Author's Note

I wasn't planning on writing a chapter for this story for some time to come, but I've been getting more messages than normal from people asking for me to do more for this story so I gave in and forced myself to write as best I could.

Joe Lawyer's Co-Author's Note:

Hey guys, as you might have realized from the long break between updates, GothicJedi666's muse for this story has been long absent. At this point, he doesn't feel like he can or wants to continue the story. However, I still love the character we created together and will be continuing it on my own account/profile.

We first published this story back in May of 2016, so it's been a three- and half-year labor of love. It's hard to imagine continuing the story without him, his style and my style gelled very well together, but I'm going to give it my very best effort. So please go on over to my profile on FFN, Joe Lawyer, and follow "The Adventures of Augment Gothic", chapter one should be up right now! I'll be revising and posting the old chapters one by one till we get to chapter 40.

I offer my sincere thanks and heartfelt gratitude to my co-author, GothicJedi666, for years of wonderful storytelling together. It's been an adventure worthy of the amazing character we created together.

Augment Gothic

Part 40

Cruise Ship. Alpha Quadrant.

There are times in your life when you wake up in the middle of the night and somehow just know that something is wrong, or is about to go terribly wrong. Perhaps your sleeping mind is still able to hear something in your environment, or senses something just on the edge of normal perception, or recognizes some dangerous pattern from memory, but it alarms you enough to wake you from a sound sleep with a distinct sense of unease, even alarm, even if you don't know what that thing is. Maybe it was some vestige from humanity's evolution, some ancient sense of danger that kept us alive even when surrounded by far more dangerous predators than ourselves. For me, on this night, it was likely the ship dropping out of warp unexpectedly that alerted me to that fact that not everything was as it should be.

Looking around in the dark room with my genetically enhanced eyes that were strong enough to count individual threads on the carpet, aided further by ultra-advanced sensors that could give you a level of information about the environment that would overwhelm you in irrelevant minutiae, I saw nothing wrong. I didn't even get the sense that I was in danger, but the feeling that something wasn't right stayed with me until my mind put it all together. We weren't supposed to have dropped out of warp for a few more days, yet we'd now come to a complete stop according to my spatial sensors. Ships like this didn't stop unexpectedly.

This vessel was the Ferengi version of an Earth cruise ship from the 20th and 21st century, only in space. The wealthy in this part of the galaxy paid ridiculous amounts of money to be able to travel on this vessel in a level of decadent luxury that even I was shocked by and not just because it was a filled with entertainments both respectable and perverse from all over the quadrant, but to be seen by other important people who they could meet while here. It was all about social standing, being seen and heard here meant you had reached a certain level of wealth and success, or had the equivalent in official power from planetary governments, corporations, or other organizations. Many deals would be made, veritable fortunes made and lost during this trip, I was sure.

Even I had made a very profitable deal with a far-flung independent planet desperate for some of the rare and valuable materials I had brought back from Janus VI in that other dimension, materials that I was slowly releasing into the market as the price was at historical all-time highs. The price I had charged these guys was even higher as I'd included shipment on the Temptress for a whopping 25% upcharge that they were happy to pay. There was even another 25% bonus for quicker delivery. For anyone shipping such valuable materials such a long distance would have added considerable time and expense, given how distant the planet was and the need for high security, but with my slipstream drive, it was essentially all profit.

As for me, I'd ended up on the ship at the request of the owner himself, Grand Nagus Zek, who must have gotten the idea for a cruise ship from human history, because he'd sent it to Deep Space Nine to pick me and a plus one up, specifically. Of course, his elite guests had also gotten the chance to see the wormhole open, which was the official reason for the destination, but the message to me was clear.

Since diverting a gigantic space cruise liner wasn't something even Zek could afford to do on a mere whim, I suspected that he must really, really want me onboard this ship, especially since it was now going directly from DS9 to the Ferengi homeworld for a meeting with him and his people. My advisors were already on route via their own transportation. I figured that this had to do with how the sale of my Omni-tools was doing, even if no one had mentioned it. They must be selling far, far better than expected within Ferengi space and the surrounding sectors if Zek was willing to divert his cruise ship just to pick me up and ensure a meeting would take place. If it hadn't been selling well, there would have been no reason to roll out the red carpet like this and put me on his palatial cruise ship. That itself might have been a power play on his part, showing how wealthy and successful he was, while showering me in gifts and VIP treatment. Shit, he had even put me in his personal suite, aptly named the 'Grand Nagus suite.'

"Get dressed," I ordered T'Maz.

I'd been given two tickets for this trip, so I'd offered all the women in my life a chance for a little luxury trip. I thought they'd fight over it, but only T'Maz had actually wanted to come along. Most of the other ladies, I knew, were still rather upset with me getting unexpectedly married without even warning them, even knowing the circumstances. But even if that hadn't been the case, I doubted that Nerys would have boarded this ship unless I dragged her on into it; she really didn't like the Ferengi. Neither did I really, at least for the most part, but they were extremely useful contacts to have and staying off the station while the women in my life cooled off seemed wise. Refusing my business partner in Zek, would also have been an unwise move without a really good reason for it, especially given the red carpet VIP treatment he'd arranged for me.

As for T'Maz, she'd pointed out that this trip was a chance for two Section 31 agents to gather some information from the who's who of the galaxy, which included many criminals and despotic dictators unfriendly with the Federation, information that could be useful to the organization I sometimes did freelance work for. I'd agreed to this, as I did need a beautiful female on my arm for this trip, as the other powerful figures on the ship all had at least one and I needed to blend in. Plus, Bajor's intelligence network was rather limited at the moment, so I'd be using this trip to expand the network and hopefully make connections with some of the other non-aligned planets and colonies.

