Assimilation

"Unidentified ship. Stand-down immediately. Do not attempt any form at all of resistance, or you will pay for your disobedience in pain. We are iskalloni. Your ship is now personal property. Repeat. Stand down immediately, make no attempt to resist, and we will not have to atomize your starship."

The iskalloni commander didn't feel irritation, nor was he truly capable of doing so. But even so, this was the third time he'd uttered his message at the cube-shaped ship and the third time that he'd recieved no response. No words, no laserfire, no...anything. At least the lack of the latter amounted to what an organic might call comfort, given the size of the cube, but even so, a response would have been preferable. The iskalloni needed slaves to work on their starships. This ship, confirmed to have a crew of some sorts, could provide such slave-power. But if they were to serve the race of cyborgs, they'd have to be able to respond to their orders. And so far, they'd done no such thing.

"Commander?" a fellow iskalloni asked him. "They're not responding to your hails."

"Obviously."

"Then...should we board them? Open fire?"

The commander remained silent, his eyes, both organic and cybernetic, locked on the starship. Boarding actions or opening fire would work on most species of the galaxy, but this...cubeship? Where were its vital sections, the areas where it could be disabled whilst doing as little damage as possible? And boarding it? Stars and galaxies, where were they meant to board?

"I will send a message again..." declared the commander eventually. "Then we will..."

He trailed off. The view screen had changed. Contact had been made. Contact with...another iskalloni?

What in the...

"We are the borg," the figure declared, his voice as neutral and as cold as even the most merciless iskalloni. "Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

The commander remained silent. Right now, it was all he could do.

Borg? He'd never heard of such a thing. Not out here in Wild Space and from what he'd gathered from organic prisoners, no such species was known to exist in the galaxy. Was this a rogue group of iskalloni? That should have been impossible and besides, since when did members of his species have pink skin like a human. Had the galaxy's most numerous species decided to adapt to ward off their betters? Well, if so, he would show these copy-cats what assimilation truly meant.

"Commander, we will not comply with your orders," the iskalloni told his borg counterpart. "You are in Wild Space. Our territory. Resistance is as futile as imitation."

"Commander, we will not comply with your orders," the borg answered. "You are in the Delta Quadrant. Our territory. Resistance is as futile as imitation."

"But you're imitating us."

"No. You imitate the Collective. And you will be assimilated into it."

Once again a silence fell between the two commanders. A silence as deafening as the vacuum of space...wherever this region of space was. The commander had never heard of a "Delta Quadrant" any more than he had of the borg. Nor had he heard of stardates either...which, for some reason, were being displayed on his console. Stardate 50614.2 to be exact.

What kind of borg trick is this? the commander wondered. First they imitate us, now they-...

"What is the purpose of this?" the borg commander suddenly asked. "What is Forty-ABY?"

"ABY? A dating system used by the Republic."

"Republic? Do you not mean the Federation?"

"The what?"

"The creators of the stardate? The-..."

The borg trailed off. And whilst that opened up an opportunity for the iskalloni commander, he didn't take it. What was the meaning of this? Federations, stardates, imitations of the galaxy's perfect species...These borg were so similar, it was...well, he supposed what an organic would call eerie, but as a cyborg that was meant to be emotionless, he had little grasp of the concept. But no matter. The borg would-...

"Species 32478, otherwise known as iskalloni," the borg said suddenly, contradicting the commander's expectations. "Resistance is futile. You will be absorbed into the Collective."

The commander stood firm. No sense of originality. No idea how to treat one's superiors. Well, he would show this borg...even if it meant talking for the next few hours. And as such, he would show the borg how superior the iskalloni were. Show them by saying the first thing that came to his computerized mind.

"Unidentified ship. Stand-down immediately. Do not attempt any..."

Time, it seemed, was a concept meaningless to both species.

A/N

The first time I stumbled across the iskalloni on Wookiepedia, I was struck by how similar they were to the borg-a similarity that was pretty much intentional as far as I can tell. Anyway, came up with this as a result.