TITLE: Borg 5/11
AUTHOR: Anne
RATING: R
PAIRING: Giles/Picard (not in this part)
FEEDBACK: Oh yes please!
E-MAIL: bookmangal@yahoo.fr
SUMMARY: Ripper of Borg and Saar-El
SPOILERS: for BtVS: "Becoming II"; for TNG: "The Best of Both World, part 1 & 2."
TIMELINE: for BtVS: Season 3; for ST:TNG: season 7 after "Attached." (BtVS-ST/TNG crossover).
DISTRIBUTION: ODD; Giles Slash; USCL; Watchergirls; Slashaholics; GilesSlashaholics. Anyone else please ask first.
DISCLAIMER: for BtVS: The characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the UPN Television Network. The story is written for the pleasure of the author and readers, and has no lucrative purpose whatsoever.
DISCLAIMER: for Star Trek the Next Generation: I do not own ST: TNG in any way or form. The Next Generation and related material are the property of Paramount Pictures. Characters used here are done so for fun, not profit. No copyright infringement is intended. Please don't reproduce this story anywhere without the author's consent.
WARNING: graphic violence.
NOTES 1: revised and revisited (in a slashy way) fic of mine called "Ripper of Borg" written for Sandra's birthday, Queen of the Tweedies. For the Star Trek technobabble please check the `Star Trek Encyclopedia'.
NOTE 2: words followed by two ** are listed in the `words of Kelah' glossary at the end of the part.
THANKS: Thank you very much for the beta reading Alex.

Xander, on Giles, "I'm sorry, calm may work for Locutus of the Borg here, but I'm freaked out, and I intend to stay that way."

Prophecy girl

Two months later

Ripper turned towards his `queen' and told her, "I want to assimilate Saar-El. His powers will be very useful for us." She looked at him surprised. "Saar-El has no powers, Ripper. The Gods of Kelah took them from him to give them to his wife so that he could be an Ambassador."

Ripper shook his head. "He found them when his wife died, killed accidentally by a Baelk. The Gods of Kelah did not want to return her to life and named him again Daz-Kej'l. Since then, he has become embittered and cruel. There is a way to assimilate him. Use a shape- shifter, a Moloth. Moloth have dedicated themselves to professional murder for centuries. They will make excellent drones. Their knowledge and their experiences will be very useful to us."

The Borg Queen nodded, pleased, "Excellent idea."

She gave a mental order. Two cubes left the armada some seconds later to go to the planet Moloth.

*
* *

Three days later
On the planet Kelah, in the Forbidden Valley
Saar-El Palace

Saar-El took his place in his armchair of gray stone. The Sejej ** of the Fetr-Loj'h **, Zenh-Yaar, seized the prisoner by his neck and forced him to kneel down. The man moaned with pain and swore. Then, Zenh-Yaar grabbed him by his hair and made him bend his head.

"A patrol has discovered him in the valley of Gor-Deh, Sejeij **." Zenh-Yaar said to his Lord.

"Why is he still alive? No foreigner has the right to be in the Sovenn Reft **, Zenh-Yaar."

The warrior nodded. "Yes, My Lord, I know it very well. But when he was arrested, he asked to see your daughter, Sejeij. He claims to be one of her Terran friends."

"Really?"

Saar-El turned to Dalos-Ged who was standing near him and murmured something in his ear. The guard hit his cuirass with his fist, bowed and left the Wenn-n-Majh **. He returned to the vast room some minutes later, accompanied by Deef-Lek who frowned.

"Deef-Lek, do you know this man?" Asked Saar-El to his daughter, before joining her.

The young kelahsian shook her head. "No, father, this man is not one of my friends."

Saar-El and Deef-Lek suddenly moved back. The Moloth had just resumed his first shape: it was a round and blue creature, of viscous aspect. It had globular yellow eyes and an enormous mouth with sharp teeth. It moved on purple tentacles and long strands were attached to its body, a body that was covered with Borg implants.

"It's a Borg!" Deef-Lek exclaimed, frightened.

Zenh-Yaar and Dalos-Ged took their sabres from their cases and rushed the monstrous creature. Some of its venomous strands came to roll around the wrists of the two Fetr-Loj'h and they collapsed on the floor writing in pain. Their nerve endings burned them. The poison would not kill them, since they were immortal, so the Moloth had decided to paralyze them. Neither of the two warriors was able to move an inch. The Moloth drone turned then towards Saar-El and Deef-Lek.

