The Gamer’s Quagmire #68: Lucky Number 4
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Promises are promises, and, this amazing revelation aside, I figure if there is a week to talk about GTA this would be the week to do it. There are very few stories in gaming news this week that do not involve this game, and rightfully so. Considering the sales numbers this game is putting up (6 million copies sold in week one) it would be rather silly to ignore this landmark game.
That was far more than just a play on words relating to the number of NYC landmarks in the GTA IV version of Liberty City. This is one of the few games I have ever seen released where every major gaming publication and review site is giving this game near perfect marks. I am not saying this should drive you to your nearest store and pick the game up, but so few games are ever given a high score, let alone from everyone. After taking a week off from work to plow through this game, something which I had planned since the beginning of the year, I find it very difficult to disagree with the notion that this game isn’t as close to perfect as a game can get.
There are many things this game does that its predecessors have done. All the basic gameplay elements that you love (or hate) about the game are back, the satire is still present, the detail in the city environment is amazing, the story is engrossing, and the characters and dialogue are movie-level quality. These are all things I expect from GTA. Games that step up to this level are almost always highly praised, including last year’s icon in this department - BioShock.
Where GTA has stopped before, IV has kept going. Let us start with what is in the forefront – the graphics. The work Rockstar has put into Liberty City has definitely raised the bar in the realm of the free-roaming environment. Combine the graphical power of Crysis with the city detail that went into Assassin’s Creed and what you get is Liberty City. Downtown is littered with gigantic signs that make you feel like you’re on the strip in Vegas. Seeing the city skyline light up at night is just like looking out of a hotel window. Those are the big visuals. The details - like movie posters and other ads inside buildings, the geysers of water that shoot up when you knock out fire hydrants, the debris that gets caught in a cyclone when a helicopter is flying nearby, being able to hear your car radio while outside the car - all of these experiences make you feel like you are inside a real city.
Next to the basic gameplay elements that make GTA what it is, the satire embedded in this game is easily the most enjoyable aspect of this. This is not anything new, but being able to see this in the form of television and the web are brand new experiences. One day I spent hours just watching TV in one of my safehouses. Is there any point in doing this? You don’t get missions or any real information on backstory in the game, but it sure is entertaining.
The only complaint I have is that the character movement is still a ways away from smooth. Running around, moving through crowds of people, breaking into cars or just hopping in them all have very natural movements. Jumping, however, is still atrocious. Trying to get Niko to jump between ledges, onto or off of a boat, or in between rooftops is still an ordeal. Jumping in wide open spaces is not nearly as frustrating as cramped spaces (I got stuck once under a staircase which forced me to reload because crouching and walking wasn’t working right), but jumping in a straight line can be a major ordeal at times. One mission I failed because I tried getting onto a dirtbike from behind it, only to walk in circles for over 10 seconds before my target escaped.
If those problems were not present in the game I would easily be able to state with conviction that this game is perfect. When I say a game is perfect, that means that while the game can still be improved to do things in different ways, there is nothing that I feel the game is lacking. For example, the cover combat system could be a little easier to use for getting in and out of cover or sprinting between cover spots, but it didn’t really cause any problems. The combat system was still much better than anything that has been in GTA games to date, so I cannot state with a straight face that the combat was difficult or frustrating.
There is one thing I should make a special note on. There is a mission that involves a bank job in this game. I thought this was going to be as annoying as the Vice City mission was, but it turned out to be the best mission in any GTA game I have played to date. The tedious parts of the robbery - securing the bank, subduing employees and customers, busting open the vault, were all scripted. The entire mission revolved around the escape from the bank. The adrenaline rush in running through the streets taking out cop after cop, running through the subway, avoiding helicopters, and the final escape back to the house provided more adrenaline and energy than I could ask for. I would need 3 Red Bulls back-to-back to recreate that sensation. This mission was the defining moment for the game.
Coming up with something different to say about this game is tough. You know it all and you’ve probably seen it all. The highlights of this game were the graphics, fighting system, environment detail, voice acting, character animations, story, dialogue, satire, and length. The driving, movement, and missions were good but could all have been improved. The multiplayer was new and fun, but still could be so much more. Every one of the highlights were near perfect if not perfect, which means that GTA IV probably didn’t exceed many people’s expectations, but it matched what most people were expecting from Rockstar. If that doesn’t say something about what the value of the GTA franchise is, then nothing really does.