My beautiful Vulcan spy was soon dressed, armed, and ready to go. Getting a weapon onboard for her hadn't been incredibly hard, despite prohibitions to that effect, no, on a ship full of Ferengi it simply required bribing the right members of the crew. They were predictable like that. Not that we truly needed her to be armed, considering my armor's abilities, but expectations needed to be met to avoid even greater suspicion and scrutiny. Hell, with the sheer amount of power my micro singularity power cells produced, I could have replicated her a phaser or weapon of her choice. Still, I'd rather she has a weapon for herself on hand.

We started making our way to the engine room to figure out why the ship had stopped, as one of the servers told me that that was the source of the problem, only they couldn't get into the engine room. When we got there I discovered exactly why the crew hadn't simply been able to get inside and fix whatever the problem was. Someone had sealed the doors shut by fusing the metal.

"Someone go and find me a plasma torch!" one of the less useless members of the ship's crew yelled.

There was no need for that as I had my anti-proton blade with me and with a quick slash of my blade I was able to make an entrance into the engineering section.

"Careful, there could be pirates," warned one of the cowardly crew.

The interference from the gigantic engine core itself was playing havoc with my sensors, so I really didn't know how many were around. If they were pirates, I suppose that would make some sense. Not counting what was on the ship in liquid currency, which was a lot considering it had its own casino, some good money could be made by ransoming the guests themselves. However, as it turned out, the people who'd disabled the engines were more Ferengi and one of them was very familiar to me.

"Quark!" I yelled in recognition.

The three unknown Ferengi with him, all red-level threats given the weapons they wore, the situation, and several outstanding arrest warrants by various powers, all wore some kind of matching uniform, suggesting that they were the crew of a vessel or one of the more established mercenary groups. Now they were aiming their weapons at me.

"No, don't kill him!" Quark yelled at the other members of his race. "We need him!"

I had no idea what the bartender was up to now, but I would soon find out. I charged into the engineering section, dropped and then combat rolled, so as to avoid weapons' fire. Sure, my shielding and armor could have easily tanked the damage, it was just that it is never a good idea to let someone shoot you, regardless of your defenses, if you had any other choice, nor to get in that rather bad habit. Right now, my armor was in the form of a pinstriped, three button, single breasted, Armani suit from my time. It still had all the protective properties and capabilities of my armor, even in that form, but I had no desire to advertise that fact.

Moving quickly, I got to my feet just in time to grab the weapon of one of them, broke the arm at the elbow, and using the arm in my grip, shoulder threw the alien over my shoulder. Compared to normal humans the Ferengi were surprisingly strong given their relatively smaller size and cowardly nature, unfortunately, for them, they were still no match for me.

With one down, I grabbed the nearest Ferengi and wrapped my arm around his throat, turning him to face his friends, using him as a shield to block fire from the third alien, despite my improvised shield's shouts to stop. I then threw the stunned or dead person, I didn't care which, at the alien who had just tried to shoot me. They both went down hard and I kicked the alien who'd fired at me in the head hard enough to make sure he wasn't going to get up again any time soon, or possibly ever. My sensors had the answers, I just didn't care to check, my anger was so great.

After making sure that the three Ferengi in uniforms were not getting up anytime soon, I grabbed Quark and lifted him into the air by the throat.

"What did you do?! Has your greed finally overcome your good sense, Quark?" I demanded to know.

He didn't answer right away, stuttering and making other odd noises, even though I was careful to keep my grip loose enough that he could still breathe.

"Where's the nearest airlock?" I asked, after receiving no answer from Quark.

The person who answered that question was one of the crew of this ship, who was already checking out what the hostiles had done to the engines. I began to drag Quark in that direction. I wouldn't actually space the guy, cold-blooded murder wasn't really my style unless it was wartime or the mission explicitly required it, I just needed him scared.

"I was hired to help them find you," Quark admitted.

Carefully, I lowered him back on the deck.

"Tell me everything," I ordered.

Quark pointed desperately at one of the guys who'd been laid out by me. Searching his body I found a bag which contained a very old looking journal.

"There's a world in the neutral zone between the Federation and the Klingon Empire," he answered. "They wanted to take you there."

A neutral zone was a volume of space not claimed by any political power, often created by treaty and as a result of war or to prevent a war or to resolve a war, by establishing a buffer zone and strict borders between spacefaring civilizations, to give them some room for comfort and to avoid accidental or purposeful contact that could result spark a war. In this sense, a neutral zone was somewhat similar to the Demilitarized Zone that existed between the Cardassian Union and the United Federation of Planets.

The one between the Romulan Star Empire and the United Federation of Planets was by far the most well-known and dangerous in the present day, but there had once been another such buffer zone between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. After the Khitomer Accords, free travel was allowed between the two powers and in fact the Empire and the Federation were on very good terms these days. The Federation Neutral Zone, as the Klingons had once called it, still existed, but it was no longer a powder keg waiting to blow and start a war at any moment. It was mostly just an area between the two powers that both were treaty bound from claiming as part of their respective governments.

As for the book, when I opened it, I discovered that it was the journal of an explorer, talking about a discovery he made, something he had called "The Tomb of the Cybernetic Men", a title that sent a cold shiver down my spine. I was reminded of a Doctor Who multipart story with a similar name and while I wouldn't rule out a weird crossover happening here given my own extra-dimensional origins, I suspected that this somehow had something to do with the Borg, who were basically Cybermen rip-offs.

"This journal looks old," I commented. "Why the interest now and what does it have to do with me?"

Quark wisely and quickly explained.

"A complex signal is coming from that planet," he said. "These men, who I barely know, by the way, they made me come here, want whatever technology can be found on that planet. The journal has information on the advanced technology on that world and they thought if they had you then they could get control of the planet. They were going to kill me, General, you know I would never do anything to harm our business relationship."

That really didn't make much sense.

"Why me?" I asked.

My skills would be useful in such a situation, but other than that there was no logic I could see in trying to get me personally involved when they could hire whole teams of willing experts to travel to this planet and plunder it.