He lifted his hand, "No, wait! I want to meet your leader. I want to offer myself to him, to be a Borg." Saar-El said. "But I don't want to be a commonplace drone; I want to be free to act and to think my way."

Deef-Lek opened her eyes wide, bewildered and then shocked. "What? But father … "

Saar-El glared at her. "Silence, Deef-Lek!"

The Moloth drone and the two Kelahsians dematerialized, only to materialize some seconds later aboard a Borg cube. Inside, the humidity was stifling, unbreathable. They saw four drones and one man wearing Borg armor standing in front of a screen in the form of a cube, which revolved slowly. Saar-El saw the face of Dasd-Nevak, the First Councilor of the Laar-Tel-Pa, the Government of Kelah.

Ripper's strong and authoritative voice rang out. "I am Ripper of Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your vessel. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile. "And he added, "Your life, as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service us. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. You will become one with the Borg."

"Never!" Dasd-Nevak said.

"Resistance is hopeless."

"We will die first!"

"Death is irrelevant. You will be assimilated."

"Never!"

The communication was cut. The screen showed a wild battle between the Kelahsians' fleet and the Borg cubes. Ripper appreciated the courage of his enemies. They fought well, but their resistance was pointless: they would be overcome and join the Collective. He turned. His bodyguards followed suit.

Ripper turned to Moloth. "Saar-El, is it true? You want to become Borg, of your own free will?"

Saar-El nodded. "Yes."

Deef-Lek moved back from her father, disgusted by him and spat, "Not me! Never!"

She moved back again, her muscles tensed. She raised her fists, in an attack position, ready to fight.

Ripper, amused, smiled and said, "Resistance is futile."

He approached Deef-Lek and suddenly grabbed her by her neck. The young woman roared and managed to push Ripper away from her. The cyborg closed his hand around Deef-Lek's neck and threw her against a wall that was covered by big black cables. She crashed there, breathless.

Saar-El grasped Ripper by his wrist and ordered him, "By the Four Gods! Leave her!"

Two drones of Ripper's personal guard seized the Daz-Kej'l and pinned him on the floor, at their feet.

"You have no power, Deef-Lek." Ripper said to the young woman with an icy voice. "You are irrelevant!"

Ripper swept down on Deef-Lek who had gotten up and was staggering, closed his left hand around her neck and raised her in the air. He began to squeeze. Deef-Lek struggled, fervently waving her arms and legs to get free. Then, her face turned red and her kicks weakened. Ripper was able to read the fear of death in her eyes. He savored it. But he was not going to kill her. Deef-Lek was a warrior; her fighting art would be profitable to the Collective. Furthermore she would make a good guard. Two injection tubules sprang out from his palm and penetrated into her right external carotid. Deef-Lek had a terrible shock and yelled in pain which was choked off in her throat when the two black probes reached her central nervous system, launching the nanoprobes which seized her peripheral nervous system. She almost immediately began convulsing; her eyes and mouth gaped wide. She hiccupped, drooled on her lips, then spasmed violently, arched, and remained immobile, becoming soft as a rag doll.

"Release her at once!" Saar-El ordered.

Ripper complied. The young woman fell heavily onto the ground, her eyes lifeless. A sensor-scope flashed in the middle of her left cheek which was pale and marbled by gray. A patch of electronic circuits had grown on her right temple in the middle of her brown hair - the mess which would fall out and would not grow again any more - just below the access port of her Neural Interface.

Saar-El paled and shivered with horror. "Oh … Deef-Lek!" he whispered, feeling his heart constrict in his chest with guilt.

Two of the four drones of Ripper's personal guard raised her. She offered not the slightest resistance - she was incapable of it. They escorted her outside and led her to the closest Assimilation Chamber.

Saar-El glared at Ripper and exclaimed, "I didn't want her to be assimilated, Ripper!" He tightened his fist, ready to make a ball of energy spring from his palm, which would disintegrate Ripper. But he decided otherwise; he needed him. It was Ripper who would take him to the Borg Queen.

"She will make an excellent drone," Ripper said before turning to the Kelahsian, narrowing his eyes with suspicion. "I don't believe that you want to become Borg of your free will, Saar-El. I'm persuaded that it's a guise to destroy us all, to save the people of your planet."

Saar-El shook his head, "It's not a guise, and I told you the truth, Ripper. I hate the Divinities! I don't want to serve them anymore. They did not want to resuscitate my wife! And I'm fed up watching over the Sovenn Reft, the Forbidden Valley; to be stuck there among rocks and glaciers and to kill all the foolish men who dared to trespass in it! I'm a warrior; I like fighting, and I like conquests! I like the thrill of killing someone! And I have a voracious ambition. I want to become the master of the galaxy at your leader's side."