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May 8, 2008
Ti’Hat and the Vulcan: Chapter Sixteen
“The Delta Mother has been completely destroyed,” Kim said, shaking his head.
“What about the fighters?” Chakotay asked.
“About twelve hundred of the fighters from the Delta Mother were destroyed. Two hundred are nearing the planet, along with three Bint’Ari ships. The rest of them are still engaging the Borg,” Kim replied.
“What about the cubes?” Janeway asked.
“The Attack and Scout cubes are heading for us. The Destroyer is maintaining position, trying to hit the fighters.”
“How long until the cubes reach us?”
“Thirty seconds.”
Janeway scratched her head. They had thirty seconds to drop their shields, launch the landing party, and re-raise their shields. And every second she thought about it gave them less time.
“Mr. Kim, signal the shuttlebay that they have their clearance to leave,” Janeway said. “And tell Tuvok that they have fifteen seconds to get out of here.”
“Aye Captain,” Kim replied. “Shields are down, the shuttles are under way.”
“Borg cube coming into range, Captain,” Paris said.
“Mr. Young, fire phasers,” Janeway ordered.
“No effect, Captain,” Young reported. “The Borg are coming to a stop in front of us.”
Suddenly, two Borg soldiers materialized on the bridge, one next to the weapons console, and the next in the center. The two security officers on the bridge drew their weapons and moved towards the soldiers.
“Intruder alert! Mr. Kim, get me those shields, now!” Janeway barked, and she leapt to her feet. Ensign Young rose and grabbed the heavy mechanical arm of the Borg that stood near him before it cracked open his skull. The Borg reached around with its free arm and backhanded Young, sending him crashing into his own console.
The other Borg made its way towards Janeway. The Doctor, after a moment’s hesitation, got to his feet and stepped in front of the soldier. The Borg moved foreword, reached up, and stabbed the Doctor in the neck with the two talons from its fingers. Both The Doctor and the Borg looked to the ground, where several tiny metallic flecks had fallen between The Doctors feet. His program, detecting an unwanted foreign substance within the holographic matrix, had simply took away the Doctors solidity long enough for the metal bits to fall to the ground.
The Doctor bent down, and looked closely at the flakes.
“Nanoprobes,” he commented. “An effective means of assimilation for humanoids. Of course, ineffective on a hologram.”
The Borg, though confused, decided that assimilation was not going to work on the Doctor. The only alternative was death. It raised its mechanical arm and brought it down on the Doctor’s head. Instead of the intended result, the arm passed straight through the Doctor and the Borg fell foreword. The Doctor moved aside, allowing the Borg to fall to the ground. Before the Borg could rise to its feet, the Doctor reached over and plucked the necessary component off of the Borg’s chest, causing it to instantly disintegrate.
The second Borg’s attack on Ensign Young was stopped short by Seven of Nine, who leveled the drone with a vicious backhand. Young fell to the ground, and the drone turned to engage Seven of Nine. She was too quick for it, though. She lashed out, grabbing the drone’s head and snapping its neck. The drone dropped to the floor with a loud thud.
“How many more of those got on the ship before the shields went up?” Janeway demanded.
“Five,” Kim replied, returning to his console. “Two others have been eliminated. There are still some on decks three and four.”
“Transport them into space,” Janeway ordered.
“Doctor,” Chakotay began. “Ensign Young is severely injured. He has lost a lot of blood, and is unconscious.”
The Doctor moved to examine Ensign Young, ordered transport to sickbay, and the two disappeared a moment later.
“You have tactical, Chakotay,” Janeway ordered, returning to her seat. “Status of the Borg ships?”
“They haven’t attacked us yet,” Kim replied. “The remaining fighters from the Delta Mother arrived before they could. The Borg Destroyer and the Scout have both been destroyed. The Attack cube has no appreciable damage, but I estimate that there are at least three thousand antimatter pods attached to it.”
“Signal the ranking fighter, and tell them to fall back,” Janeway ordered. “Target as many of those pods as you can and fire phasers, Chakotay.”
“Aye Captain,” Chakotay replied.
Seconds later, Voyager’s weapons came alive, phasers hitting different parts of the cube. Small explosions which could be seen all over the surface ruptured many of the pods. After a moment’s wait, the antimatter leaked out of the containers, causing several explosions that spread all around the cube. Finally the entire ship went in a giant explosion, and several chunks of the Borg cube fell towards the atmosphere of the planet.