"You own the planet," Quark answered.

"I do?" I asked in confusion. It took several long moments to process as I'd not been aware that there was even a possibility that I owned a whole world and yet somehow didn't know about it. Jarvis was quickly connecting to multiple databases to determine if this was true. That would have been a huge oversight on our parts.

"Let me guess, the planet belongs to the Klingon House I just became the head of," I realized, even before Jarvis did, his search now including Klingon databases. Human intuition was a powerful thing, even more so when that human was a Khan-era augment.

Klingon Houses, if they didn't get wiped out, could have very long histories, so it was entirely possible that my House had claimed the planet before the establishment of the Federation/Klingon neutral zone, sometime in the distant past. Despite the creation of a neutral zone between the Empire and the Federation, I could still legally own the planet, it just couldn't be part of the Empire, nor part of the Federation for that matter, and when the neutral zone was really a thing, military vessels could not travel in the zone without the permission of the other side, which was rarely given. Not sure if that was even a thing anymore given the Khitomer Accords.

It was actually a very interesting and unlikely set of legal circumstances. I was a human, but not part of the Federation because of my extra-dimensional origins. I was a Bajoran citizen, but they were an independent planet. Yet they were on track to one day become Federation members. I was head of a Klingon house that owned the planet, but was not, strictly speaking, a Klingon citizen or a member of their military, so a bit of a free agent there too.

The planet's location meant that it would be protected from external intrusion, but neither neighboring interstellar power could actually claim it for themselves or exert their legal authority over it. In other words, it had all the protection of a planet aligned with a larger interstellar civilization by proximity, easy access to both, yet was owned by a human who was, at the same time, somehow part of the Federation (by virtue of being human), independent (by being a Bajoran citizen), and Klingon (by being the head of a Klingon Great House). And neither side could ever claim the planet for themselves. Even if the High Council stripped my house of its status, since they couldn't claim the planet even temporarily to transfer it to another house because of the planet's location in the neutral zone and my being human, it would, in effect, belong to me no matter what happened.

What an incredibly strange set of circumstances to be faced with. This would require more thought.

'Jarvis, have you been able to confirm this?' I asked my ever present VI that lived in my armor's systems over our neural link.

'Sir, as best as I can determine with the databases I have access to in both the Federation and the Empire, this appears to be correct," Jarvis explained.

'How could we not have known I now own a planet? Grilka did not mention anything about the House owning a planet!'

'It's likely she did not know, sir, and may have even been forgotten about by the House. There are few modern records indicating the House's ownership of the planet. It was only after learning of the claim and its relative location that a focused search in the Empire's historical land records revealed several ancillary references to the claim and the Empire's acknowledgement of it. The claim existed long before the formation of the Federation/Klingon neutral zone, and as such, electronic records from that time are fragmented, at best. That long ago, the planet was likely on the extreme edge of Klingon claimed space, years of travel away at the maximum warp of the time. Even today it's still quite distant.'

'And the formation of the neutral zone probably made it even more untenable a position, especially if there wasn't anything otherwise valuable about it,' I posited. I wondered if that was still the case. Those scans were probably taken over a century or two ago, and what substances were valuable or not had changed and evolved with the birth of new technologies and advanced replication.

'Very likely, sir. Would you like me to contact Lady Grilka and ask her to conduct a search of the House's physical records to confirm,' Jarvis asked.

'That's a good idea, Jarvis. Please do. Request scans of any documents she finds and prepare property filings to update our ancient ownership claim with the Empire and the Federation. We may need to prove our ownership of the planet and thus our claim to any technology found there,' I ordered, already thinking several steps ahead. If the Borg were on that planet, their technology would make a great addition to my tech database. Their nanotechnology could advance the evolution of my own nanite network by decades or more.

"T'Maz, please keep him here for me," I instructed my fellow spy. "I want him where I can see him."

If the little troll tried running she'd do something nasty about it and that left me free to quickly go through the journal to see what all the fuss was about, but before I could start reading someone yelled about a Klingon Bird of Prey decloaking.

"Did you sell me out to the Klingons too?" I asked. "I really don't understand this move, Quark, I've been a very profitable business partner for you and you know the safeguards I have in our contracts to make you pay out the nose for any betrayal."

A pained look appeared on Quark's face, but before he could reply, the bartender was beamed away. I suspected the only reason he had done this was because he genuinely feared for his life. I was far, far too valuable a long-term business partner for him to risk our relationship for a short-term profit, especially with all the contractual protections I had in place that I could use against him. And messing with me while onboard the Grand Nagus' ship was similarly unlikely. There was just far too much for him to lose. I'd probably let him off the hook, but there would be a price to pay.

"They are demanding that we turn you over to them," one of the crew let me know.

If they had been able to, I was almost certain that they would have beamed me over to their ship by now, only my armor was specifically designed to prevent anyone from beaming me places I didn't want to be. The localized scattering field my armor projected in my vicinity to prevent a target lock, meant to prevent attackers or bombs from being beamed near to me, should have also stopped Quark from being grabbed, but they must have tagged Quark beforehand.

"Don't worry," I assured the cowering crewmen. "I'll beam over to their ship and talk with their captain."

I'd known that this marriage would bring me all kinds of trouble, I just hadn't realized that it would start this soon.

(Line Break)

The Enterprise. Neutral Zone.

Captain's Log: Upon receiving orders from Starfleet Command we have come to an uninhabited system within the Federation/Klingon neutral zone to investigate a strange signal that is coming from an L-class planet. While the world is not officially part of the Federation or the Klingon Empire, it was once a planet under Klingon rule, as such we will not be alone in this investigation.

"Captain, sensors detect an old D5 cruiser and a bird of prey in orbit of the planet," Worf reported from his station. "They are not reacting to our presence."

