Disclaimers: See part 1
To Three From One
By
A.J. Marks
Part 2
Ray watched as Captain Picard, Q, Riker, Data, Worf, and Councilor Troy walked into the briefing room and took their seats. Captain Picard took the head seat, and Q sat opposite of him.
“I take it by the conversation there is trouble with the Borg,” Riker said, sitting down next to Picard.
“Yes Will, but we are the only ship with the experience to deal with them,” Picard replied. “Starfleet can’t deal with a war on two fronts, against both the Jem’Hadar and the Borg.”
“So why are we headed to Earth, and why are you on our ship?’ Worf said, looking right at Q, his dislike of the man evident in his gaze.
“We are headed to Earth because of this impotent mortal, who thinks there is something that I, Q, am not ready for,” Q said, looking right over at Ray.
“You know, I would have thought that a couple of thousand years would have improved your attitude Q,” Ray said calmly. “I promised the captain that I would explain, and I will. I’m not sure where to begin, that’s all.”
“The beginning is always the logical choice,” Data supplied logically, causing Ray to sigh.
“Yes it would Data, but it would also raise a lot of questions too early in the tale. But I will begin there, if you all hold your questions until I’m finished, it might make sense,” Ray said to them.
“I think I can do that,” Picard said, getting comfortable. Everyone looked down the table to Q.
“What?” Q said, looking around the table. “All right, if I say I won’t interrupt Mr. Storyteller here we can get this over, okay.”
“The older they get the more arrogant they become,” Ray stated, shaking his head.
He took a moment to clear his mind, closing his eyes, recalling the distant memories that started this whole story so many years ago. He looked back up, this time not as Ray, but someone far, far older.
“I am over ten thousand years old. My exact age I no longer know. I stopped counting at three thousand, and that was centuries before the Egyptians built their first empire. I am not immortal, nor am I part of the Continuum. I was born in a city called Tzalbti, nothing remains of it today. The society, culture, and technology were much different back then. My born name is Ganzel, of the tribe of Horiz.”
Ganzel was the oldest of three children, two younger sisters, the older Mabxel was sixteen and the younger sister Xaztel was fourteen seasons old. He lived a quiet life in the farming town of Tzalbti, His parents were typical farmers, living off the land like they had been taught by their parents and their parents before them. His ancestors had helped settle the city, and it was named after Ganzel’s great-great-grandfather. They lived in a typical house of the town, nothing fancy and enlarged it when they required more room. His sister would be married after the fall harvest. His father already planning a large harvest, thanks to the latest automatic harvester he bought last winter.
Technology had changed in the past couple of years, Ganzel thought to himself, looking in at a store. His thoughts went to the fragile peace currently experienced. It was in jeopardy due to a new fanatical group, or so the government said.
Ganzel heard many rumors of this group. The latest rumor mentioned something about them being a part of a government experiment that had gone wrong, involving the ability to make a cyborg. The reason was to make an invincible army to conquer the planet, and then act as a peacekeeping force to keep local populations loyal. The programming went haywire and the cyborgs started converting other like-minded people into cyborgs. A second rumor Ganzel heard, they were a cult of robotics, wanting to mix living beings into cyborgs to live forever. Their mission was to convert everyone else into a cyborg, making the entire population a harmonious hive.
Ganzel cared little about the rumor, he was only eighteen and wanted to play sports. He was a fast runner, one of the best wrestlers in the area, and could throw extremely well. He even had a girlfriend, who he was courting and planning to marry, Ka’tel. She also lived in the village and he worked hard to collect the dowry to give her father.
The war between this outcast group and the government recently started, but was far away from his village. He heard that the cyborgs had adopted a new policy recently, either the person accepted to join, or were killed. Ganzel thought the choices were extreme, and did not wish to join some hive-like community as they were.
He finished shopping, picking up the supplies he needed and started back to his village. He walked with a few others from the village, seeing smoke coming from home. He raced back, stunned at what he saw. Many of the buildings were damaged, a few were completely destroyed, fires burned as people scrambled around trying to put them out.
He rushed to his house, seeing some damage, but no bodies, at least not yet. He shouted out for his parents and sisters, hoping they were all right. The answering call from behind the house, and he quickly made his way back there. He saw his mother, and that she was crying.
“Is everyone okay?” Ganzel asked, nervous about the answer.
“Your sisters are fine,” he heard his father say. “Ka’tel was over visiting, I’m sorry son, she was killed.”
Ray paused in his story, even after thousands of years, he still loved her.
“Even now, I still love her,” Ray said.
“Sounds like you loved her very much,” Troy stated.
“Yes, you never forget your first love,” Ray replied. “Her death is what led me down the path that placed me here. I wanted revenge and blood, the cyborgs blood. I went to enlist the next day into the king’s military, happy to crush the cyborgs. My parents were not happy with my decision, and we argued quite a bit that night. My anger won out, and I left determined to avenge her death.”
Ray paused a bit, looking at the group, Picard looked patient, waiting to make up his mind, Q looked bored.
“I was eighteen seasons at the time I joined, and the war had only started. It wasn’t until a few seasons later that I learned what the cyborgs were, and their original purpose. It was learning that that I started to doubt what the government was doing to finish the war.”
Ganzel had entered the army despite his father being angry with him. They did not, however, part ways with angry words, instead his father blessed him, as any father did when their son went off to war.
Ganzel joined up, and quickly established himself as a soldier with a promising career. His athletic abilities and quick thinking made his a perfect soldier. His superiors realized this, and used his abilities for scouting. In less than a year he commanded a scout platoon for the main army.