—
Not used to flying several kilometers above a hostile alien planet, Oro resisted the urge to close his eyes. Instead, he sat with his hands firmly gripping the sides of his seat, and stared unwaveringly as Tuvok calmly plunged the shuttle towards the planet’s surface.
“Voyager’s shields are up,” B’Elanna’s disembodied voice reported. Oro jumped at the voice, and shook his head as he reminded himself that she was on another shuttle, and that they must have a sort of communication system that linked the ships. He finally gave in, and closed his eyes. Better to be calm than a nervous wreck.
“The three Bint’Ari ships are following close behind,” Torres continued. “And the Khamish squad is going to stay behind, and make certain that none of the Borg ships interfere with our landing. The ranking Lieutenant says that as soon as we are safely on the surface, they are going down themselves to make several attack runs before regrouping with the landing parties.”
“Acknowledged, Tuvok out.” Tuvok glanced over at Oro, who still had his eyes closed.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
Oro opened his eyes, and focused foreword, trying not to let his embarrassment show. “I’m fine,” he calmly replied.
“Out of curiosity, how many Borg are on this planet?” Oro asked, after several moments of silence.
“Exactly two point six billion,” Tuvok replied. Still focusing on piloting the shuttle, he glanced casually at the sensors, to affirm his statement. With a look of confusion, Tuvok reached over and punched commands into the sensor console.
“What’s wrong?” Oro asked.
“The sensors are completely inoperative,” Tuvok replied.
“Sappho to Heston,” Torres’s voice filled the cabin. “Tuvok, can you see anything?”
“Negative, Lieutenant, it would appear that the Borg have reactivated their sensor block,” Tuvok replied. “I would recommend descending as quickly as possible to an altitude of nine kilometers, and holding position there until we get a clear view of the area.”
“OK Tuvok, I’ll relay that to the other ships,” Torres replied, before she closed the channel.
“What if we get attacked?” Oro asked. “We won’t be able to see to avoid being destroyed!”
“We will not be attacked,” Tuvok steadily replied. “The Borg would not be able to get a weapon’s lock on any of our ships while we are in the disruption band. Here is the safest place for our ships.”
“I see,” Oro replied. He returned his gaze to the planet below, and found it fascinating. Oro had never seen another planet before, at least, not this close. He could still remember his father taking him to the observatory when he was younger, to look through the giant telescopes. For a long time, Oro wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut.
His father.
His father had killed himself rather than endure the Borg’s voice one moment longer. Hanged himself less than a day before the destruction of the cube in orbit of Bint’Ari. Less than a day before most of the people who were afflicted by the Borg mind-rape had their burdens lifted.
One day longer and Oro would have had his father. Now both of his parents were gone forever, victims of the Borg.
Suddenly, Oro was not quite so afraid anymore.
“Sensors are coming back online,” Tuvok reported. Before he finished that short sentence, the entire cabin was bathed in the flashing light of a red alert. Tuvok quickly turned his chair to see what had set off the alarm.
“Three small ships are approaching from the surface,” Tuvok said, before Oro could ask what was wrong. A diagram of the ships appeared on the lower corner of the view-screen.
Each of the craft were nothing more than a Borg drone equipped with an impressive exo-suit. The suit resembled a small jet, with two large disrupter protruding on both sides of the Borg’s head, as well as thruster packs scattered along the belly and the rear of the small ship.
The Borg fighters wasted no time. They immediately moved in and destroyed one of the Bint’Ari transport ships, and swung around to begin their second pass.
Each of the shuttles raised their shields and moved to protect the remaining two transport ships. The dogfight was short-lived, as the shuttle far outclassed the small Borg flight-suits.
“I’m feeding the coordinates of likely target sights to the other ships,” said Tuvok, without wasting a moment. Without another word, he turned the shuttle towards the surface and began a rapid descent.
—
The leader of the Delta Blue squad made her way through the giant cloud of debris. Not that she had any idea where she was going, she had not been privy to any of the alternative plans for the attack on the cubes. When the attack began, she was but a mere Captain, one of over a hundred in the squad. Now, she was the only member of the squad, the rest destroyed in a nuclear/antimatter blast. Her onboard sensors were totally destroyed in the explosion, and she was unable to reach her own Mothership for direction, as her comm-signal was drowned out by the thousands of other signals that flooded the ship.
