STAR TREK - The Fourth Law

Chapter 21

"The ship stopped!" Worf said aboard the Enterprise. "All systems felt, including the defense!"

"Take us closer, Ensign!" ordered William Riker with the intuition that this was the work of Picard.

Aboard the Siegfried, Picard took a step back from the fallen droid and saw the reaction of their colleagues.

"Fascinating!" Murak said. "He used the Robotics Laws to disable the android's positronic brain that was connected to the ship, so the damage extended to it."

But the physical Tetsuo Yoshikawa, a friend of Capitan Rast, felt sick to see his colleague lying on the floor, turned into a lot of pieces now.

Despite that, none of them had time for lamentations. The metal disc cut at the port fell into the cell, exposing Borgs on the other side.

The fleeting moment of victory that was stamped on the faces of admirals disappeared and gave way to a new despair. There were three Borgs entering the hole, and one of them said:

"Resistance is futile!"

Wasting no time, Jean-Luc triggered the communicator of his dress uniform. He knows that the force field that prevented the telecommunications inside the cell was off.

"Enterprise, this is Captain Picard! Do you hear me, Will?"

"Loud and clear, sir!" Riker said.

"Carry all humans on this ship to the Enterprise! Now!"

The time it took for the Enterprise officers to probe Siegfried for life forms other than Borgs seemed like an eternity. Picard and Yoshikawa admirals trapped in the cell bottom, watching the relentless progress of creatures ready to assimilate. The gloom of the cell and eyes equipped with laser sensors Borg made the situation even more frightening. But when the distance between them was little more than a step, the transfer of matter began, making the unassimilated disappear amid a golden luminous cloud.

Picard closed his eyes when the Borg probe close to his face. When he opened them, he was aboard the Enterprise, in the transporter room. The captain of the Enterprise did not have time to enjoy the relief he felt. He confirmed that all had been transported on board the ship, then triggered the communicator.

"Will, destroy that ship!"

The Commander expected in that order. He looked at his fellow Klingon and exclaimed:

"Mr. Worf!"

And he, already with the finger on the button, fired four photon torpedoes, each for the honor of one Bird of Prey that had been destroyed by Siegfried.

The artifacts scratched space and reached directly to disk section and the three engines of prototype class Spiritus, reducing that ship and the Borg inside in a cloud of greenish plasma.

Wasting no time, the USS Enterprise spun on its axis and fired at maximum warp back to the Earth's solar system.

Soon a Borg cube would be there, and they did not get to see it.