He Came From Outer Space 5/6
Title: From One Royal to Another
Author: diabolicalfiend , betaed by transgenic_girl
Characters/Pairing: Everyone from Tin Man, Hawk and The Borg Queen.
Rating: G
Summary: Into the lion's den so to speak.
Warning: Post series/film. Assimilation's fairly scary.
Disclaimer: I don't own Tin Man or Star Trek, alas. Happy Birthday, Brent.
Word Count: 1832
When they arrived at the camp, all that was left was a few battered tents and everything was trampled as if a herd of elephants had stampeded through. But there was no sign of the Borg.
“Doesn’t look like anybody else survived,” Jeb remarked.
“M… maybe they ran off. Those things aren’t really all that fast.”
Cain snorted at Zero’s remark. “Perhaps,” Hawk replied seriously. He was looking at the tracks, coming from various directions. Obviously due to their chasing the Longcoats.
“Looks like they came from that direction.”
“They just walked in,” Zero agreed.
“Where’s the nearest look out point?” Hawk asked Zero, walking that direction. Zero pointed up a tree. Hawk shimmied up it and looked through his binoculars, his scanner on his lap. “I got them.”
“What… what are they doing?”
“Building.” Hawk frowned and switched the binoculars with his scanner. He worked out it.
Jeb got impatient and climbed up beside him, using his own binoculars. “I know what that is…” he frowned.
Hawk looked at him. “Jeb?”
Jeb shook his head. “I dunno…”
“What does your device tell you?” Azkadellia asked.
“Some kind of weather machine,” he replied, sounding bewildered. “The ideal temperature for Borg is a good deal warmer and humid than this but… it doesn’t seem an efficient use of their time.”
“The Borg equal efficiency…” Zero murmured, to himself, looking around at the battered tents.
“Weather machine… wind machine,” Cain realised.
Hawk shrugged. “Wind, humidity…”
“Wind as in tornados.”
“Tornadoes,” Azkadellia repeated. Jeb joined in.
“Hi!” Hawk waved. “Out-of-towner here. I could use a translation.”
“We travel from here to the Other Side using what we call a Travel Storm.”
Hawk gave a bitter laugh. “The sons of a bitches are finishing the job,” he growled. He jumped out of the tree. “Let’s get moving.”
“What? We’re.. we’re just going to walk in there?” Zero demanded.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“That’s suicide.”
“They’ll ignore us until they consider a threat.”
“Oh and what’ll that take?”
“Shooting them. And blowing them up.”
“We could walk in and they’ll just ignore us?”
“Stay here if you want.” Hawk moved off.
Zero growled but followed him. “If he dies, don’t expect me to rescue him,” Cain whispered to Azkadellia.
“We should catch up,” she said, moving to do so.
Hawk would be lying if he said he didn’t feel absolutely petrified at approaching the… Travel Storm generator. Like a perverted tree, with black ants working around and inside, throbbing with sick energy. But that’s good, he told himself. That’s what makes you ‘you’ and not ‘them’. Feelings, emotions. Fear.
“You really sure?” Zero asked him, making sure Hawk was between him and those things. Hawk didn’t respond, looking behind instead, to see if the others were following.
When they caught up with them, he nodded at Cain’s trepidation. “Trust me.” Cain gave him a dubious look but finally nodded. “I suggest only a small group go in, in case…”
“You’re going in,” he told Zero in no uncertain terms.
“I was planning to,” he growled back. Well, he is now.
Hawk put a stilling hand on him. “We go in, do a little recon and come out. Let’s not do anything aggressive, ok?”
“Zero, if you get us…”
“Then you’ll truly understand each other,” Hawk cut in. “When your thoughts are one.” Without giving either a chance to retort, he surged on inside. Zero waved the others on ahead. Well, until Cain glared at him and shoved him forward.
The first thing Cain noticed was the heat. Humid too. He immediately started to sweat. The Witch’s Tower was hot too but Cain figured that had something to do with steam and it didn’t look like that how things were done here. The sounds of the place were different, much eerier than the Tower.
The décor didn’t help. It was this sickly green against metallic black and as they got deeper, he started seeing drones lining the corridors. They just stood there, their eyes shut. Of course, the ones who were moving didn’t soothe him any.