The silence of the space around her made the situation even more uncomfortable. She knew that all around her was a battle of epic proportions, yet she could not hear any of the explosions, none of the engines of the fighters streaking by their targets, nor could she hear commands filtering down the channels, each squad leader given orders on where to strike next. Her own communication system was blocked from receiving signals from any other squadron. This feature was suppose to ease the confusion of several thousand signals being exchanged by an equal number of fighters, so that the proper orders were received and followed by the proper people.
This was supposed to be an easy victory, a decisive defeat of the Borg by the powerful Khamish. But now that the Borg had found a way, one ridiculously primitive way, to destroy hundreds of Khamish fighters in one blow, defeat of the Borg seemed an almost impossible task.
The hopelessness of her situation snapped inside of the Captain. With her mothership destroyed, it was entirely possible that even if the battle ended in a victory, she would not be returning home. Death, at this point, was inevitable. Her ship could not return home, nor could it dock with another Mothership. Those would undoubtedly be filled to capacity. And the fighter was not designed for planet-landings, only tractor-docking in Motherships. No matter what happened, the Captain would be stranded out in space.
Death in the void of space by dehydration, hunger, or suffocation when the fighter’s life support system went down was not the way the Captain wanted to go out. With a renewed determination, she looped her fighter out of the debris field, and charged towards the first combat area that she could find.
“Identify yourself, pilot,” the voice over her comm-system demanded as she blew past a nearby Mothership.
“Captain, Delta Blue One-Two-Six,” she replied, still surging foreword.
“This is Alpha Mother, Delta Blue One-Two-Six. Where is your commanding officer?”
“The Lieutenant Colonel is dead, Alpha Mother. I am the ranking officer,” the Captain replied.
“Please maintain position beside Alpha Mother, so that we can reassign you to an active squadron.”
“Negative Alpha Mother. Delta Blue One-Two-Six out.” The Captain ignored the string of protests that bled through her earpiece. She knew that what she had just done was a capital offense, akin to mutiny, and technically she was now an open target to any and all Khamish ships in the area. Somehow, she doubted that any of the struggling fighters would even take notice of her.
The battle around the cube was hard for the Captain to take in all at once. There was no sense of order to the surrounding fighters, all were trying to stay as far away from each-other as possible, to avoid any chain-reaction explosions. The Borg cube was still trying everything that it could to destroy the attackers, everything from random shots of a cutting beam, grabbing a fighter with a tractor beam and swinging it out of control, to suddenly moving one way or the other in hopes that some of the fighters were moving to close to the cube to avoid being hit. Their efforts were not entirely futile, occasionally a fighter would lose control, and come to a violently explosive end.
It did not take long for the Captain to reach the cube, as fast as she was traveling. She turned along the one of the sides of the massive ship, coming as close as she could to it without scraping the bottom of her hull. From this perspective, the Captain thought that the cube looked frighteningly like the surface of a planet rather than a ship, the edge an ever distant horizon. She focused attentively to the metallic lattice that made up the hull of the cube, the seemingly random grooves and crevasses covering the whole of the surface.
Directly in front of her, a circular door on the surface of the cube opened up, and a sphere slightly larger than her fighter shot out. After she passed underneath it, she turned her attention briefly to her sensor readout to check its progress. It had collided with another fighter making a lacing run at a higher altitude, destroying it and two other fighters in the resulting explosion.
Then an idea came to her. She programmed her ships sensors to look for similar circular impressions along the cube’s surface. She then slowed her fighter in order to get a clear picture. She changed course and headed for the first one that her sensors found. As she passed over it, she released four of her full load of antimatter pods, and waited for the automatic signal that each pod sent out after it had attached itself to the surface. She then looped around for another pass, and fired her bolt cannons at the circular indentation. As she had hoped, several of the shots hit the pods, rupturing them. The resulting explosion tore away a small section of the cube’s outer hull, revealing what the Captain had hoped for, one of the tubes from which the spheres were being launched from.
The Captain recited a prayer to the Great Hive Mother, and slipped her fighter into the dark tunnel. She could not even see the sphere in front of her when it crashed into her ship, igniting the antimatter onboard into a fantastic explosion that eventually worked its way through the entire cube.
Hundreds of Khamish fighters limped their way back to the Alpha Mother to regroup. Each and every person who was involved in the attack had no idea why their enemy had suddenly exploded, but not one of them wished it hadn’t happened.
Star Trek, Voyager, and related properties are © Paramount Studio, and the author makes no claim towards them.
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May 5, 2008
Off the Cuff: Batman The Animated Series
I spent a lot of my formative years watching Batman the Animated Series. And I loved it. That show defined not only Batman but all superheroes with its atmosphere, stories, and characters. Every single cartoon or movie is chasing the standard that Batman: TAS set.
