Disclamers: Star Trek and its characters (Picard, Riker, Warf, Data, Q, etc) are not mine and are owned by Paramount Pictures and not meant to infringe on any copyrights.
To Three From One
By
A.J. Marks
Part 2
Captain Picard, Q, Riker, Data, Councilor Troy, and Ray Conner walked into the briefing room and took their seats. Captain Picard took his seat at the head of the table, Q sat opposite Picard with Riker and ray on Picard’s right the rest on the left side of the table.
“I assume that there is trouble with the Borg Captain?” Riker asked him after he sat down.
“Yes, Will, but we are the only ship with a crew with experience enough to combat the Borg.”
“So why are we headed toward Earth and what do this have to do with those two?” Worf asked pointing to Ray and Q.
“And what is it that I would not be ready for, mortal?” Q asked looking intently at Ray.
“You know, I would have thought that a couple of thousand years would have improved your attitude Q.” Ray said calmly to Q. “I promised the captain that I would explain it and I will. I’m just not sure where to begin, that’s all.”
“The beginning is a logical choice.” Data supplied.
“Yes it would Data, but it would also raise a lot of questions to early in the tale. If everyone would agree to hold your questions until after I’m finished then it will go quicker.”
“I think we can manage that.” Picard said as everyone glared at Q.
“What?” He said as he continued to receive stares. “All right, I won’t interrupt Mr. Storyteller over here, Ok.”
“The older they get the more arrogant they become.” Ray said shaking his head. He took a breath and closed his eyes. He let out the breath and opened his eyes. His eyes seemed to change, they were no longer bright and vibrant, but almost dull, like a person who has seen too much.
“I am over 10,000 years old, my exact age I no longer know. And no, I am not quite an immortal, nor am I part of the Continuum. I was born in a city that was called Tzalbti, nothing of it remains of it today. The society, area, and culture were entirely different back then. My real name is Gpanzl. I never had a last name.”
Gpanzl was the oldest child of three. He had two younger sisters, the older one was named Mabxel, she was 16 seasons, and the younger sister was named Xztel, she was 14 seasons. He lived in the small town of Tzalbti. His parents were typical farmers with much honor. Their ancestors had been the first to settle the land around the city and also helped to plan the city. The city was named after Gpanzl’s great-great-great-great-grandfather. Gpanzl lived in a typical house with his parents and sisters. His sister, Mabxel, was to be married in another moon. This year at harvest they would not have to work as hard because of the new automated crop harvester his dad had purchased not to long ago.
Technology was sure changing things, Gpanzl thought as he looked at in the store. The community was peaceful until they came. They, it was rumored, was the new social religious outcasts, as the government called them.
Gpanzl had heard many rumors about them. He had heard that they had been actually started by the government years ago as an experiment into cyborgs. The government was hoping to make an invincible army to conquer the planet and then to act as a peacekeeping force to keep the local population under control until they were loyal. Unfortunally the programming went haywire and the cyborgs started to try to convert other people into cyborgs.
Another rumor was that they started as a new religious cult. The cult wanted to mix living beings with machines to create a new cyborg race. Gpanzl did not really care at the time. He was eighteen seasons old and was one of the best athletes in the country. He was a fast runner, the best wrestler in his village and had one of the best throwing arms in the area. He was courting a young woman, Ka’tel who was sixteen seasons, who also lived in the village. He was expecting to marry her during the winter season and he was collecting the dowry to give to her father.
The war between the government and the cyborgs had just recently started to increase in hostility. The cyborgs had apparently adopted a new recruiting policy that was a person either accepted them or were killed. Gpanzl did not like this policy, he and his family had always been stout Poseidon worshippers and they would be until they died. He did not believe that someone should be told who to worship.
Gpanzl and several of his friends went over to the neighboring town to pick up some new harvesting equipment that his sister’s betrothed would need after they were married. It was to be a wedding gift for them. On they way back they noticed smoke coming from their village. A coupled of his friends raced ahead to see what was happening. When Gpanzl got to the village he could not believe his eyes.
His village had been attacked and most buildings had been destroyed. There were several dead people that he knew and then he saw it. Lying in the doorway of a partially burnt house was a dead cyborg. They had attacked his village. He ran towards his home. The house had some fire damage but he saw no bodies yet. He walked into the house shouting for his parents and sisters. He heard an answering call coming form the back of the house.
When he got to the back of the house he was greatly relieved that they all seemed to be in good health. He then noticed his mother’s eyes, it looked like she had been crying.
“Is everyone ok?” Gpanzl asked nervously.
“Your sisters, mother and I are fine, however, Ka’Tel was over visiting us when they attacked. I’m sorry son, she was killed.”
Ray paused in his telling of the story. He had loved her very much and even after 10,000 years he still missed her.
“I still think about her. On her birthday I light a candle to honor her.”
“Sounds like you loved her very much?” Troy said.
“Yes, you never do forget your first love.” Ray replied. “Her death is what lead me down the path that I chose. I wanted revenge and blood, the cyborgs blood so I went and enlisted into the king’s military to fight the cyborgs. My parents were not very happy about my decision. In fact we argued quite a bit over it, but my anger and stubbornness won.
“I was only 18 at the time I joined the army, and the war was just starting to really become complex. It wasn’t until a few years later that I learned how the ‘cyborgs’ were created and their original purpose. After learning that I started to doubt what the government was doing to finish the war.”