Occasionally, one of them would look at them, his eyes wide but empty, but then just push past them and continue walking down the corridor. They froze when they started to hear the screams.
“No anaesthetic,” Hawk explained, though his voice was thick with emotion.
“We have to help them,” Azkadellia whispered.
“We can’t. I doubt it’s escaped your notice how outnumbered we are, Highness,” Hawk replied. “They’ll swarm on us if we interfere.”
“There must be something we can do.”
“Kill them quick,” Zero suggested.
“That may be the only choice we’ll have,” Hawk admitted.
Azkadellia didn’t like to hear that, but she remained silent, preferring to think. There had to be a way. If the Witch taught her anything, it was careful planning would pay off. If it hadn’t been for DG, her distraction, even Cain and the others would have been just a minor inconvenience. “We need to see the Queen,” she decided.
That caused Hawk stop. He stared at her for a few moments. “She was killed…” He heard the scream as she died, didn’t he?
“You don’t sound too sure.”
“I’m thinking in three dimensional terms…” he murmured.
“Yeah! I hate when I do that!” Zero remarked.
“Shut up,” Cain told him. He approached Hawk, who looked at him. “You said you could hear them. All the voices.”
Hawk shook his head. “Too many. Too strong. I can’t hear what they’re saying.”
“Stop. Stop figuring out what they’re saying - it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it matters…”
“Doesn’t matter, ok? Doesn’t matter. Hear the sounds they make. Who’s in charge?”
“Who’s in charge…”
“Concentrate, Séan. Hear the sounds.”
Hawk shut his eyes. “She’s alive,” he sounded sick.
“Where?”
“That way,” he pointed. “Hold on. Wandering about here is bad enough, but, if you head for the Queen, they’ll consider that alone to be a hostile act.”
“And then our thoughts will be one,” Zero said.
“I’m not looking forward to that,” Jeb admitted.
“I can mask us,” Azkadellia volunteered.
“They’d be able to detect the energy,” Hawk shook his head.
“I was thinking about that,” Azkadellia agreed. “And I’ve been reaching out to see what energy they use. I think I can match it.”
“We should test your theory. Mask yourself and I’ll see if I can see you.”
“All right.”
She disappeared from his view. Hawk picked up his scanner and smiled. “Looks like this could work.”
“Excellent,” she said. He could see her again, she was smiling. “Ready when you are.”
“Proceed,” he replied. “Though we’d have to be quiet.”
Things seemed safer under Azkadellia’s spell. Though every time Zero worked his way into the middle, closer to Azkadellia, one or other of the Cains pulled him out. If Azkadellia was to falter, they had no qualms about having him be the first victim.
“Unimatrix One,” Hawk whispered, when they finally arrived at a door.
“Where the Queen lives?” Jeb asked.
“Uh… how do we get in?” Zero asked. “Won’t they notice the door opening?”
“They will.” They looked around them. At least three drones were close by, and there were plenty more where that came from. “I’ll have to be quick.”
“And our aim will have to be sure,” Cain nodded. “Princess, keep your shield up. We could use all help we can get.” Jeb and the two others raised their weapons. Zero moved back in the group, weapon less. Cain nodded at Hawk, who went to a panel and used his tubules on it.
The effect wasn’t immediate, several tense seconds passed before the door opened. The reaction to that was immediate. Drones popped out from all directions, including up. The area filled with bright flashes and loud bangs. They retreated into the chamber.
Once inside the doors, the attack stopped. No more drones came forward and the guns went silent. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
“I know you’re there,” a feminine voice spoke, amused. At Cain’s nod, Azkadellia dropped the shield. “Nice to see you.”
Cain was the first to speak. “Why, uh, don’t you return the favour?”
A soft hiss was his response. They looked up to the roof and saw black pipes snake across and as one slipped into a hole in the roof. While this was happening some kind of suit emerged. As the pipes reappeared, it became apparent that it wasn’t a suit.
“I’m going to be sick…” Zero remarked as her spine wiggled beneath her. The head and shoulders was placed into the waiting body. Really sharp looking hooks dug right into the skin of her shoulders as she settled inside. “Oh, Gods!”
