"Are you sure about this?" asked Doctor Cavity Brusher. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and the small amount of mascara she habitually wore now traced dark, watery streaks down her cheeks, but her voice was firm. She held a hypodermic injector in her hand. She had refused to allow anybody else to do this for her.
Fanny Marisu Brusher nodded bravely. "I don't know why the Droid want me," she said, "but it can't be anything good." She looked up at Captain Jon-Lurk Pilchard, who was the only other person present. The three of them were in the small teleporter room behind the Bridge. "You understand, don't you, Captain? I don't want to be integrated. I don't want to be turned into a Droid."
"I understand all too well," he said softly. He did not entirely manage to suppress his shudder as an old memory flickered through his mind. "Nobody should have to go through that!"
"This concoction," said Fanny, nodding towards the injector in her mother's hand, "contains a potent mix of five different viral strains, any one of which would be lethal. It also contains nanobots of my own design. Together they will ward off the Droid integration procedure long enough for me to..." Her voice faltered for a moment, and she had to lower her gaze to the floor before continuing. "Long enough for me to die. And they will ensure that I stay dead. And, with a bit of luck, the infection will spread and take them with me."
"How long before it takes effect?" asked the Captain.
"About five minutes before it kicks in," she said, "which should be long enough for you to get the Ender's Prize, and your crew, away from here before the Droid realise what we have done."
The Captain nodded. He still wanted to beg her not to go, to demand that she find another way, but they had already covered everything that could be said. Her sacrifice was their only chance of escape.
Fanny glanced at the chronometer on the wall. "It's time," she said simply. "Goodbye, Mother. Goodbye ... Father." She smiled warmly at his surprised expression. "Oh Captain," she said, "I've known that for, like, forever. You two didn't think that I wouldn't know, did you?"
Both her parents started to speak, but she shook her head. "You don't need to say anything," she told them. "I love you both dearly. But it's time." She held out her arm.
Her mother pressed the injector carefully against the smooth, pale skin of Fanny's wrist. She looked into her daughter's beautiful violet-blue eyes. She saw the steely resolve in them that she had inherited from her true father, Jon-Lurk Pilchard; she saw, also, the fear which danced in their depths. "I love you," she whispered. She pressed the activator stud, and liquid death coursed into Fanny's bloodstream.
"I will always be with you," said Fanny. She stepped up onto the teleporter pad.
Her father checked the coordinates one more time. They had been provided by the Droid, and they specified a point deep within one of the dodecahedra which surrounded the USSS Ender's Prize.
"I'm ready," she said. He nodded.
"Coordinates confirmed," he said. "Bio-filters disabled." Ordinarily the filters built in to the teleporters would automatically remove any viral infection from the body or bloodstream of the person being teleported.
"Computer," he said, "inform the Droid that we are beaming the 'Mary Sue' to their supplied coordinates." His voice was strained, and the effort he exerted to keep his emotions in check left him trembling.
"Confirmed," said the computer's serene female voice. "Done."
"Lower the shields, and energise this teleporter, on my mark. Raise shields again the moment the teleporter sequence is completed."
"Confirmed."
He hesitated.
"Please, Captain," said Fanny, "don't stop now."
He nodded. "Mark," he said.
"Goodbye," said Fanny. The air around her shimmered and flickered as the teleporter powered up, scanned her body, then beamed it, particle by particle, to the designated location, where she was reassembled. It took only a second, but it seemed an eternity. Then she was gone.
With a sob, Cavity Brusher dropped to her knees on the deck. "What have I done?" she moaned.
Jon-Lurk Pilchard dropped to his knees beside her. Silently, he drew her into his arms and held her as she rocked back and forth, keening her anguish in a wordless cry.
Suddenly the ship lurched violently around them, sending them both sprawling awkwardly across the floor.
"What the...?" said Jon-Lurk.
"You go," said Cavity. "The ship needs you. Don't let our baby's sacrifice be in vain."
The Captain scrambled to his feet and trotted from the room. The door hiss-squeaked open, and he was on the bridge. The crew were picking themselves up off the deck.
"Report," he said.
"Uh, sir," said Info, "it is gone. Just gone."
"What is gone?" demanded the Captain.
"The 'hedron. The one that we, uh, that matched the coordinates they sent us. It blew up."
"What?"
"Moments after the teleport sequence completed, it simply detonated. According to these readings, it was a fusion reaction triggered by an overload of their transflex drive."
"How?" said the Captain. He felt like he should be asking more detailed questions, but the situation was so far beyond anything that made sense that he didn't know where to begin. "Did Fanny...?"
"It appears to have been self-initiated," said Info.
"They blew themselves up?" wondered Pilchard. "Fanny..."
Suddenly a klaxon sounded loudly, and the computer's voice declared calmly, "Intruder alert. Multiple teleporter insertions."
"Shields," shouted the Captain automatically, even as a leather-clad Droid drone materialised on the bridge.
Bork reacted instantly to the intruder, drawing his sidearm and firing several short blasts at the intruder. The Droid staggered and, without so much as a gasp, fell to the deck.
"Lurda gurda Bork!" declared Bork triumphantly.