This didn't surprise Picard as the Klingons had known that the Federation would send a ship. The planet was legally owned by a Klingon House, but it was in the neutral zone between the two civilizations. According to the treaty they both had a right to be here if it involved a scientific matter or it was mutually agreed upon.

"Captain, I have found the name of the Klingon House that has ownership of the planet," Data told his superior officer. "It took some time as the House recently changed its name and leadership, however the ownership records were recently updated to the modern forms by said House with both the Klingon Empire and the Federation."

Picard was pleased to hear this as while the space around the planet was claimed by neither the Federation or the Empire, the rights to anything on the planet itself belonged to the Klingon House who owned it. The world had been almost entirely forgotten about when the borders were decided and the neutral zone established by treaty. Technically, since neither polity could claim the system, generally accepted interstellar law stated that the entire star system itself also belonged to whichever species, group, or individual owner claimed the planet in the system most capable of supporting life.

As the treaty prevented the Empire itself from claiming the space, the specific owner of the L-Class planet, as an individual or House, in this instance, essentially owned the entire system. Not that this really mattered in practical terms, if not for the odd signal the L-Class planet was emitting no one would have any interest in the planet. Historical survey records indicated there were no minerals worthy of note in the entire system and its location was decidedly out of the way with all manner of red tape involved in doing anything with it because of the treaty. At least that would be the case for any present-day group or individual attempting to do anything in the zone. As this was an ancient, pre-treaty claim, that had been recognized by both the Empire and Federation, virtually all actions the owner could take in the present would be grandfathered in by the treaty's terms as neither power's laws controlled. The planet and the system itself did not even have a proper name, just a numerical designation. Hopefully the Klingon House which owned the planet was honorable in its actions. This star system could become a haven for lawlessness and smuggling given its tricky location.

"There is a record of an early Federation colony ship setting course for this planet," Data reported as he worked at his station. "The ship vanished and no trace of the two thousand colonists was ever found."

This was worrying, but not totally unexpected; there were many similar stories in history. Colonization was always a risky business.

"What's the name of the House that has legal ownership and control of the planet?" Riker enquired.

"After the recent death of its last head, the House of Kozak recently became the House of Gothic," Data answered.

Riker looked over at his Captain, his brows raised in confusion, yet with some recognition.

"That is not a Klingon name. And I've only ever met one person named Gothic," he said to Picard.

The Captain looked puzzled.

"The last I heard about Gothic he was serving in the new Bajoran Defence Force, as a General. In fact, I believe he's in charge of all of their off-world military forces and installations. He fought in the Bajoran Occupation and is considered a hero to them," Picard recalled from various intelligence reports he had read in connection with the wormhole. "How could he have become the head of a noble Klingon House?"

No one bothered to speculate, but Worf's growling and grumbling could clearly be heard.

"I suppose we'll find out soon enough," Picard said, throwing a curious glance at the security station. "Mr. Worf, please hail the Klingon ships."

Before long the grizzled face of a Klingon warrior who'd obviously seen many battles filled the viewscreen.

"Ah, Federation," he said. "We are waiting for the Head of House Gothic to arrive before we beam down to the surface. He is on his way. Until then we are limited to scans from orbit."

Since the world was privately owned, they would need permission to send down any away teams.

"Once he arrives I expect he will allow representatives from both the Federation and the Empire to investigate the source of the signal and to take samples of any technology we find.

While this was certainly good news, Picard did wonder why things were going so smoothly.

"The Head of House Gothic won't mind the Federation taking a look around down there?" Jean-Luc wondered aloud, his confusion clear.

On the screen, the Klingon Captain grinned.

"Well, he is human," the alien said.

With the captain standing in front of the viewscreen looking so gob smacked the Klingon onscreen was laughing uproariously, only Deanna was close enough to Will Riker to hear him softly swear. Worf's swearing in Klingon was easily loud enough to mask it from everyone else.

(Line Break)

Bird of Prey. On Route to the Neutral Zone.

"General Gothic, welcome aboard the Eklor Rrirrilt," said the ship's commanding officer as T'Maz and I walked onto the bridge. "I am Captain Kallad Rerv of the House of Rerv. Ancient ally of the House of Gothic."

"Well met, Captain, you honor the ancient alliance between our two houses. May our combined strength bring victory and glory to our Houses and death to our enemies!" I intoned in return after a hopefully unnoticeable pause, in true bombastic Klingon style, the exact ritual wording coming from Jarvis, without being prompted, in the form of large text showing up in my vision as if floating in mid-air. It was literally being displayed below the nose of the Klingon Captain so that I could keep eye contact. Thankfully only I could see it.

Having a powerful virtual intelligence in your head allowed some truly epic cheating and had some serious benefits in situations like this. The Captain's large pleased grin indicated I had passed some sort of test. Boy was I glad I was wearing my armor in its Nightingale form, complete with anti-proton pistol on my right hip, and power knife on my left, and Warhammer 40k inspired power sword on my back. I thought the three-quarter cape may have been a bit much, but from the appreciative gazes of the captain and bridge crew, I was somehow making a great impression. The over-the-top lip licking and smoky gazes sent my way by the Klingon women on the bridge I could have honestly done without though.

To be honest, I hadn't even known that my House had any 'ancient allies.' As I had recently learned, much of the House's history was not written down or recorded in any database, instead being passed down by word of mouth. Not that I'd really cared much to find out back on Qo'noS. My plan had always been to leave Klingon matters to my Klingon wife, but fate or destiny or my God-like patron had other plans for me. I was fan of adventure and excitement as much as the next guy, but I had more than enough going on with the rest of my life.

As for this ship, a bird-of-prey, it was cramped, poorly lit, and needed some air freshener rather badly. I felt like I was on board a submarine full of dirty space Vikings who hadn't bathed for weeks, rather than a state-of-the art warp-capable warship. The Klingons had advanced tech, but they didn't really understand how to build a starship in my opinion.