Gpanzl entered the army after his father reluctantly agreed with him. His father realized that if he did not bless his son, they may part angry with each other and his son could die before they could reconcile their angry words.
Gpanzl quickly established himself as a soldier with a promising career. He was fast, accurate, and a quick thinker. His superiors quickly realized that he was one of the best scouts they had. In less than a year he was commander of a scout platoon for the main army.
As he climbed the command ladder he also learned more and more. The war against the cyborgs was not going well. They were not losing but the cyborgs were starting to introduce new technologies that, if they were not countered, would be the downfall of his civilization.
The cyborgs had introduced a new night vision and a laser that was highly portable and powerful.
To counter this new threat the inventors took some volunteers and changed their DNA. They had enhanced mental powers to see if they could reach the human side of the cyborgs. It was a dangerous experiment that backfired on them.
There was an unexpected mutation in the process. They were more aggressive than what they were supposed to be. In fact they became their own cult of power and joined in the war on neither side, making three sides in the war.
“Three sides in a war is very dangerous.” Ray said. “Our inventors, medical staff, and technological people were very arrogant.”
Q was looking a bit impatient at Ray.
“What is your question Q?” Ray asked him.
“I still don’t see what this has to do with me, but I’ll ask. Are you part of that experiment?”
“No I wasn’t, that was a little bit later.
The new faction in the war called themselves ‘The New Age of Man’ because they believed that they would win the war and be the supreme ruler over the land.
New technologies were being introduced by all three of the opponents. The rate of new technologies appearing on the battlefield made it seem that a new technology was being introduced everyday. The fighting had now spread to outer space by the cyborgs.
Gpanzl gazed at the night sky watching the bright flashes appear. It almost looked beautiful until you remembered that it was a battle being fought in space. His scout force of five men scouted the local area for any New Age forces that the high command thought were in the area.
Gpanzl was hoping to drop by his home village on their mission because it was close by. He also wanted to warn his family and friends to leave.
When he entered the town he noticed several people looking at him strangely. It seemed to him like no one wanted to approach him. Finally his brother-in-law noticed him and walked over.
“Hello Gpanzl, we need to talk.” He said.
“Tibrias, what’s wrong?” Gpanzl asked him as they walked into the tavern and sat down.
“Seven nights ago some new group attacked the village. They were new because they were not cyborgs. In the attack your parents were killed.”
Gpanzl was saddened by the news, “you gave them a proper burial?” He said in a strained voice.
“Of course, they were honorable people.” Tibrias answered. “There is more, Gpanzl. They took your sister Xztel in the raid. Mabxel was injured but will completely recover in the next couple of days.”
‘The second time’ Gpanzl thought, ‘this is the second time this was has killed someone that I loved. When will it stop?’
“Again I was quite angry, but this time at another group.” Ray continued. “About a week later I learned that there was to be a massive attack against the cyborgs. I was to be part of a large scouting party to determine the strength of their base.
“Their base turned out to be heavily defended and the scouting party that I was part of ran right into an ambush. They were waiting for us to show up. The commander was killed right off. Then the cyborgs just picked us off one by one.
“I later learned that the scouting party was actually a decoy for the real attack. I was the only one to survive the scouting party, but I often wish that I did die.
“I woke up in a strange room. My last thought before I awoke there was watching a cyborg plunge a knife into my chest. My first thought after waking was that I had become a cyborg. Another part of me thought that I was dead, but then a doctor walked through the door.
“I learned that I had undergone a new medical experiment. I was to become a new type of soldier. They altered my genetic structure to make me stronger and more resistant to any chemical or mental attacks from either the cyborgs or the New Age forces.
“I became the first of a new bread of soldier, we were more loyal that the last experimental soldiers, and stronger and faster than the cyborgs. We raged battles all over the planet and space. The cyborg ships were beginning to get more complex however the soldiers like me were immune to anything the cyborgs could do.
“The cyborgs decided to cut their loses and left the planet with a treaty of non-aggression between us. We did develop a mechanical with biological enzymes type of weapon for us to use against the cyborgs.
“We had defeated the cyborgs but we still had the ‘New Age’ to deal with. We eventually got a peace treaty with them, but the toll on civilization was great. Most of the civilization was destroyed along with the technology that had been developed. Perhaps the greatest downfall of my civilization was that we did not completely defeat the cyborgs like we should have.”
“Why do you say that?” Riker asked.
“They have destroyed thousands of civilizations since that time. The price of the war was my civilization and we still didn’t destroy our enemy, and we had the technology. You seethe leader of the cyborgs back then was a man called Borgenivesed. He went by the nickname of Borg.” Ray replied.
“Are you saying that your race created the Borg?” Picard asked in a bit of a shock. He could not believe a race could create such monsters.
“No not my race captain,” Ray replied softly, “our race did.”
Q started to laugh.
“Haha, oh boy, that’s good, your own race created the Borg, Picard.” Q choked out through his laughter while looking at Picard’s shocked face.
“I wouldn’t laugh Q.” Ray told him. “Your ancestors were the ones who mutated, you were also created by my civilization and failed their original jobs.”
Q abruptly stopped laughing and looked at Ray like he had lost his mind.
“I am curious as to this civilization that you keep mentioning?” Data asked Ray.
Ray looked at Data and replied. “I know it as Roberffe, but it is know to you in legends and myths as Atlantis.”
End Part 2
Comments welcome at: AJMarks01@aol.com