He climbed the ladder of command, and as he did, learned more and more. The war against the cyborgs was not going well. They were not losing the war yet, but the cyborgs had introduced new technologies that, if not countered, would be the downfall of his civilization. New night vision, and a highly portable, powerful laser meant the cyborgs held a distinct technological advantage.
The government countered this threat by taking some volunteers and changing their DNA. They wanted to enhance their mental powers, see if they could somehow reach the human side of the cyborgs, as many were now being taken against their will. The experiment turned out to be a disaster.
The planners never expected a mutation in the process. They became more aggressive, and arrogant as they gained power. They formed their own cult, joining in the war making it three sides instead of two.
“Three sides in a war, very dangerous for everyone involved,” Ray said. “Our inventors, medical staff, and tech people started to experiment on anything and everything. Their arrogance created dangerous beings.”
Q looked at Ray a bit impatiently. Ray recognized the look.
“What is your question?” he asked Q.
“I still don’t see the connection with me, but I’ll ask, are you part of this experiment?”
“No, that was later on,” Ray said, returning to the story. A critical point of his life which led him to this point.
A third faction joined the war, calling themselves ‘The New Age of Man’, because they believed they would win the war, and be the supreme rulers of the land. They thought with their superior abilities, they were the only ones fit to rule.
New technologies were not being introduced by all three sides. Each battle something new would find its way onto the battlefield. The fighting even spread to outer space in an attempt to outmaneuver the other group.
Ganzel could look at the night sky, and see the bright flashes of combat. To an outsider it looked beautiful, until you remembered what was going on. Each flash indicated someone was losing their life. He briefly wondered which side was fighting tonight.
He had a scout force of five men, looking for any New Age forces. His superiors thought they were in the area. His mission to find out if they were there. He found himself back home for a brief leave. The village had grown since he was gone, refugees of other destroyed town coming together here. Few people wanted to speak with him, dressed as a soldier. His brother-in-law noticed him, and walked over.
“Hello Ganzel, we need to talk,” he said, as they moved through town.
“Tibrias, what’s wrong?” Ganzel asked, realizing from the tone of his voice something had happened. He learned to get the news over with quickly.
“Seven nights ago, a new group attacked the town, they were not cyborgs, but they killed your parents,” Tibrias said.
Ganzel heard the news, and was saddened, but after everything over the years, had no tears to cry. “You gave them a proper burial?” he asked, knowing that was vital.
“Of course, how could I not,” Tibrias replied. “There is more Ganzel, they took your sister as well. Mabxel was injured, but will recover.”
Ganzel wondered when the war would stop. It already had taken his girlfriend, now his parents and his sister taken by one of the groups.
“Again, I was angry, but this time at a different group,’ Ray said to them. “A week later I learned of a massive attack against the cyborgs. I was part of a scouting party to determine their strength. It turned out to be heavily defended. They were waiting for us to show up. The commander of the group was killed right away, and they ran us into a second trap, picking us off one by one.”
Ray could still recall that battle, the one he still had nightmares of.
“I learned later that the scout force was a decoy force for the real attack. I was the only one to survive the battle of my group. I should have died that day, but instead I woke up in a strange room. I saw the cyborg plunge a knife into my chest, and I can remember thinking I was in the afterlife. That thought was dashed upon seeing a doctor walk through the door,” Ray told them. “They put me through a new medical experiment, making me a new type of soldier. They altered my genetic structure, making me faster and stronger, more resistant to biological or mental attacks from either the cyborgs or the New Age forces.”
Ray paused, he never wanted such powers. The fact they had done this to him with his consent always angered him.
“I became their new soldier, more loyal than the last experimental group, and faster and stronger than the cyborgs. We fought all over the planet and in space. The cyborg ships began to become more complex, however we were immune to their ability to change us to their use, and the New Age forces could not manipulate our minds like normal soldiers. The cyborgs realized they could not win, and so signed a non-aggression between us. After the war we developed a new biological enzyme to use against them,” Ray said.
He paused wondering if they understood what he was saying. Were they able to understand what they had done?
“That left only the New Age forces to deal with. It took a while, but we had peace between us as well. The toll on our civilization was great, destruction all over the planet. When word got out of what happened it became civil war. When it was over my civilization was destroyed, and perhaps our greatest fault is we did not complete defeat the Cyborgs,” Ray said. “If we knew then what we know now, we would have never stopped.”
“Why do you say that?” Riker asked.
“Since the time of the peace treaty, they have destroyed thousands of civilizations. The price of my war was my civilization, and we did not defeat our enemy, despite having the technology. You see the overall leader of the cyborgs called himself Borgenivesed, but we went by the nickname of Borg,” Ray said to them.
“Are you saying your race created the Borg?” Picard asked, in a bit of shock. His tone of voice indicating he could not believe such arrogance.
“No captain, not my race, our race did,” Ray replied softly, hearing start to laugh.
“Oh boy, that’s good, your own race created the Borg, that great,” Q said, his laughter echoing though the room.
“I wouldn’t laugh Q,” Ray said to him. “Your ancestors were the ones who were mutated, you were also created by my civilization, a failed experiment who failed to do their job.”
Q abruptly stopped laughing, and looked over at Ray with anger in his eyes.
“I am curious,” Data said. “What is this civilization you keep mentioning?”
Ray looked over at Data before replying. “I know it as Roberffe, but it is better known in legends and myths as Atlantis.”
End part 2
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