"So, are we on our way to the planet?" I asked.

"You are aware of our mission?" the Captain asked in return.

I nodded and let him have a quick look at the journal. It had been written by a human explorer, I knew this since it was all in English, but the pictures made it clear that the planet we were heading to was not occupied by humans. No one else had given the images too much attention and this meant that they didn't know about the Borg, not that they would recognize them, as the Borg had been mostly wiped out centuries ago in this dimension. I recognized them from the shows, and since I had an idea of what we might be going up against I'd signaled for my own ship to come join us. We might need some extra firepower.

"You should know that Gowron has already sent an expedition to the planet to investigate the source of the strange signal," I was informed as the journal was returned to me. "The Federation have also sent their best to explore the source of the signal."

So, the Enterprise would be there. It was always the Enterprise.

"We won't arrive for several days," the captain informed me. "I've arranged a private room for you and your woman."

No doubt it would be uncomfortable and too small. The Klingons couldn't seem to understand that their natural physical toughness allowed them to see real problems for other races, such as a lack of any bedding on a metal slab, as only minor discomforts. Then they mocked other races for wanting such things.

"Thank you, Captain. We'll keep to ourselves till we arrive," I said.

Both T'Maz and I would need to study the journal more closely in preparation for arriving at the planet, and I needed to start planning on how to potentially deal with a base full of Borg. I'd not read the journal yet, but it seemed clear that we'd be dealing with a base full of Borg who must have somehow survived the ancient war which destroyed the rest of their kind. Something had stirred a very old evil and I needed to be prepared.

"Meals will be served in the galley," I was told.

Klingon dining was full of perils for the unwary and unprepared. Thankfully I had some knowledge of what passed for protocol among this species so we wouldn't starve. My augment physiology also meant I could eat damn near everything, even things baseline humans would find poisonous. And, of course, my armor could mimic a replicator in function, so we wouldn't starve.

(Line Break)

Bridge. The Enterprise. Neutral Zone.

"Are you feeling alright, Captain?" Deanna Troi asked, having sensed the captain's emotions were far from the norm.

The Captain had just returned to the bridge from ten forward having been asked by Guinan to come down for a word.

"Yes, I feel fine, physically at least," Picard answered as he tugged on his uniform top, in a move that would be aptly named 'the Piccard maneuver' in another universe and time, and took his seat. "I just had a very enlightening, yet very worrying conversation, with Guinan."

Deanna didn't press for more. She knew that if the Captain wanted to share more he would and he soon did, after taking a long pause to order his thoughts.

"She warned me that what we will find down on the planet is as close to pure evil as we will ever find in this galaxy," Picard told the empath, "an evil greater than even Armus."

The creature called Armus was born as a byproduct or personification of a procedure in which a "race of Titans" brought out and removed from within themselves all their evil and negative attributes that had bound them to destructiveness. The unwanted substance spread and coalesced into a dank and vile second skin. The race rejected this "skin of evil" and abandoned it on the barren planet Vagra II in the Zed Lapis sector. While on an away team to the planet this 'entity' had killed Tasha Yar.

"She suggested that as soon as we are in range to lock onto the source of the signal and fire everything we have at it," Picard explained. "Not that that is really an option."

He had his orders from Starfleet Command and if he fired on a planet that was still technically under Klingon control, at least by one of their noble houses, they might become hostile and put the ship and potentially the Khitomer Accords in jeopardy.

"Is there anything you can sense yet from the planet?" the Captain wondered.

Deanna Troi closed her eyes for a moment, focusing her empathic abilities outside the ship, and shuddering at what she could feel at even this distance.

"I sense coldness and hunger," she told her superior officer. "An emptiness. Indifference. A cold, calculating, ruthless cruelty."

Picard wasn't sure what that could mean for them, but coupled with what he heard from Guinan, it unsettled him greatly.

"Number One," he said while turning to his first officer. "I want you to make sure that the Enterprise is ready for danger. Do what you can to increase our defenses."

He then turned to Mr. Worf.

"I want all security teams ready and armed in case we are boarded or need to send reinforcements to support the away team," he ordered. "And make sure we are ready to destroy the source of the signal if it becomes absolutely necessary."

With those orders, the officers of the Enterprise got to work.

(Line Break)

The Enterprise. Neutral Zone.

Things were moving rather fast now. As soon as the Bird of Prey had arrived in system the arrangements to send down away teams had begun, at least after I had given permission. I'd also gotten permission to beam over to the Enterprise and then I'd come to one of the ship's many design and fabrication workshops, that I'd known about from my time spent on this ship in the past. These rooms had actually inspired me to build my own better versions on the island.

My vessel wasn't here quite yet, as it had to use its warp drive so that no one would realize that I had a superior form of FTL in my quantum slipstream drive. It was very possible the notice-me-not/someone else's problem field would hide that fact, but I wasn't eager to test that, especially when high warp would be sufficient in this case. This also meant I did not have access to my armory of exotic and advanced weapons. Sure, I had my armor with all its many capabilities, but against the Borg simple weapons tended to work best.

Thankfully there was enough information in the journal itself to reasonably justify how I knew that the Borg had personal energy shields without exposing the fact that I knew far, far more about the cyborgs than I really should. I'd discussed this with T'Maz and with only a little hinting from me she'd come up with the idea of modulating the energy "frequency" of the phaser beam so that the personal shields of the cybernetic men, as they were called in the journal of this old explorer, would take much longer to adapt.

"You wanted to see me?" Data said as he entered the room.

Since we didn't have much time, I skipped any form of greeting and put the android right to work.

"I'm trying to design a phaser mod that makes phasers pick a random frequency each time they are fired," I explained. "We might be going up against aliens with shields that can neutralize energy weapons so your team will need weapons that can't be so easily adapted to."

