Port 5

Part 2

Before Llane floated a ghastly ethereal apparition, wrapped in a shroud of half-solid pale mist. Its body and limbs were thin and almost skeletal, with eyes recessed into their sockets. It raised a wraith-like hand and reached out towards him.

He staggered back and watched as Frei handed the creature a small orb. It blurred in the creature's grip and faded away. Immediately the limbs and body began to thicken, as the shadowy flesh began to appear to grow back. A quiet hiss from its mouth began to form into words.

"Sssssssthat's much better, thank you. I think the jump gate disagreed with me. Must have been the energy frequency."

"Oh, no problem at all your Excellency. It's our pleasure. May I introduce Captain Llane of the Albian Federation?"

"A federation of one planet?"

"Six now, and our moon. Colonies, you see," said Llane, slightly uncertain of what to make of the apparition.

"Ah. And how long have you been in space?"

"Thirty years now, I think."

"Good, good, excellent," said the figure. It was harder to think of him as an it now, as he looked completely alive. Long, white hair flowed down past his shoulders, and his face was full of fine, if alien, features.

"Er, thank you," mutter Llane.

"Captain is the rank of your ambassadors, is it?"

"Well, no, not really. I'm sort of an honourary ambassador because of my experience with the Jotun."

"Which experience?"

"During the Borg invasion of Albia. My ship was critically damaged and my crew and I were rescued by a Jotun warship. The, uh, 'Maul of Kacer' if I remember correctly."

"Good, good," said the alien. "Oh, how rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. You may call me Arcturus, and I am ambassador to the Others."

"Arcturus... That's a star," said Llane.

"It is indeed. My true name cannot be pronounced in this dimension, which is a pity. It's very poetic, if I do say so myself," sighed Arcturus, and glided away.

"Dimension?" Llane asked quietly.

"The Others are a trans-dimensional species which have lived for around eighty five million of our years. They are a very theoretical people, as in their dimension there is no matter to build with."

"Oh, I see what you mean now," said Oya. Frei smiled and swept an arm towards the corridor, beckoning the Norns to follow her.

"This way, please. The opening negotiations will be taking place shortly."

"Negotiations for what? The Jotun own everything," grumbled Nik. Llane shot him a harsh glance.

"Believe it or not, you actually own the planets you live on. Albia, Olympia, Terra Nornia, Hades, Avalon and Elyssia. Some of these world were expressly rebuilt and set aside for Nornir use by the Empire," Frei said, a bit sharply. Nik snorted.

"We could have done that ourselves."

"Oh, excuse me," said Frei icily, "I'm sure you could rid an entire planet of over eighty five billion Borg Norns."

Nik raised a finger and opened his mouth, but then stormed off. Oya sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but Nik has always been like this."

"Oh, forget it," said Frei. "I've dealt with tougher than him. A year or so back a Trz'ak'on diplomat tried to tear my head off for just being a robot. That's how I met my husband, you know."

"Erm.. How?"

"Oh, Odin crept up behind the diplomat and forcefully removed his head. I was all thankful, he was so modest," said Frei. She trailed off and sighed. "He's a marvelous cook as well, you know. He cooks here for us all."

Llane's mind briefly conjured up the memory of a voice, heavy with accent, from the mess hall. He nodded vaguely.

"Well, I suppose we'd best be going to the talks now, Captain," said Oya. Llane blinked.

"What? Oh, yes. We're deciding new rules for our section of space, right?"

"Close enough," Oya muttered, and followed Llane to the main chamber of the station.

Commander Thjoran sat imperially at the head of the huge, oval table, in a giant chair his runes carved delicately into the smooth grey metal. The other delegates sat in similar chairs, though not as ornate as Thjoran's. Llane scanned the room, and was mildly amazed by the variety of aliens. Arcturus, the Other, floated an inch or so above his chair. Kreeeln sat hunched and brooding, his massive eyes flicking this way and that as he looked around too.

There were many aliens Llane had not seen, either, some smaller than he, others far larger. One was merely a hologram, projected inside a flickering light matrix. Llane leaned over to Frei and whisper quietly to her.

"Who's that?"

"That's the Pollonean representative. They're currently in their ship, communicating through that hologram," Frei replied. Her voice wasn't exactly a whisper, more like her volume had been turned down.

"Why aren't they here in person?"

"They're eighteen ton, deep-water dwelling cetaceans. They don't mix well, especially not under this weak pressure."

"Ah," said Llane. The hologram looked nothing like a sea creature, though. It had dull blue skin and no facial features. It was blank and expressionless. However, it seemed highly alert.

Thjoran took a small gavel in his hand and rapped it smartly against the table. The room echoed with a low tone from hidden speakers, and the light chatter stopped.

"Delegates," Thjoran began, "you are all here to help... discuss the laws and regions of this sector. A few of you have raised complaints and requests to the Empire. Some of those are conflicting. We are here until they are sorted out."

The hologram inclined its head. Thjoran turned to look at it. "Speak," he said.

"I/We send request to the Empire for greater access to us/they who dwell in the darkness."

Llane looked blank. "Why is he talking like that?" He whispered to Frei.

"Cetaceans have a different way of looking at the universe than us. They don't see two objects as separate, because they are linked by water. It's complex."

