as long as my immune system does not reject my cybernetic implants as foreign," he explained. The suit itself proved to be a metallic gold in color, and skin-tight, with no collar. It was probably more comfortable than any of his own standard duty uniforms, Robinson mused.

"I see you're outfitted in Support Services bronze," he said aloud. "What's your specialty? Mine is Intelligence, in Security & Tactical, and its section color is black."

"You are now looking at the new Operations Management Officer of this vessel," All Of One responded. "You will find that resistance to my efficiency is futile."

"Yet you're also wearing an engineer's mantle," the out-of-his-time human noted. "Have you joined the Engineering Division as well?"

"Yes," the de-assimilated Borg confirmed. "Once I conducted a search of the histories of Lee and Dolores Wright, the parents of the human I once was, I realized that I was developing an aptitude for engineering and technology."

That was when the Number One followed All Of One into Robinson's quarters. Robinson promptly came to attention.

"As you were," grinned the were-bat. "So, do you believe you'll be able to live with our new Ops Manager? His appointment to the post was my idea, what with Major Palanx having gone on to other things. And Captain Siandierra was all for it. Are you?"

"Number One," Robinson said as he relaxed his stance, "after deliberately exiling myself from my own time, I can live with almost anything and almost anyone."

"That's the spirit!" Sybil encouraged.

"You mean the FIGHTING spirit," Robinson shot back with a grin of his own. "That's what we're all about--strength, wisdom, imagination, and fighting spirit."

Sybil laughed, and All Of One nodded, as they left Robinson's quarters. He himself followed them out immediately after.

In Engineering, All Of One nodded to the Chief Engineering Officer, who wore a similar uniform to his own.

Robinson could not avoid muttering under his breath, "Here's where it gets interesting."

"Do you have something to say to me, Ensign?" Sybil asked as they turned to go.

"Yes, I do," Robinson answered aloud. "Here is where things become interesting, Number One. Consider: A Borg working in Engineering without attempting to assimilate its technology."

"It is interesting at that," Sybil agreed. "But All Of One's main post as Ops Manager, and his battle station, are both located on the Main Bridge."

"Which is where we should both be," Robinson pointed out. "I'm due to relieve FrioDraca in five minutes."

They both headed for the turbolift that would take them to the Main Bridge.