There were other ideas I had had in the past for dealing with the Borg that I'd put aside after being told by Guinan that the Borg were gone from the galaxy. She'd been mistaken, it turns out, so I was now making those ideas a reality, like making bullets made from the element, osmium. They were large caliber rounds with titanium nitride jackets. Unlike a conventional bullet, the tips were slightly recessed. Because they were made with osmium, which was an extremely dense material and thus hard to work with conventionally, I was glad that I could just replicate more. My armor was fully capable of replicating the gun and the bullets, but again, I really did not want to expose so much of my capabilities here.

"Computer, replicate firearm and 200 bullets, per my already inputted design specifications," I ordered the computer.

"Replication of desired items is prohibited under Starfleet General Orders, enter level 7 access code to override," the computer responded, just as I expected.

Placing my hand on the panel, I spoke. "Recognize Gothic, General, Federation Ally, Bajoran Defense Force. Override authorized. Replicate items."

"General Gothic, Bajoran Defense Force, recognized," the computer responded, before the bright white light of replication began.

Working with the Federation on the station had taught me a thing or two about working with Federation computers. Thankfully my rank and authorization as an allied military officer was recognized onboard the Enterprise, though I was positive it was logged and Worf was getting an alert at this very moment. Section 31 itself might have also had a hand in my authority and access level being recognized aboard a Starfleet vessel.

"What sort of weapon is that?" Data asked, as he gestured at my newly replicated gun.

A coilgun, also known as a Gauss rifle, was a type of projectile accelerator consisting of one or more coils used as electromagnets in the configuration of a linear motor that accelerate a ferromagnetic or conducting projectile to high velocity, without the use of a chemical propellant. Since osmium was denser than lead and therefore heavier, the bullets made from that metal needed more velocity in order to remain effective. This I explained to Data.

"Coilguns weren't very common in my time, though we understood the principles of how they could work. The technology required just wasn't advanced enough yet to be miniaturized into a handgun," I explained. "But strong electromagnets and small power cells are common in this time. If we are going up against cyborgs then we'll need unconventional weapons with some kick. Shielding for energy weapon fire is a very different animal, compared with projectile weapons."

I'd also replicated plenty of grenades. Each was the size of a large marble, with a push button activator for the thumb, and had an explosive force equal to a 20th-century fragmentation grenade. I had a couple of Klingon blades I'd gotten from the Quartermaster on the Bird of Prey that had brought me here to give out to the various Enterprise security folks, my power knife and sword being far superior though. Worf had clearly shown in the movie, First Contact, that if you were strong enough and had a good blade, you could slay Borg drones in battle. I had both in spades.

Sure, I had my armor, and that was chock full of built-in weapons and capabilities, but the Borg were attracted to advanced tech. They would ignore everyone else and try to assimilate me at all costs if they thought I had technology that they could use to better themselves, however, if I used only my armor's passive abilities, like protecting me from weapons' fire and primitive weapons with shields, hopefully they'd show me less interest. At least until I started shooting up their base. My anti-proton pistol would have to be a weapon of last resort. It was exotic enough where they might become interested.

"We should have sufficient time to implement your phaser modification for the away team," Data said. "If we work quickly."

While it would be nice to catch up with the android and discuss mutual topics of interest, there was no time for that now. I owed Data a lot. My palace fortress and HUD software were both designed by him and I loved both dearly.

Maybe it was time to finally name my island? Fuck it, I was a fan of Odin and the Marvel movies, my island would now be called, Asgard.

(Line Break)

Unnamed Planet. Neutral Zone.

After a brief discussion between Picard and the Klingons, they had mutually agreed to send down two teams, one Klingon and one Federation, at the same time. I'd gotten myself invited along with T'Maz as this planet was mine in legal terms. While the idiots with us decided to spread out, I stayed near the beam out point, while my Vulcan babe at my side did some scanning with her custom designed omni-tool, which had all the bells and whistles I could stuff into its case, including a Collector power cell. Jarvis and my armor were also taking a myriad number of scans and was constantly uploading the data to my ship and Asgard for storage and analysis.

T'Maz had taken to keeping the omni-tool display oriented on her inner wrist and was only using the inbuilt display screen, rather than the holo-interface. The inbuilt screen was probably 3x larger in size than a standard tricorder would be anyways. She probably didn't want anyone else to see what her scans were showing. It probably wasn't strictly necessary, but I imagine it was hard to shake the urge to keep things secret after spending so long in Section 31.

"The base is massive in size, measuring over three kilometers along an edge and possessing an internal volume of 27 cubic kilometers," she dutifully reported. "It is constructed mostly of titanium, an alloy known for its extreme hardness. It is a strange choice, primitive compared to the rest of the materials."

She moved around, keeping her omni-tool at breast height.

"This is an extremely decentralized structure, not conforming to any design style known to the Federation. I can also detect no living quarters or specific command sections. Intriguing, all vital systems are spread throughout the base. It would be very hard to disable through attack," she continued to report. "Vast amounts of power and information are being routed through power waveguide conduits and distribution nodes."

It all had that creepy green glow as well. The tech looked very impressive, even though these Borg would obviously not have benefitted from many extra centuries of assimilating the species of the Delta quadrant, like they had in the shows. On the other hand, their enemies had been technologically advanced enough to band together and eventually defeat them. So they likely had assimilated advanced tech in this dimension that they hadn't in the show dimension.

My desire to start looting was strong, but I restrained myself as I knew that simply taking out components would stir the drones up, as we'd then be identified as a threat to them, then the shooting and dying would start. No, better to resist the temptation and just stick to intensely scanning everything we could.

My armor's sensor systems were made with advanced alien technology and given insane amounts of power via the five power cells surgically grafted to my skeleton. And all that sensor power and data was being directed, modified, and analyzed by Jarvis for maximum effect, while receiving real-time analysis from Scarlett on the Temptress and Hermione on Asgard. You'd have to have an intrepid-class starship with a team of 50 sensor specialists in your pocket to get scans and analysis this quickly and at this high a level of quality.