"Queen…" Ripper corrected. "Follow me."

They walked past rows of immobile drones standing up in their alcoves, then in front of an immense room, a real shambles of machines, consoles and cables. Several operating tables occupied the middle. Saar-El shivered seeing a kind of huge metal spider above each of them. The paws were equipped with a whole assortment of scalpels, saws, needles, probes, vines, crowbars, etc. On one of the operating tables was laid the body Deef-Lek ready to receive the rest of her cybernetic equipment. A Borg surgeon undressed her completely and activated the assimilator, which came down towards her. The flesh and the non-flesh would soon be united, married, connected and sealed.

Roaring of terror, horror and dismay suddenly made Saar-El jump. He shivered on hearing the shouts of pain, suffering and the long heart- rending moans mixed with the sobs of the prisoners of the Borg. Those sounds mixed with the mechanical and electronic noises emitted by the different instruments used for the assimilation; the same tools that the drone in front of him used to transform Deef-Lek into a drone.

Saar-El heard the heavy regular step of the Borg on the bridge made of metal railings and turned around. In the passageway, the unmoving drones escorted the members of the Laar-Tel-Pa covered with implants, their faces now made of flesh and metal, frozen. It is then that he saw the Queen appear, feminine, supple and graceful. He found her spectral face both attractive and disgusting. On her sensual lips and in her silver eyes, he read a wild, insatiable appetite for souls.

"Who are you?" Saar-El asked the Borg Queen.

"I am the Borg. I bring order to the multitude of voices within the Borg shared consciousness."

"You control the Collective?"

"I am the Collective."

"It is useless that I introduce myself, I suppose?"

The Borg Queen smiled broadly. "Indeed. So you wish to become Borg, Saar-El?"

Saar-El nodded, "Yes. But I don't wish to be just any Borg, I want to be able to keep my individuality, to remain myself." He turned to Ripper. "I don't want to be one of your mechanized puppets, like him."

Ripper glared at Saar-El and tightened his fists, ready to break all the bones of the arrogant Kelahsian.

"You have hurt Ripper, Saar-El." The Borg queen said, amused. "Ripper is not a common drone, you know? He is my consort. A human being with a mind of his own who has bridged the gulf between humanity and the Borg. Ripper is the best of both worlds: a Human being who chose to unite his body with the Borg technology to become a cybernetically enhanced biological life form, the perfect being. He's my equal and shares my desires and ambitions; he also relieves my solitary existence."

Saar-El put his hand on the artificial arm of the Borg Queen before saying to this one. " I offer you…"

Ripper didn't let Saar-El finish his sentence. He suddenly grabbed the Kelahsian by his arm and pinned him to the floor, crushing his spinal column with his foot.

"That's enough, Ripper." The Borg female told him. "He didn't want to harm me. Raise him."

Ripper complied reluctantly. Saar-El bent his head. "Thank you. Ripper is your bodyguard, too?"

"He's very attached to me. What did you get ready to say to me before this interruption, Saar-El?"

Saar-El said politely, "That I offer myself and my powers to you, Queen of the Borg, with pleasure. With them you will quickly become master of the galaxy, and then the universe. In return, I ask to keep my individuality and to have the honor and the privilege to stand at your side."

The female Borg nodded, "By transforming you into a common drone, I would possess your knowledge, your experience and I could order you to use your powers to my service, Saar-El. What do you have to offer me that could persuade me to grant you the immense privilege of keeping your individuality and standing at my side?"

Saar-El turned to Ripper and sent him a condescending glance. "I would be a much better companion than he is! You would have a superior being at your side, a demigod possessing immense powers."

Ripper went to Saar-El, anger burning in his eyes. The Borg Queen stopped him with a wave of her hand. "You please me a lot, Saar-El … I accept you and your powers."

The Kelahsian had a triumphant smile and he said seductively, "You won't regret it."

The Borg Queen nodded again, charmed. "Yes, I am sure of it." She turned to Ripper. "Finish the assimilation of the species 4888, Ripper." She then looked at Saar-El hungrily, delighting in advance at appropriating his knowledge, his experience and using his immense powers. "I am personally going to take charge of Saar-El's assimilation."

Ripper turned on his heels, jealous, feeling rejected. Saar-El had become his rival.

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