“Is there a problem, Zero?” she purred, approaching him.
He stepped back. “Nope. No problem.”
“I can remove that human vanity, if you like,” she insisted.
“I like my vanity,” he murmured, his head down.
“Stop!” Azkadellia ordered.
The Queen’s alien eyes flashed as she looked at her. “From one queen to another? What brings you here? Aside from bringing my family home,” she gave Hawk a warm smile.
“You are not my family,” Hawk snarled, raising his weapon. The Queen barely moved but a host of drones converged on them.
“Hey, there buddy!” Zero’s voice was high with fear. “Let’s not put the gun at the nice lady!”
“Shut up, Zero,” Cain growled.
“I don’t want to be killed.”
“We’re here,” Azkadellia interrupted. “Because we’re going to stop you.”
“Stop me? My drones number in the hundreds and are growing,” she replied, which made them think of those left outside. Were they ok?
“You heard me.” Though in truth, she had no real idea about how she was going to win. But she was getting angry.
The Queen just smirked at her before returning her attention to Hawk. His hand went up to his head and he screamed. “NO!” He collapsed to the floor. He shook his head, trying to shake her off. “My name… is Séan Thomas Hawk, Lieutenant, serial number… Ah! Starfleet…” The others, aside from Zero, tried to get to him. The drones stood impassively in their way. “Parents names: Luanne and…”
“Damien,” the Queen finished. “Born in the Vegas colony 2348...” By now, Hawk was whispering in tune.
“NO!” That was Azkadellia. “Not again,” she murmured, her eyes snapping shut. A light shone and everyone screamed.
Eventually, the blinding light faded. There was a lot of murmuring while sight returned slowly. Even through the lingering shade of green cast over everything, Cain gasped at what he saw.
The Borg were gone. Now they were surrounded by people, not an ounce circuitry between them. There was a mask on the floor. Only it wasn’t a mask. It was the skin covering the Borg Queen’s face.
Azkadellia! The girl herself was collapsed on the ground, cradled by a restored Hawk, who was in tears over her body. Cain moved to join them and checked for a pulse. She was alive, barely.
Author: diabolicalfiend , betaed by transgenic_girl
Characters/Pairing: Everyone from Tin Man, Hawk and The Borg Queen.
Rating: G
Summary: Into the lion's den so to speak.
Warning: Post series/film. Assimilation's fairly scary.
Disclaimer: I don't own Tin Man or Star Trek, alas. Happy Birthday, Brent.
Word Count: 1832
When they arrived at the camp, all that was left was a few battered tents and everything was trampled as if a herd of elephants had stampeded through. But there was no sign of the Borg.
“Doesn’t look like anybody else survived,” Jeb remarked.
“M… maybe they ran off. Those things aren’t really all that fast.”
Cain snorted at Zero’s remark. “Perhaps,” Hawk replied seriously. He was looking at the tracks, coming from various directions. Obviously due to their chasing the Longcoats.
“Looks like they came from that direction.”
“They just walked in,” Zero agreed.
“Where’s the nearest look out point?” Hawk asked Zero, walking that direction. Zero pointed up a tree. Hawk shimmied up it and looked through his binoculars, his scanner on his lap. “I got them.”
“What… what are they doing?”
“Building.” Hawk frowned and switched the binoculars with his scanner. He worked out it.
Jeb got impatient and climbed up beside him, using his own binoculars. “I know what that is…” he frowned.
Hawk looked at him. “Jeb?”
Jeb shook his head. “I dunno…”
“What does your device tell you?” Azkadellia asked.
“Some kind of weather machine,” he replied, sounding bewildered. “The ideal temperature for Borg is a good deal warmer and humid than this but… it doesn’t seem an efficient use of their time.”
“The Borg equal efficiency…” Zero murmured, to himself, looking around at the battered tents.
“Weather machine… wind machine,” Cain realised.
Hawk shrugged. “Wind, humidity…”
“Wind as in tornados.”
“Tornadoes,” Azkadellia repeated. Jeb joined in.
“Hi!” Hawk waved. “Out-of-towner here. I could use a translation.”
“We travel from here to the Other Side using what we call a Travel Storm.”
