From: Kenneth Field (envision_at_fidalgo.net)
Date: Sat Jul 14 2007 - 23:17:43 PDT
"The Lady or the Tiger"
(continues from "Circle the Wagons")
Location: GS-2
Stardate: 2.70714.2221
Scene: Xana's Office
She didn't recognize him at all.
The man sitting across the table from her looked nothing like Tomas' Alexei Vukovic, her former Chief of Staff. Where Tomas' had been bald, this man sported artfully disheveled dark hair. Where Tomas' concealed his eyes with sunglasses (one of his eyes had glowed BORG green), this man watched her calmly with eyes the color of a Venetian sky. While Tomas' had worn gloves to hide the BORG adaptations to his fingers, this man sat with his hands quietly clasped in his lap. Her daughter's godfather always dressed with precision. This man wore travel-stained clothing that looked comfortable and serviceable, but hardly stylish. The truth was, if she had walked by him on the Promenade, she would not have given him a second glance.
She did not know this man.
But she soon would, Xana decided. He noticed that she had not put the phaser down.
"This office is as secure as we can get on this station," Xana answered the man's question. "And in any case, I'm rather limited in my choices of location just now. We're settling some issues among Fleet Command Staff."
The man took another sip of coffee and smiled at her.
"It's much better than anything the BORG make," he said. "They can do many things, but sometimes the simplest things elude them."
"You talk about the BORG as if you aren't one of them," Xana pointed out. "The man I knew as Tomas' Vukovic was BORG."
"Many things have changed, Ambassador," he nodded.
At that moment Slater Zeman entered the room, handed her a PADD that she glanced at, then looked pointedly back at him.
"His identification is a forgery," Zeman said. "It's a very good forgery, but a forgery nonetheless. He is not the man on the identification card, even though his DNA, fingerprints, and eyescans all match the card."
"And why do you think he's not, Zeman," Xana asked, already knowing the answer. She wanted this man to know just how fast her office could work in a situation that required it.
"Because this man," Zeman indicated the ID card, "is dead. Six months ago. On the docks. A simple accident. Plenty of witnesses."
"Xana, you already know I'm not that man," their visitor said.
"And you say you are Tomas'," Xana replied, "yet I see nothing to confirm that. Everything about you is a lie."
"It all depends on your point of view," the man said.
Suddenly his features blurred, shifted, his hair receded into his skull, and other familiar features appeared. He reached carefully into his jacket pocket and put a pair of sunglasses over his BORG eye.
"Gods!" Xana breathed, her finger tightening on the pocket phaser. "You're a Founder!"
"Close," the man nodded. "But there is one significant difference."
One of his fingers adapted right before their eyes, changed shape, became razor sharp, and he used it to cut open the skin on the back of his other hand.
"Analyze this," he offered Zeman the blood welling up there.
Zeman produced a pocket analyzer, extracted the blood, and it didn't change. It remained blood.
"It's full of nanites," he gasped, looking back at Xana.
"I AM BORG," the man across the desk from her said, his voice echoing oddly in the small room.
Xana's nonna had once told her a story, about a man given the choice of two doors. Behind one was a beautiful lady. Behind the other was a hungry tiger. It was a lesson in making choices, that sometimes it was impossible to guess what was coming, what the results would be. And she wondered, sitting across from whatever this was, if she was looking at two doors as well. Behind one door was her old friend, Tomas' Alexei Vukovic. Behind the other ... was a monster.
"Tomas' was taken by the BORG," she said. "Held incommunicado. We never knew why. We never knew if they would release him. How can I be sure that you're him?"
"You can't, Ambassador. I am Tomas' Alexei Vukovic. And I am not. I cannot explain to you all that has happened. I have taken certain vows that prohibit that. But it was thought you might give more credence to what I have to say, what the BORG have to say, if you knew who I once was."
Xana sat back in her chair, shut down the pocket phaser and placed it back in her desk drawer.
"What do the BORG have to say to me?" she wondered.
"The BORG perceive a shift in the balance of power as a result of the disappearance of the Wormhole. You are cut off from your supply lines, from your Federation support. And now that the Dominion holds ANDARA, you are cut off from even the source of much of what you need to survive on the GATEWAY. The BORG are not limited in this manner. And the BORG perceive an opportunity to extend their influence in the GAMMA Quadrant by lending covert support to the GATEWAY."
"You want to ally yourself with us? How can this possibly benefit you?" she asked.
"The Dominion is a rival culture that does not concede the rights of other cultures to exist. All cultures serve the Dominion and the Founders. This was once true of the BORG as well. The BORG wish to be more powerful than they are. The Dominion threatens the status quo. The Dominion threatens the balance of things. The Dominion wants the GAMMA Quadrant. The BORG don't want them to have it."
"You speak for the BORG?"
"I do," he smiled, "as I once did. Educate, not assimilate. You must agree the BORG are the ...lesser of two evils. Are they not?"
Xana had been almost right. It wasn't a story about the lady and the tiger. It was the story about the tiger and the lion.
-------------------- =/\=
NRPG: The BORG are back. Just in case all you newbies didn't know it, the GATE actually has a BORG embassy on it. Tomas' once served as its Junior Consul. There is a sizeable presence in the GAMMA Quadrant, especially ships. And as we all know, the BORG are not limited to warp space. But what could the price for their help be? And what has Tomas' become? Is this the answer to the GATE's problems? Or are more troubles coming? Jerome, hope I didn't spoil anything, but you actually gave me this idea. So there. LOL.
--------------------- =/\=
Kenneth Field
envision_at_fidalgo.net
aka Commander Gene McInnis
CNS/GS-2
aka Lt. JG Mowree Nurunyon
aCNS/GS-2
aka Tomas' Alexei Vukovic
Former Chief of Staff to Ambassador Xana Bonviva
currently with the BORG
aka Maury R. Tee
Professor of English (Retired)
Proprietor of "Impulse Drives,"
a little shop of horrors
GS-2, Promenade
"To gently lie and prove the lie true ... everything is finally a promise ... what
seems a lie is ramshackle need, wishing to be born." -- Ray Bradbury
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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