Even the artwork was brilliant. It was the first show that I actually noticed the animation style. And I still think it used shadows better than any incarnation of Batman I’m familiar with.
That’s a high bar.
And in recent years I’ve feared that maybe my memories were tinted by rose colored glasses. Maybe Batman: TAS wasn’t half as good as my mind recalled. After all, I thought Voltron was the best show ever – it was devastating to learn that it’s not.
Talk about crushed childhood dreams.
Well let me relieve the fear – Batman: TAS is still the standard to beat. Watching it on TV these last few weeks has reminded me just how brilliant it was. What’s surprising is the show’s probably better than I remember!
As a kid I enjoyed it because of the action, the art, and the “coolness” of Batman. But I instinctively knew there was something more there – I just didn’t now what. Now I can now fully appreciate the subtlety of the characters and artwork. I can enjoy it for the depth of the story telling and character development.
Batman: TAS is still the greatest superhero cartoon ever created. And may possibly be the best cartoon ever created.
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May 2, 2008
Still on the Shelf 2008 - Free Comic Book Day Rundown!
Happy Free Comic Book Day, 2008!
Check out my rundown of this year’s offerings at comiXtreme.com!
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May 1, 2008
Ti’Hat and the Vulcan: Chapter Fifteen
“This is incredible,” Kim said as he read the information that was displayed on his PADD.
“What?” Chakotay asked, as he sipped his drink. The two had decided to take a little break in the officer’s mess before the fleet would move on to Kalat.
“If this data is correct, we are lucky something like this did not happen a while ago. We seem to have been going through a part of space that the Borg have almost entirely conquered for over a month now. I thought that Kes had thrown us well beyond Borg territory. Perhaps it is not as well defined as we once thought.”
“Maybe the ’silent invaders’ the captain of the Quahi vessel we ran into a few weeks ago referred to were the Borg. The Borg don’t tend to talk to much.”
“You can add conversation to the list of things the Borg feel are ‘irrelevant,” Kim joked. Chakotay had to laugh along with him. “Ever tried holding a conversation with Seven of Nine? She can end one before you ever start it.”
Chakotay smiled. “Most of my conversations with Seven of Nine never go beyond ship’s business.”
Harry started with a nervous stutter, swallowed it, and continued, “According to this data. It will take us another two years to get out of the Borg sphere of influence!”
“What about the rest of the journey home? Are we going to have to make any long detours to stay out of Borg space?” Chakotay asked.
“I have no idea. The data Tuvok got doesn’t have anything like a map showing the boundary of space that the Borg have claimed. That would make sense, as the Borg don’t seem to respect any boundaries. But there are several star systems noted in the information, and the computer was able to extrapolate a map of the nearby systems. Seven has been converting the data for use in astrometrics, so we should have the area charted in the next day or so.
“It looks like the Borg are really worried about us, too. There are only two other cubes within a month of here. By all outward appearances, they do not plan to mess around. We are to be destroyed.”
Chakotay smiled. “Not if B’Elanna has anything to say about it. She is driving the Engineering department insane with all of the modifications she wants done. She’s having three different shield nutation programs installed, modifying all of the phaser banks, and trying to get reaction time on the impulse drive down by fifteen percent. I am glad I’m not down there right now. I am sure some of them haven’t slept since she came back on duty.”
“She probably has Borg on the brain now. I was talking with Oro, from the surface, and he told me some pretty tall tales about her. It seems that she has become something of a legend on Bint’Ari. One story had something to do with her killing fifty Borg in one battle,” Kim said.
“That doesn’t surprise me. She bottles up so much of her aggression that I am certain that once she let it out, anyone who stood in her way regretted ever even looking at her.”
“I hear they named her after an animal on the planet. Ti’hat, I think it was. Oro described it, and it sounded something like a large Tasmanian devil,” Kim explained.
“Well, I wouldn’t call her that, if I were you,” Chakotay smiled. “From you, she might take it as a joke, but I don’t think I would take that chance.”
“All senior officers, to the bridge,” Janeway’s voice said over the comm-system.
“Oh well,” Kim said. “Looks like the fun is over.”
——————————————————————————–
Kim and Chakotay walked on to the bridge in time to catch the end of the conversation between Janeway and the Khamish Colonel.