Hawk gave a bitter laugh. “The sons of a bitches are finishing the job,” he growled. He jumped out of the tree. “Let’s get moving.”
“What? We’re.. we’re just going to walk in there?” Zero demanded.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“That’s suicide.”
“They’ll ignore us until they consider a threat.”
“Oh and what’ll that take?”
“Shooting them. And blowing them up.”
“We could walk in and they’ll just ignore us?”
“Stay here if you want.” Hawk moved off.
Zero growled but followed him. “If he dies, don’t expect me to rescue him,” Cain whispered to Azkadellia.
“We should catch up,” she said, moving to do so.
Hawk would be lying if he said he didn’t feel absolutely petrified at approaching the… Travel Storm generator. Like a perverted tree, with black ants working around and inside, throbbing with sick energy. But that’s good, he told himself. That’s what makes you ‘you’ and not ‘them’. Feelings, emotions. Fear.
“You really sure?” Zero asked him, making sure Hawk was between him and those things. Hawk didn’t respond, looking behind instead, to see if the others were following.
When they caught up with them, he nodded at Cain’s trepidation. “Trust me.” Cain gave him a dubious look but finally nodded. “I suggest only a small group go in, in case…”
“You’re going in,” he told Zero in no uncertain terms.
“I was planning to,” he growled back. Well, he is now.
Hawk put a stilling hand on him. “We go in, do a little recon and come out. Let’s not do anything aggressive, ok?”
“Zero, if you get us…”
“Then you’ll truly understand each other,” Hawk cut in. “When your thoughts are one.” Without giving either a chance to retort, he surged on inside. Zero waved the others on ahead. Well, until Cain glared at him and shoved him forward.
The first thing Cain noticed was the heat. Humid too. He immediately started to sweat. The Witch’s Tower was hot too but Cain figured that had something to do with steam and it didn’t look like that how things were done here. The sounds of the place were different, much eerier than the Tower.
The décor didn’t help. It was this sickly green against metallic black and as they got deeper, he started seeing drones lining the corridors. They just stood there, their eyes shut. Of course, the ones who were moving didn’t soothe him any.
Occasionally, one of them would look at them, his eyes wide but empty, but then just push past them and continue walking down the corridor. They froze when they started to hear the screams.
“No anaesthetic,” Hawk explained, though his voice was thick with emotion.
“We have to help them,” Azkadellia whispered.
“We can’t. I doubt it’s escaped your notice how outnumbered we are, Highness,” Hawk replied. “They’ll swarm on us if we interfere.”
“There must be something we can do.”
“Kill them quick,” Zero suggested.
“That may be the only choice we’ll have,” Hawk admitted.
Azkadellia didn’t like to hear that, but she remained silent, preferring to think. There had to be a way. If the Witch taught her anything, it was careful planning would pay off. If it hadn’t been for DG, her distraction, even Cain and the others would have been just a minor inconvenience. “We need to see the Queen,” she decided.
That caused Hawk stop. He stared at her for a few moments. “She was killed…” He heard the scream as she died, didn’t he?
“You don’t sound too sure.”
“I’m thinking in three dimensional terms…” he murmured.
“Yeah! I hate when I do that!” Zero remarked.
“Shut up,” Cain told him. He approached Hawk, who looked at him. “You said you could hear them. All the voices.”
Hawk shook his head. “Too many. Too strong. I can’t hear what they’re saying.”
“Stop. Stop figuring out what they’re saying - it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it matters…”
“Doesn’t matter, ok? Doesn’t matter. Hear the sounds they make. Who’s in charge?”
“Who’s in charge…”
“Concentrate, Séan. Hear the sounds.”
Hawk shut his eyes. “She’s alive,” he sounded sick.
“Where?”
“That way,” he pointed. “Hold on. Wandering about here is bad enough, but, if you head for the Queen, they’ll consider that alone to be a hostile act.”
“And then our thoughts will be one,” Zero said.
“I’m not looking forward to that,” Jeb admitted.
“I can mask us,” Azkadellia volunteered.
“They’d be able to detect the energy,” Hawk shook his head.
“I was thinking about that,” Azkadellia agreed. “And I’ve been reaching out to see what energy they use. I think I can match it.”
