"Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no," muttered Llane, his pulse quickening in his chest. "Oh, no. Not them. Anyone but them. Please, not them."
But despite his plea the voice echoed over again, instilling fear and panic into the delegates. Thjoran scowled and leapt off his chair onto the table. He sprinted across it and slid swiftly off the end, dropping next to Llane at the far end.
"Llane!" Thjoran roared, holding up the tiny Norn. But Llane was shaking all over, memories of the invasion flooding back. "Snap out of it, Llane!"
"I... can't... Resistance... is futile," mumbled Llane miserably. Thjoran bellowed with rage, a wordless war cry.
"I am Jotun! Resistance is fatal!"
He gave Llane a little shake, but the Norn was still in a world of his won. Exasperated, he handed Llane over to Frei.
"Keep an eye on him. I'm off to the Armoury. Tell the others to meet me there. Keep the dignitaries safe at all costs."
"Sir, yes sir!" Frei replied, saluting with a free arm. She lay Llane down on his chair and whistled sharply to get the attention of the other ambassadors.
"Listen up!" Frei yelled. "I want you all to stay calm! There is nothing to be afraid of!"
Her comm beeped, and she opened it. The face of Lokain, the senior Engineer, was there. "They're broken though the aft-three shield, near your location. Be wary," he said. Frei sighed.
"Just great," she muttered, and opened small compartments in her legs. Reaching inside, she pulled out two large pistols. Llane gave a small giggle from his chair.
"Those will never work. They adapt too fast. And they keep coming, wave after wave after..."
He broke down into huge sobs of anguish, and Frei sighed. The rest of the delegates were calmer now there was an armed robot present. Some of the delegates had drawn their own weapons, which barely surprised Frei. Most delegates came armed to peaceful conferences. It was a surprise if they weren't armed.
Intare's support suit had sprouted small plasma cannon turrets, flamethrowers and hyperbeam guns. Armoured plates now covered his body and face, and Frei wouldn't be surprised if it now did more than just allow him to move under one gee.
The holopresence of the Pollonean didn't look armed, being a light matrix, but Frei guessed it was now tuned to also project lasers. It still looked harmless, almost defenceless, but behind that was white hot death.
Arcturus was looking rather relaxed, as he had done since the Borg first announced their presence. Being made of energy, matters of matter didn't matter to him. The Borg Norns would spend a while trying to assimilate him, and then they would get bored and go away. He was perfectly safe, but Frei knew he was silently devising a way of ridding Port 5 of the Borg.
Her comm beeped again, and this time it was Thjoran. "There's about twenty or thirty cubes out there, more than we've ever faced before. And they're still arriving. Expect some boarders soon."
A shimmer of green light announced the presence of a single drone. It turned jerkily to face the delegates, and was met by a wall of fire and death. In under a second it had been reduced to a puddle of red-hot metal eating away at the floor.
Frei lowered her pistol and smiled to herself. The other delegates hadn't even noticed it before she had shot it, and were half-pointing their weapons at the puddle, wary of any more that might arrive. There was a small cough from the chair next to her. Llane was peering over the table, staring at the puddle.
"That... That was a drone."
"It was indeed. Now it's scrap metal," said Frei. "If they were civilised, I'd make them pay for the damage to the floor. That's Bakan marble, you know."
"That was a drone," he repeated.
"Yes, I know."
"You shot it with one gun."
"I did," replied Frei smugly. "Not a bad shot. Between the eyes, not that you can tell."
"It melted."
"Yes, it melted all right. We do have more advanced technology than you, or don't you remember?"
"Melted into a puddle," Llane said dreamily.
"Are you listening to me, Captain?"
"Puddle," he replied. Frei sighed and slapped him round the face. Llane blinked and shook himself. After a while he found his voice.
"I need a gun," he said, a dark glint in his eye. He wasn't afraid anymore. He was after revenge.
Thjoran opened the door to the command centre and strode over to the central console. He flipped open a small hatch covered a large red button. He thumped it and lights suddenly began their dance across the silent dark consoles.
"Weapons armed," the computer said. "Awaiting command."
"Cycle through defence routines to repel alien threat," said Thjoran.
"Activate internal security?"
"Yes. Key to Borg signal."
"Activated external defence. Activated internal security. Further orders?"
"No further orders," said Thjoran, and walked out of the room. The door whirred and slammed shut behind him. He entered the lift and keyed in floor seven. The Armoury.
"Where did Thjoran go?" Llane asked, looking around.
"The Armoury. Floor seven," replied Frei. "I'm just about to go myself, seeing as these guys can take care of themselves now. Want to tag along?"
"Which room on floor seven?"
Frei laughed loudly and set off down the corridor to the lift. "Which room? Oh, that's priceless," she muttered. Llane stood back in the conference room for a moment, then ran after her.
Frei punched the button as soon as Llane was inside the lift. The lift went smoothly down, and stopped after a brief moment. The doors opened, and Llane's crew were there, wide-eyed with terror.
"Captain-!" Began one, but stopped and dashed inside the lift. A series of green shimmers behind them announced the arrival of several Borg Norn drones. Frei took them all out with one blast, and punched the button marked with the rune for seven.
The lift went down and opened its doors again. Thjoran and the other Jotun were there along with Odin, the cook. The entire room was full of racks and shelves of weapons, and was at least twice the size of the conference room.