“The modifications your Ensign helped us make to our shields are completed, and are working well,” the Colonel said. “The auto-nutation program may fail, however, if the shields are hit too hard.”
“That is to be expected,” Janeway replied. “Your shield generators aren’t designed for constant frequency modulation. Honestly, I am surprised that your engineers were able to manage it at all.”
“There is not a lot that we cannot accomplish, Captain,” the Colonel said. “The fleet is ready to depart. We’ve taken on the last of the Guard units the Bint’Ari sent to accompany us, and all of the repairs are completed.”
“Excellent,” Janeway replied. “Let’s be on our way, then.” As the channel closed, Janeway ordered Paris to proceed towards the Borg planet at Warp 6. Unexpectedly, The Doctor strolled onto the bridge, and sat down at an empty console.
“Doctor, I am surprised to see you,” Janeway said. “Is there something wrong?”
“It was my understanding that the Chief Medical Officer had a spot on the bridge. I was merely following tradition,” The Doctor replied.
“Drove yourself out of sickbay, did you?” Paris snickered.
“Certainly the presence of my ‘copies’ contributed to the decision to leave sickbay. I had no idea that I was so annoying! The copies are being entirely unreasonable. None of them will submit to deletion, and none of them will shut themselves off, for fear that they will be deleted if they do.”
“A reasonable fear, Doctor,” Janeway explained. “The only reason that you are not being pressured to delete yourself is that when the malfunction occurred, you were the first to reappear, and you were the first to get to your holo-emitter, and haven’t taken it off since. How would you feel if one of your copies were insisting that you be deleted?”
“They are!” The Doctor exclaimed. “In fact, the only thing that they can agree upon is that I should be the first one to go.”
“Rest assured, Doctor,” Janeway interjected. “Your problem will be dealt with once we are safely under way.”
“I need to learn to stop trying to improve my program,” The Doctor mumbled to himself.
—
“Captain, ETA to Borg planet two-point-five minutes,” Paris reported. The fleet was moving along at impulse speeds, after stopping for a short time about ten minutes away from the planet. The Khamish Commander thought it best to come into range of the planet with all of the fighter deployed, in case the Borg attacked sooner than expected.
“Any luck on the sensors, Mr. Kim?” Janeway asked.
“I’m afraid not, Captain,” Kim replied. “I can’t figure out what it is the Borg are doing to jam us. I can get a clear picture of the planet, and the surrounding space, but the cubes I’ve detected keep disappearing and re-appearing from the sensors. It is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
“How many different cubes have you seen so far?” Chakotay asked.
“I’ve confirmed that there are at least two Attack Cubes and one Scout Class Cube,” Kim replied. “There could be a hundred more, though. It is almost like there is a layer around the planet that is totally cloaked. I’m not reading any matter what-so-ever between the altitudes of ten and fifteen kilometers.”
“Species 756 exhibited a similar technology,” Seven suggested. “It is possible that the Borg assimilated that species since my, ‘liberation’ from the Collective.”
“Any idea how to neutralize it?” Janeway asked.
“None,” Seven replied.
“One minute until we are in range, Captain,” Paris reported.
“Captain!” Kim exclaimed. “The sensor interference is gone! Suddenly, I have a clear picture of the matter in that altitude range.”
“Perhaps it was impairing their sensor readings as well,” Chakotay suggested. “Maybe one of the cubes that was outside of the belt detected us, and they turned off the sensor screen to get a better picture of us.”
“A reasonable hypothesis,” Seven confirmed. “Our experience with the sensor screen indicated it blocked all sensor scans, regardless of their source.”
“How many ships are you reading, Ensign?” Janeway asked.
“Five Attack Cubes, two Destroyers, and six Scout Class cubes,” Kim replied.
“Looks like we have them outnumbered by a few thousand,” Janeway half-heartedly joked, referring to the thousands of one-man fighters that surrounded the fleet. Notify the Colonel our scans, she might not have a clear read yet.”
“Can you get any details on the planet’s surface?” Chakotay asked. “If we are going to knock out the Borg planet-based collective network, we will need some information of the location of the transceivers.”
“There is still some sort of dampening field blocking details about the planet’s surface from our sensors,” Kim replied. “I can tell that the planet-bound Borg are operating under an extremely decentralized system, much like a cube itself. The ground strike units are going to have to use the information from Tuvok’s download as well as their own sensors to locate the transceivers.”
“Such an attempt would almost certainly prove futile,” Seven added. “There could be several thousand transceivers on this planet. An invasion force would have to be significantly larger to disable all of them.”