“We should test your theory. Mask yourself and I’ll see if I can see you.”
“All right.”
She disappeared from his view. Hawk picked up his scanner and smiled. “Looks like this could work.”
“Excellent,” she said. He could see her again, she was smiling. “Ready when you are.”
“Proceed,” he replied. “Though we’d have to be quiet.”
Things seemed safer under Azkadellia’s spell. Though every time Zero worked his way into the middle, closer to Azkadellia, one or other of the Cains pulled him out. If Azkadellia was to falter, they had no qualms about having him be the first victim.
“Unimatrix One,” Hawk whispered, when they finally arrived at a door.
“Where the Queen lives?” Jeb asked.
“Uh… how do we get in?” Zero asked. “Won’t they notice the door opening?”
“They will.” They looked around them. At least three drones were close by, and there were plenty more where that came from. “I’ll have to be quick.”
“And our aim will have to be sure,” Cain nodded. “Princess, keep your shield up. We could use all help we can get.” Jeb and the two others raised their weapons. Zero moved back in the group, weapon less. Cain nodded at Hawk, who went to a panel and used his tubules on it.
The effect wasn’t immediate, several tense seconds passed before the door opened. The reaction to that was immediate. Drones popped out from all directions, including up. The area filled with bright flashes and loud bangs. They retreated into the chamber.
Once inside the doors, the attack stopped. No more drones came forward and the guns went silent. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
“I know you’re there,” a feminine voice spoke, amused. At Cain’s nod, Azkadellia dropped the shield. “Nice to see you.”
Cain was the first to speak. “Why, uh, don’t you return the favour?”
A soft hiss was his response. They looked up to the roof and saw black pipes snake across and as one slipped into a hole in the roof. While this was happening some kind of suit emerged. As the pipes reappeared, it became apparent that it wasn’t a suit.
“I’m going to be sick…” Zero remarked as her spine wiggled beneath her. The head and shoulders was placed into the waiting body. Really sharp looking hooks dug right into the skin of her shoulders as she settled inside. “Oh, Gods!”
“Is there a problem, Zero?” she purred, approaching him.
He stepped back. “Nope. No problem.”
“I can remove that human vanity, if you like,” she insisted.
“I like my vanity,” he murmured, his head down.
“Stop!” Azkadellia ordered.
The Queen’s alien eyes flashed as she looked at her. “From one queen to another? What brings you here? Aside from bringing my family home,” she gave Hawk a warm smile.
“You are not my family,” Hawk snarled, raising his weapon. The Queen barely moved but a host of drones converged on them.
“Hey, there buddy!” Zero’s voice was high with fear. “Let’s not put the gun at the nice lady!”
“Shut up, Zero,” Cain growled.
“I don’t want to be killed.”
“We’re here,” Azkadellia interrupted. “Because we’re going to stop you.”
“Stop me? My drones number in the hundreds and are growing,” she replied, which made them think of those left outside. Were they ok?
“You heard me.” Though in truth, she had no real idea about how she was going to win. But she was getting angry.
The Queen just smirked at her before returning her attention to Hawk. His hand went up to his head and he screamed. “NO!” He collapsed to the floor. He shook his head, trying to shake her off. “My name… is Séan Thomas Hawk, Lieutenant, serial number… Ah! Starfleet…” The others, aside from Zero, tried to get to him. The drones stood impassively in their way. “Parents names: Luanne and…”
“Damien,” the Queen finished. “Born in the Vegas colony 2348...” By now, Hawk was whispering in tune.
“NO!” That was Azkadellia. “Not again,” she murmured, her eyes snapping shut. A light shone and everyone screamed.
Eventually, the blinding light faded. There was a lot of murmuring while sight returned slowly. Even through the lingering shade of green cast over everything, Cain gasped at what he saw.
The Borg were gone. Now they were surrounded by people, not an ounce circuitry between them. There was a mask on the floor. Only it wasn’t a mask. It was the skin covering the Borg Queen’s face.
Azkadellia! The girl herself was collapsed on the ground, cradled by a restored Hawk, who was in tears over her body. Cain moved to join them and checked for a pulse. She was alive, barely.