If you weren't cheating, you weren't really trying.

"Humidity is on average 92%; the temperature is exactly 39.1°C," T'Maz reported, though I already knew, "and the atmosphere contained traces of tetryon particles."

I ordered Jarvis to display a rough layout of the base and found that it was a cube, half buried in the ground. It was huge, much bigger than any of the cube ships ever seen on the show. This did not sit well with me as it meant that this might be a Borg ship that had been buried here on purpose by the Collective, possibly to hide it from the races that had otherwise wiped out the species, a Doomsday plan in case they lost. Who knows, they might have even set it to sleep for centuries, waiting for their enemies to forget about them, their alliance to fall apart, or for them to become complacent once again. That might explain why it was here on such a remote planet so very far away from traditional Borg Space in the Delta quadrant. They'd hide it here, perhaps intending to use it to rebuild the Collective one day, but they didn't seem to have gotten around to doing that yet.

Before we could find out much more one of the Klingons yelled baktag, which was an insult, and members of the away team began to regroup.

"Some of these cybernetic men are human!" Doctor Crusher called out in alarm.

She must be scanning the biological rather than the technological.

"Now we know what happened to the colonists that were supposed to build a home on this planet," I muttered to myself. This also probably explained why the Borg had used so much titanium. Bet you ten bars of latinum that that was what the colonists' ship was mostly made of.

They'd all been assimilated by the Borg, ship included.

"Surrender d'blok!" a Klingon officer ordered.

I doubt the drones even considered us a threat yet. No, they were likely far more concerned in retrieving the piece of technology that someone had foolishly taken from some sort of console.

"If you took anything of theirs, set it on the ground and quickly back away. Do not fire your weapons, no matter what you do!" I commanded in a shout.

The drones would most likely have simply just put the part back into place and then gone back to being dormant, but the Klingons didn't listen and one of them foolishly opened fire, killing a drone. One drone fell, then another, then another, until their shielding had adapted to the Klingon disruptors altogether and one of the Borg fired its arm weapon killing a Klingon with a green pulse of energy.

"CHEGH-chew jaj-VAM jaj-KAK!"

I wouldn't mind living to see tomorrow so I pulled my coil-gun from the holster over my heart, and began firing head shots. My new pistol, which was a crude and boxy thing compared to the elegant designs of my anti-proton weapons, was not adapted to, and neither were the fragmentation grenades I sent flying down the dark corridors to kill groups of massed drones. Since my gun had been replicated onboard the Enterprise, there would be no internal micro-replication of new bullets this day. No, it was old school drop the spent magazine and feed in a fresh one, though I had replicated a handsome ammo bandolier to hold all of my extra magazines.

"We need to leave!" Riker yelled, several Klingons and Starfleet officers dead on the ground, some alive, but in the process of being assimilated. Giving the Borg collective the current knowledge of several Federation and Klingon officers would be a disaster of unmitigated proportions. Seems like my backup, last resort use of my anti-proton pistol, had come after all. Switching my coil gun to my left hand, I pulled my pistol from my right hip holster and shot each of the people being assimilated, instantly vaporizing their bodies.

It was time to make a strategic withdrawal from the battlefield. While my bullets and grenades were still doing an excellent job killing drones, more and more drones kept appearing. A ship this size could easily contain numbers that would swiftly overwhelm us. Even as Riker ordered us to be beamed out a Federation officer was gunned down and a Klingon officer was jabbed in the neck with a pair of assimilation nanotubules. He would soon have become a Borg if not for one of his friends killing him when he realized what was happening to his fellow officers.

It seems my vaporizing several transforming people hadn't gone entirely unnoticed. The Klingons were an extremely pragmatic people when it came to making hard choices like that, and several of their infected men begged their comrades to kill them.

"Something's blocking the signal," Riker alerted us.

Thinking fast I turned to T'Maz, "Cover me," I ordered quietly, while Riker's attention was diverted and everyone was spread out and hiding behind cover.

Stepping into a side alcove out of view of the others, I double tapped a drone in the head to kill it. Kneeling at the former human woman's side, I opened my hand and held it palm up. The white radiance of a replicator lit up the shadowed alcove for a brief moment, leaving a large gauge hypodermic syringe in my palm. The syringe was purposely low-tech, but this one was special even then. The barrel of this syringe was made of diamond to prevent any accidents. Stabbing it into the poor woman's neck, I pulled back the plunger and took a large blood sample, before removing the tip and the plunger itself and quickly replicating seals to keep the blood safe and contained. A low powered sterilizing field was emitted from my palm, enveloping the barrel to remove any blood that may have gotten on it, before I placed the blood sample in a padded pocket that hadn't existed a second ago, a low powered dampening field activating in the pocket just in case.

I returned to T'Maz's side. Thankfully, it looked like no one had noticed my brief absence while fighting for their lives. "We need to get to the top of the cube, then we can blast our way out of here," I said to her.

Though L-Class, the atmosphere of this world was still breathable. It was a common misconception that an L-Class planet was uninhabitable or necessarily hostile to humanoid life. In fact L-Class planets were prime candidates for colonization or terraforming. They just usually, but not always, were devoid of fauna. I'd have to come back and do a complete survey of the planet and system to see what I now owned.

"This way!" she yelled.

I led the way, using my coilgun to gun down any drones that so much as glanced our way. I was so effective at this, by the time other people fired their weapon, their target was more often than not already on the ground with a large hole in their heads. When we got to the uppermost level, I used my anti-proton pistol on maximum to blast open a hole in the surface of the armored cube. Since there was no danger of decompression while sitting on the planet's surface, no force field sprang into existence. I continued to cover the retreat, firing off the last of my ammo from the special pistol I'd made just for this mission. Thank my patron that an augment's hand eye coordination meant I was head-shotting near every drone I encountered or we'd be in serious trouble. I had started today with 200 rounds.