"Grab a weapon," said Thjoran gruffly. "The computer's dealing with the cubes out there. Status!"
"Two enemy craft destroyed. Twenty three remaining. Shield strength dropping. Eight further craft have just arrived in the system," replied the computer's emotionless voice. Thjoran cursed harshly in Jotun.
"Change of orders. Get two weapons, shields and armour. We're dealing with a mass invasion here which looks like it'll make Albia seem like a walk in the park. Llane! Catch this!" Thjoran said, and threw a shiny ball at the Norn. He caught it in both hands and looked at it. It was silver coloured, slightly warm, totally featureless apart from a black button.
"What is it?"
"Armour. Press the button," said Frei, slinging a huge pulse rifle over her shoulder.
Llane shrugged and pressed the button. It disappeared and the globe began to melt, coating his hands with metallic liquid. It spread faster and faster, covered his entire body and spread over his face. He felt suffocated, and opened his mouth. To his surprise, he didn't feel it pour down his throat and into his guts. Instead, it seemed to have stopped. He tried breathing through his nose, and found it was clear.
He turned and saw a mirror on a wall nearby. Stepping in front of it, he didn't recognise what looked back. He looked like he was wearing a suit of armour, but it was skintight and flowed with his movements. He spotted a small gun on a shelf nearby and reached out to take it. When he touched it, the suit pulled it in and it became part of the suit.
Liquid Armour, more commonly known as an APEsuit," said Thjoran, activating a similar orb. It flowed swiftly over his body and transformed him. The weapons he was already carrying merged with the suit. "Attack Performance Enhancing Suit, to be exact."
"How do I fire?" Llane asked.
"Thought impulses. Think, and it'll happen," said another Jotun, sporting two huge guns on his arms and another on his back. "But don't do it in here."
Thjoran threw something else to Llane, who grabbed it out of the air. It slid across the surface of his suit and set in place on his chest. It blinked on, and suddenly Llane was surrounded by a globe of green light.
"Shield. Touch the generator to toggle on and off," said Thjoran. "The suit can also do camouflage. Just think it."
Llane thought, and turned to the mirror. He was almost invisible. He could only see himself by the slight lag between the camouflage and his movement.
He turned and saw his crew were also wearing the strange APEsuits. Some had the shields as well, and most were armed with whatever weapons they could take.
"The APEsuit will also protect you from assimilation as well," said Frei. "Because it's made from altered Borg Norn nanoprobes."
Llane almost choked, but tried to keep a rational mind. Wearing an APEsuit wasn't the same as being a Borg Norn. They were different, changed. It was nothing to be scared of.
Who was he kidding? He found the whole thing mortifying. But the sooner the Borg were destroyed the sooner he could get this damn APEsuit off.
"Two forward! Beta Nine!" Thjoran bellowed, and the Jotun behind him rolled out into the corridor, pointing his gun from side to side. He fired twice and two drones dissolved into dust.
"All clear!"
"Eight three seven! Take point! Clear a path! Gamma Five!" Thjoran roared out, and three Jotun dashed through the door leading to the mess hall and opened fire on the drones there. One bowed slightly and fired a salvo of rockets from his back. They erupted in an inferno that scorched the corners of the room. Thjoran nodded to himself, and raised his fist at a stray drone that had just teleported in. An energy blast reduced it to a smear on the wall.
Llane's weapons weren't as highly destructive as the Jotun's, mainly because he was half their size. But he did have speed on his side. The APEsuit seemed to enhance his speed and agility, allowing him to leap from corridor to corridor faster than he'd ever done in his life without feeling short of breath.
He sprang from the floor and grabbed onto a pipe far above his head. He swung from pipe to pipe like a puzzle chimp in the jungle, and opened up an air vent with his foot. He slipped inside, worked his way through, and leapt out on the other side of a locked door. He punched the code into the keypad and the door hissed open. The Jotun and Llane's crew trooped inside quickly.
"Good work," said Thjoran. "We've got to get to engineering to get the shields working again. After that, it'll be a simple clean up."
"I didn't think the words 'clean up' went with a Borg invasion," mumbled Llane. "But it's high time they should."
Gradually they made their way back to the conference chamber, which was looking far worse for wear. The table had been flipped on its side, and hundreds of large, flaming craters littered the floors, walls and ceiling.
Intare's spindly frame, bulked out by armour, greeted them with a barrage of fire which bounced off their shields. Thjoran sighed.
"What does the Associative think of violence, Intare?"
"The Borg are not ssahothi, Thjoran," replied Intare, spreading his arms out wide. "They are not like you are me. How can one be said to be a culture when they know not of art or music? They are dangerous, mad animals to be hunted."
"The most dangerous enemy, Intare, is one who knows what atrocities they are committing," said Thjoran. Intare bobbed his head slowly.
"You are referring to the othshai, the twisted parody of all that is ssahothi. The ones whose art and music is the bloodshed and death screams of battle. The ones who can brutally murder ten million unarmed beings and think nothing of what they have done. The dark, perverted shadow of all life, whose passion is the death and pain."
"The Ljynii," said Thjoran. Intare shivered in fear, revulsion, rage and other, more alien, emotions.
"The murderers," he replied. "They butchered my kind. My family. My brother."