"Well," boomed Thjoran, making a small ambassador jump, "deep dwellers like yourself can currently move on planets by way of holopresence, but I understand what you're getting at. Several empty planets will be turned into ocean worlds with full biodiversity."

The room shuddered with a low, yet cheerful note. Thjoran gave a small shiver and smiled.

"I have an issue to raise," said another ambassador. He was as tall as a Jotun, but much thinner and sleeker. He had dark blue mottled skin, with a set of luminous green hedgehog-like spines on his head, like hair.

"Speak," said Thjoran. The alien smiled and nodded, his spines rippling up and down.

"The infestation of the vile alien weed, known as 'kssiss' on its home planet," he said, shooting a black glance at another alien across the table, "is blighting our crops and ruining our national parks. As you have the only access to genetic research and development, perhaps a gengineered virus may help."

"Kssiss," spoke a horned reptilian alien, who had been the recipient of the dark look, "iss not a weed. It is a sstable food ssource."

"For you, perhaps. We cannot ingest the foul things," replied the spined alien. The reptile hissed malevolently. Thjoran banged the gavel again, though a little harder, and a loud note rang in Llane's ears.

"Excuse me, sirs," he boomed, his voice filling the room, "but I will have no insults or arguments here. A virus will be gengineered to rid your planet of the alien plant. If you have any further business..?"

The blue alien rippled his spines for a moment, his eyes focussed hard on the lizard. "No."

"I have nothing further to ssay on the matter either," said the reptile.

"Good," replied Thjoran, allowing himself a slight smile. "Any more business?"

"I wish to-" began a small alien, but a larger diplomat nearby cleared his throats and rose slightly in his seat. Thjoran glared at him and almost threw the gavel at him.

"Speak," he told the small delegate. The alien bobbed her head happily.

"Planning permission for a colony on a planet in our system," he said, "is sought from the Empire."

"Planet size?" Thjoran inquired.

"A Gamma type, gravity is nought point seven gee."

"Very good, permission is granted. I assume a L4 civilisation needs no assistance from the Empire to begin work?"

The tiny alien grinned a wide, sharp-toothed, carnivorous grin. Thjoran shifted in his seat and smiled weakly back.

Llane turned to Frei, who sighed. "She's a Laonel," she said, "carnivores. Their ancestors used to be quite the little empire, though now they're more peaceful. L4 technology, meaning they're on a par with the Empire."

"I have a complaint," said an enormous alien. He was twice the height of Thjoran, but weak and spindly. His long, tapering limbs were supported by a large metal suit. Thjoran turned to him, and smiled warmly.

"Speak, Intare."

Llane was slightly surprised at this show of familiarity from Thjoran. Intare, the alien, smiled back.

"The Associates wish to expand their cities. Our current living space is becoming cramped," Intare said. Thjoran sighed and shook his head.

"How many systems do you have now? Hmmm?"

"The Associates have been ceded twenty-two systems, containing an average of five habitable planets each. However, the Associative grows fast each year. We are running out of room."

Thjoran leant back in his chair, tapping his hands against his chin. This, it seemed, was the first tricky case. Llane had done the calculations in his head, and the Associative, as Intare called his race, seemed to have over one hundred planets.

"Low gravity dwellers," whispered Frei to his unspoken thought. "Can't handle more than a gee at the most. They mostly dwell on moons and small planets, so they have less space than you do."

Arcturus, the Other, let out a sigh that sounded like an angel dying. Intare and Thjoran both turned to look. A smile crept over the Other's features.

"I have the answer," he said. Intare tilted his head to the side, while Thjoran's brow hardened.

"This had better not involve any new universes, Arcturus. The last one was... well, it wasn't very nice."

"No, there will be no new universes. Instead, a solution in this one. Upon hearing this complaint, I began thinking about it, and I have come up with an easy way to build a station like this, but the size of a large moon or small planetoid. Its spin would be able to be adjusted to any gravity you wish. Large fusion jets would allow it to be moved from system to system."

Llane blinked. The station was about a hundred bigger than his ship, but if what Arcturus said was true, the new station would be over ten times the size of Port 5. A megacity in space.

"Naturally large fleets of these could be built, to cope with the largest of population booms," Arcturus continued. Thjoran coughed loudly.

"Arcturus, you and the Others had better come through on this. You've made large mistakes in the past. Do you remember exploding iron? Water which only melted at five hundred degrees? Atoms the size of your head? Hmmm?"

"Minor setbacks, I assure you. This is a very simple thing to do. Exploding iron... was art. Dangerous art, granted, but a masterpiece."

"How do you get iron to explode? Or atoms the size of your head?" Llane asked Frei.

"The Others used to work in small universes they created for experiments, where things are very... different to our universe. They're a bit detached from reality."

"Which one?"

"Ha ha. Ours."

Thjoran opened his mouth to speak, but a dull thud rocked the station, causing Llane to almost fall off his chair. Thjoran turned to look at his gavel and hummed in puzzlement. He raised his head to look at the ambassadors, who were all looking around worriedly.

"Did-?" Llane began, but another, bigger thud made the station move even more. Then a thundering voice, made of a myriad of voices speaking as one, spoke from the hundreds of speakers around the room.

"We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

Chapter 3