When we got outside the Borg structure, we were finally able to signal the Enterprise for a beam out.

(Line Break)

The Enterprise. Neutral Zone.

When we got to the bridge, I was able to confirm that the Borg base was a cube ship, just as I'd suspected. I knew that because it was now lifting off the surface.

"Picard, we must destroy that ship before it reaches orbit!" One of the Klingon Captains on the main viewer yelled, with a measure of fear in his voice. "It is a threat to us all!"

I figured that the Klingons must have been monitoring their away team and now had some idea exactly what the Borg did to people when they didn't decide to simply kill them. Death wasn't something a Klingon warrior feared, but being transformed into a mindless abomination, a puppet with no will of its own, that must have been a horror too extreme for even them to stomach. Perhaps the crinkle headed fuckers knew more about the Borg than they'd let on. Maybe the Hur'q had encountered them as some point and this knowledge had made its way to the Klingons. I doubted they'd gotten their hands on a copy of the explorer's journal that the Ferengi had somehow acquired, but there was no way to know.

"We don't know enough-" Picard started to reply.

The Klingon snorted and closed the channel, cutting Picard off mid-sentence. They weren't a race known for discussing things calmly. Picard's reaction must have been exactly what the man had expected, one of hesitation and weakness when faced with battle. I had to agree with the Klingons in this instance.

"Captain, they are firing on the Cybernetic Men's ship, which is rising up through the atmosphere. The ship is massive!" Worf, who'd quickly returned to his station, reported to the bridge crew. "Their weapons have done some damage, but their weapons' effectiveness is diminishing with each shot."

The Borg must already be adapting to the Klingon's disruptor fire. They simply hadn't done enough damage to this gigantic cube before it had time to adapt. I considered convincing Picard to do something, or reminding him again he had my permission to fire on the planet I owned, but I knew a faster way to help out. I was always connected intimately to my ship through the neural transceiver in my skull and the quantum entanglement communications technology.

Now that it had entered the system-and I was no longer distracted by pitched battle with hundreds of Borg drones-I closed my eyes and took direct control of my ship, now 'seeing' with my ship's sensors. I decloaked the ship and began to fire all five forward facing energy weapons and quantum torpedoes down on the cube rising from the surface. The jacketed streams of positrons and antiprotons were wreaking havoc on the cube's shields, the large number of advanced quantum torpedoes weakening them further. It still wasn't enough. My ship had enough firepower to quickly destroy a battleship, but this was a gigantic armored cube the size of a city, meant to ensure the race's survival, with a shield strength to match.

"Captain, a ship has decloaked and is attacking the Cybernetic Men ship. We are unable to scan its interior," Data reported to his superior officer. "The Cybernetic Men vessel is taking significant damage."

While the Borg could deal with Klingon weapons now, they'd clearly not encountered the kind of weapons and power that the Flighty Temptress could bring into battle, but I didn't think it was going to be enough. They were taking significant damage, but the ship was fucking huge and armored to the max.

"One of the Klingon Birds of Prey has been captured by a tractor beam," Worf told Picard, "the cyborgs are cutting it apart with some sort of laser cutting beam."

I spoke next.

"Captain, you need to destroy that cube before it kills us all. Remember, you have my permission to fire on the planet," I urged.

Picard sighed.

"Mr. Worf, fire at will."

The Enterprise unleashed its arsenal and the Cube's propulsion began to falter under the combined weapons' fire of my ship, the Klingon warships, and the Enterprise, now slowly being pulled back by to the surface by the planet's gravity. As it got dragged further back to the planet, the Bird of Prey was let go, power obviously being rerouted from their tractor beam back to propulsion. The damaged Klingon ship must have lost helm control, or decided to sacrifice itself to save the Empire, because it ended up ramming into the Borg Cube at full speed. That was enough to turn the tide of the battle as it had taken a great deal of damage from the collision and the impact had it falling back to the surface. The cube hadn't been ready for this fight and hadn't been able to adapt to the different weapons fire fast enough. What was left of it was already starting to burn in the planet's atmosphere as it fell to the surface.

"Hail the unknown ship," Picard ordered.

Of course, no one replied.

"That's my ship, Captain," I informed Picard. "It's here to pick me up. Thank you for your hospitality. Great seeing you Riker, Data, Deanna. You all have a standing invitation to vacation on my island, Asgard, on Bajor. Goodbye for now."

This, of course, led to many more questions, but they hardly mattered as I was already beaming off the Enterprise thanks to my ship's transporters and my armor acting like a transport enhancer/relay. My ship cloaked moments later. I'd let the rest of them handle the clean up.

Bridge. Flighty Temptress.

Lying back in my Risian designed captain's chair/recliner, I let a small devious smile grow on my face as I held up the large sparkling diamond syringe barrel filled with a Borg's precious blood. What was that line from the Lord of the Rings, ah, right, 'Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing?'

This small measure of blood was full of Borg nanoprobes, the only known bit of Borg tech left after the Enterprise and the Klingons had made sure to destroy even the smallest trace of Borg technology on my planet. This was the very technology that had let them conquer and assimilate thousands of species across a huge swath of the galaxy. What secrets could I learn from it? And ultimately, how could I improve the design of the billions of nanoprobes in my own body at this very moment?

I would have to be extremely cautious in how I handled them, but if the EMH on Voyager could do it safely, surely I could as well. There was a special isolation lab on Asgard cut off from the rest of the island's technology that could be used for testing and immediate destruction if necessary.

This had been a profitable adventure. I now knew I owned a planet, though slightly worse for wear because of recent events, and I had Borg nanotechnology to study at my leisure.

What else might the future hold?