"Shields are inoperative, Captain," said Info apologetically. "They appear to have been disabled from within. I am receiving no response from Engineering; it would appear that several Droid warriors teleported directly there for the couple of seconds that our shields were down during Ms Brusher's own teleportation across to the 'hedron."
As if on cue, three more Droid materialised upon the Bridge. Bork shot one down, but even as he did so, another materialised directly behind him. It clutched his shoulder, lurched forward, and clamped its mouth down hard over his exposed neck. Bork screamed in pain. He reached around, grabbed the head of the Droid, and twisted violently. There was a hollow crack, and the Droid staggered and toppled onto its back, its spine severed. It was too late, though. The Tactical officer clutched the wound in his neck—already it was burning as the invading nanobots began reconfiguring his flesh, devouring living tissue and breaking it down into the raw materials required to build mechanical replacements. He staggered weakly, then fell to his knees. Slowly he slumped forward onto the deck and lay there, twitching.
Lieutenant Commander Info shot down one of the other invaders. The second fell to the combined fire of Captain Pilchard and his First Officer.
"We need to get the shields back up," said the Captain.
"Trying," said Info. "I am rerouting power to the auxiliary generators ... but they are not responding."
"This can't be happening," he said hopelessly. "We need..." He trailed off. Fanny could not help them now.
He heard a muffled scream from the back of the bridge. Cavity! He turned to go to her aid, but several more Droid drones materialised in his path. He fired blindly, but they were everywhere now. For every one that fell, two more shimmered into existence. The fighting was ferocious, but gradually, one by one, the bridge crew of the USSS Ender's Prize fell beneath the gleaming hypodermic fangs of the Droid.
Pilchard watched as Dee Dee collapsed, her hand clutched to the wound on her forearm. Piker screamed angrily and shot the Droid which had bitten her; then he, too, shuddered as fangs pierced the flesh of his shoulder.
"Computer," said the Captain in desperation, "initiate self destruct sequence, authorisation Pilchard Alpha Three Gammaaarrgh!" He did not complete the code; steel fangs tore into his leg, and he crumpled to the deck with a scream. "Gamma, Seven, Delta Ice-cream," he gasped.
The computer considered this for a second. "Authorisation rejected," it told him calmly. "Please try again."
But Captain Pilchard made no reply, other than a strangled gasp as the nanobots began their work. The Ender's Prize belonged to the Droid.
Throughout the entire brief attack, Barth Vapour had lain on the floor where he had fallen when his wheelchair had toppled over following the explosion of the Droid 'hedron. The sneering grin of triumph on his face had frozen when the first Droid had materialised in front of him; now it resembled a sickly leer of dismay. Now he alone remained uninfected.
He had the distinct feeling that he had made an awful mistake.
One of the Droid drones strode over to him and stood before him. Its skin was a pasty white, and its face was half-hidden behind a myriad of ugly black implants. Only the swell of breasts on its chest, beneath the black leather covering, told him that this creature had once been female.
"You are Vapour," it intoned.
Vapour rolled around, and levered himself upright. He still clutched Boadicea tightly in his left hand; now he held the pink teddewok protectively to his chest. Whether he was protecting her, or using her as a shield, he could not have said.
"Yes," he told the Droid. "This was not our deal!"
"The deal has been changed," the Droid told him—pointing out the obvious. "You may, if you like, pray that we do not alter it further."
"Will that help?" asked Vapour.
"No."
"Why?" asked Vapour.
"We do not respond to prayer," the Droid informed him.
"No. Why this?" he elucidated. "I gave you the Mary Sue; you did not need this ship, this crew. They were to be mine. All I wanted to do was go home!"
"The Mary Sue was..." the Droid hesitated.
"She was power," said Vapour. "Had you integrated her into your collective, you could have taken this galaxy. Nothing could have stood in your way."
"She was an unknown," said the Droid. "Power, yes, but maybe too much power. Her integration could have gone ... poorly. We could not predict, could not control, her power. Safer to destroy her. The sacrifice of one dodecahedron was a small price to pay to remove her from this existence."
"But why?" demanded Vapour. "What have you gained from this? Surely, from what I've read about your encounters with the Foundation Fleet, they have nothing you need?"
"One dodecahedron was a small price to pay to remove her from this existence," the Droid repeated. "You say we could have had this galaxy? We already have it. Nothing stood in our way—except, perhaps, the Mary Sue."
"Oh," said Vapour weakly.
"And once we integrate you," continued the Droid, "we can have your universe too!"
Vapour closed his eyes. Obviously this plan had a few flaws, he chided himself. He opened his eyes again, and looked up at the Droid standing over him.
"I can still stop you," he said. He reached out with his mind and caressed the Source which flickered all around him. Even as he did so, though, he felt a sharp pain as stainless steel teeth slid into the back of his neck. Another Droid had approached him from behind while the talker had kept his attention.
"No," the Droid told him, "you cannot."
"Clever girl," he muttered, his last words before he passed out. His twitching body slumped sideways, and the pink teddewok rolled from his fingers.
The Droid studied the plush pink form of Boadicea dispassionately. After a moment, it decided the teddewok was not a threat, and it turned away.
"Resistance is fertile," said the Droid. It shimmered and faded from view, leaving the bridge of the Ender's Prize scattered with the writhing, twitching bodies of the newly integrated Droid crew.