“That is a chance we are going to have to take,” Chakotay replied.
“Janeway to Tuvok,” the Captain said as she tapped her comm-badge. “Are the shuttles ready to launch?”
“The Hesoid, Heston, and Aust en are standing by,” Tuvok replied. “The last quantum torpedo is being secured inside of the Heston, and we should be ready to depart in ten minutes.”
“We’ll try to get you as close to the planet as we can,” Janeway replied. “Janeway out.”
“Status of the Borg fleet?” Chakotay asked.
“It looks like they’ve seen us. They are moving this way,” Kim reported. “But they have not tried to hail us.”
“It will not be long,” Seven replied.
“We are the Borg,” the monotonous voice was heard over the ship’s comm-system. “Lower your shields and surrender your ships. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
“I spoke too soon,” Harry said.
“Have the Khamish fighters engage the cubes,” Janeway ordered. “We need a distraction in order to get close enough to the planet for the shuttles to get into the atmosphere without a problem.”
“Fire at will, Ensign Young,” Chakotay ordered the young tactical officer. “And if you would avoid the attack cubes for the time being, Mr. Paris, that might be a good idea.”
The Khamish fighter pilots, eager for the confrontation, surged towards the Borg cubes at full speed. A few disappointed pilots stayed behind with their ships, to prevent an attack on one of the Mothers. The Mother ships, in the meantime, were maintaining a very tight formation, and managed to lock their shields together so that each ship would benefit from the shielding of the others. Voyager skirted the edge of the battle, to avoid getting into range of one of the Attack cubes.
Janeway glanced several times at Seven of Nine during the opening minutes of the battle, trying to read some kind of reaction on the woman’s face. Seven did not oblige her with any discernable response. She remained transfixed on the view-screen, blinking only when necessary.
“Signal the Captain of Delta Mother, Mr. Kim,” Janeway instructed. “We need her to break formation and follow us towards the planet, so that we can drop off the landing parties.”
“Aye Captain,” Kim replied. “Delta Mother and four fighter squadrons will be here in about a minute.”
“Captain,” Paris called from the helm. “I’ve got a Borg Scout heading straight for us.”
“Mr. Young, fire a spread of torpedoes as the Scout,” Janeway ordered. “Perhaps we can discourage it.”
Five torpedoes lanced out the rear of Voyager, and impacted the Scout one after another. The small cube shuddered under the force of the explosion, but it did not slow down. Several bits of the ship were blown off during the explosion, so it looked more like a jagged rock than a cube.
“Captain, it’s on a collision course,” Paris warned. “I’m trying to move out of its way, but the cube keeps adjusting its course to match mine. I can’t stay ahead of it.”
“Aft phasers, Mr. Young,” Chakotay ordered.
“No effect, Commander,” Young replied.
“Set up the frequency rotation program,” Janeway ordered. “They may have already adapted to our current frequency.”
“The Khamish fighters have arrived, Captain,” Kim reported. “One of the squads is dropping several anti-matter pods between us and the Borg Scout.”
“Has the Scout changed course, Mr. Paris?” Janeway asked.
“No,” Paris replied. “In fact, its about to hit that antimatter-”
The viewscreen flashed a bright white glow. The Scout collided with the antimatter pods, which resulted in a spectacular explosion. Voyager was far enough away to avoid being caught up in the antimatter reaction, but two of the fighters weren’t so lucky. The explosion damaged one of the fighters, which in careening off course, collided with the second fighter, destroying them both.
“Signal the fighters our thanks, Mr. Kim, and give the Captain of the Delta Mother our heading,” Janeway ordered. “Mr. Paris, take us to the planet.”
“Aye Captain,” Paris replied, adjusting the ship’s course.
“The Captain of the Delta Mother is following,” Kim reported. “One of the Borg Destroyers in changing course to intercept.”
“Is it on a collision course?” Chakotay asked.
“It doesn’t look that way. A few of the Delta Squadrons have turned to engage it,” Kim replied.
“More speed, Mr. Paris,” Janeway ordered. “We need to get the landing party off before we can engage the cubes.”
“Captain, we are receiving a message from the Delta Mother,” Kim said. “They are going to make a stand here against the Destroyer so that we can make a run for the planet.”
“So long as some of us get to the planet,” Janeway replied. “Let’s see it, Mr. Kim.”
The view-screen blinked to a view of the rear of Voyager, and the crew watched hopefully as the Delta Mother engaged the first of the Borg destroyers.
——————————————————————————–
The commander of the Delta Mothership signaled her intentions to Voyager and the Colonel before she made her move. The Borg were not just going to allow the fleet to land troops on their planet, she knew that all along. But the Major felt that the Borg would have a harder time sending ships to attack the enemies that were heading for their world. They had only expected the five Attack cubes, though.
“We are coming about, Major,” the Lieutenant at the helm reported.
“Excellent. Give me a view of the Destroyer.”
The small view-screen shifted to the cube. Small flecks surrounded the giant vessel, the flecks being the attacking swarm of fighters. Several groups of fighters moved in tight formation towards the cube, each carrying out a different set of orders, in order to bring down the big cube as quickly as possible.
The Destroyer, which was vainly trying to hit the fighters that were swarming towards it with disrupter beams, did something unexpected. Invisible to those on the Delta Mother, the cube opened up a small circle on the side of their ship, and released a tiny, spherical probe. The sphere targeted one of the Khamish fighters that was moving towards the cube, and collided into it. The resulting explosion was so large that it engulfed the entire squadron that surrounded the assaulted fighter.
“What the hell was that?” demanded the Major, who stared at the blinding explosion with amazement.
“Some kind of explosion, sir,” the Corporal replied. “The sensors are reading a high level of radiation emanating from the explosion.”
“Get a fix on that squad,” the Major ordered. “How many made it through that explosion?”
“Two sir,” the Lieutenant replied. “They were out of formation at the time with engine trouble.”
“What about the rest of them?”
“Destroyed, sir,” the Lieutenant replied.
“There were two hundred fighters in that squad,” the Major sighed. “All but two of them gone.”
“Major, two more explosions have been detected. We have lost all contact with Blue and Green squads.”
“They have to be using some kind of nuclear weapon, Major,” the Lieutenant said. “A nuclear reaction involving antimatter results in a huge explosion, much larger than a conventional nuclear explosion. Any ship anywhere near such an explosion centered in a fighter squadron would be engulfed.”
“Lieutenant, order the fighters to break formation and engage the cube at point blank range,” the Major yelled across the bridge. “They won’t use those nukes so close to their ship.”
“Alpha Mother reports four of their squadrons have been lost in similar explosions,” the Lieutenant reported.
“How long until we can fire?” the Major asked.
“One minute until the MF cannon is fully charged,” The Lieutenant replied.
“Launch the Bint’Ari landing ships, and send a squad to accompany them.”
“They will reach the surface in ten minutes,” the Corporal said. “They won’t have a chance out there! There are too many Borg ships out there.”
“I don’t see us having much of a choice!” The Major replied, angrily. “Keep your station!”
“Bint’Ari ships away,” the Lieutenant reported. “White Squad is accompanying.”
“Have the Borg responded?”
“No, I would imagine that the Borg believe that they are retreating.”
“MF cannon is charged, Major.”
“Fire it then!” The Major yelled.
Seconds later, a brightly colored bolt of energy leapt from the Delta Mother’s cannon, and shot towards the Borg Destroyer. It opened up into a broad net, and collided with the cube at close to the speed of light. After the bright explosion died down, the Captain could see the barely damaged cube start to move.
“What happened?” The Major demanded. “I thought you said that the cannon was fully charged!”
“It was!” the Lieutenant nervously replied. “It seems that the fighters were unable to completely lace the cube, and there was too little antimatter to begin the chain reaction.”
“Major!” the Corporal called. “Two more Borg ships coming in to our sector. A Scout and an Attack cube!”
“Fighter status!” The Major yelled.
“White Squad is gone with the Bint’Ari, and we have lost most or all of six other squads.”
“Request assistance from the Command Mother,” the Major ordered. “Full reverse! Get us away from here!”
The mothership began to move backwards, then shuddered to a stop. The engines grew louder as they futilely tried to push the ship backwards.
“We are caught in a tractor beam!” the Corporal called. “The engines are at their maximum!”
“Activate the shield nutation program!” The Major ordered.
“It’s off-line, Major,” the Lieutenant replied. “The strain on the engines overloaded half of the computer systems. We have no shields.”
The Major continued to bark useless orders, as the Borg cube cut into the Motherships hull with a thin beam, until it reached the engine room. The beam stopped a split second before the ship erupted into a spectacular explosion.
Star Trek, Voyager, and related properties are © Paramount Studio, and the author makes no claim towards them.
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