[_Borged to Death!_, continued from part 1] ACT III Ext. Sigma Fleet warping through deep space, towards a speck in the distance. Int. Enterprise F bridge. Close-up on Marrissa. She's drinking a glass of strawberry juice, reading a PADD, and generally looking smug. MARRISSA's VOICE (voice-over) Princess Commanding Admiral's log, stardate 65127.5. Everything is going according to my brilliant plans. Bwa ha ha ha ha. Int. Sickbay on board the Romulan Bird of Prey Roanoke. DOCTOR BEVERLY CRUSHER PICARD is running one of those salt-shaker-looking things with the rotating light in it back-and-forth over Jean-Luc Picard's head, while looking at a medical tricorder. DR. CRUSHER Hmmm ... your nurepinephrine levels are well over Joshnston's Instability Threshold. It looks as if your neural pathways are quantum-linked with the polypeptide chains in your ... uh, in your ... in that, uh, part of your brain behind the ... uh ... (beat) That's odd, I knew what that part of the brain was called this morning. (puzzled) What's going on? I should be able to spout medical technobabble *twice* as rapidly as this without so much as stumbling. She runs the medical scanner salt-shaker thingy over her own head, and reads her tricorder. DR. CRUSHER Oh, no! My brain chemistry is undergoing exactly the same changes as yours is! PICARD You mean *you're* turning into a bumbling moron, too? DR. CRUSHER Yes! My tricorder is clearly showing ... that is, I *think* it's showing ... oh, for crying out loud! I can't even read this anymore! This tricorder looks like just a jumble of random, blinking lights! Close-up on the tricorder's display. It really *is* just a jumble of random, blinking lights. (What do you expect from a stage prop?) Picard covers his face with his right hand. PICARD I think I know what's happening. DR. CRUSHER What? PICARD (sighs) It's the Kids Crew Effect. DR. CRUSHER I'm not familiar with -- PICARD Every time Marrissa's Kids Crew is involved on a mission, all adults within three light- years automatically become less competent and less knowledgeable than the dumbest kid on the Kids Crew. It's one of the ways Marrissa managed to win victory after victory, even when she was armed only with a communicator and a flute. DR. CRUSHER Oh, great. That brat of yours is giving us Alzheimers. Any idea why no one else has reported being affected yet? PICARD Because Data is an android and is probably immune, Troi is useless, and Riker already *is* a moron. Everyone else just probably feels a little off-their-game for now and doesn't realize they're under Her Royal Highness's influence. Trust me, this could get a lot worse once we enter combat. Abruptly, the lights turn red and the Red Alert klaxons blare. PICARD Red alert? But we're still nearly an hour away from the Borg cube. RIKER'S VOICE (off screen, filtered) Admiral, you'd better come up to the bridge. There's something you should see. PICARD On my way. Picard gets up to leave. DR. CRUSHER But you're in no condition to command an unfamiliar starship! PICARD I have to. If I don't go to the bridge, I'll never find out what's going on. They never tell me anything more than "There's something you should see". (begins walking out hurriedly) Besides, would *you* trust this ship to Will Riker? Int. Enterprise F bridge. Angle on the viewscreen, as seen over Marrissa's tiara. Several small objects are hurtling toward the ship. MARRISSA So ... the Borg have finally started deploying fighters. I was wondering when the idea would get through their steel- plated skulls. JAY GORDON Shall we launch our own fighters? MARRISSA Nah, I'm saving them for a special occasion. Helm! Evasive pattern Marrissa Mozart's 40th Symphony, Second Movement! SHAYNA Aye, ma'am! Ext. Borg fighters close in on Enterprise F. They look like the fighters the alien bad-guys used in _Space: Above and Beyond_. The Enterprise suddenly flips over and does a neat twisty-turny maneuver that results in two Borg fighters accidentally crashing into one another. Int. Enterprise F bridge. ALEXANDER Two down, six to go! MARRISSA Quantum torpedoes, fire! Ext. Enterprise F fires three quantum torpedoes. (Those are the bright white glowing weapons they shot at the Borg escape pod in _Star Trek: First Contact_.) Three Borg fighters explode into fragments. Int. Enterprise F bridge. ALEXANDER All direct hits, ma'am! Two fighters are returning fire! Angle on viewscreen. Photon-torpedo-looking balls of light streak out from two of the fighters on a direct course for the Enterprise. MARRISSA Patterson, lock tractor beams on those torpedoes and push them back! PATTERSON Tractor beams engaged! Ext. Enterprise F. The two photon-torpedo-looking things slow down, stop, and reverse course toward the Borg fighters. Both score direct hits on the fighters that launched them and blow them up. Int. Enterprise F bridge. MARRISSA They always fall for that old trick. Funny, nobody else ever seems to use it. ALEXANDER Only one fighter remaining, Admiral! MARRISSA Launch all fighters! Ext. Enterprise F fighter bay. (It's an immense fighter bay, too, being from four to five decks high and all.) About a zillion Federation fighters stream out. They look identical to the fighters Wesley and Paris got busted for doing that Starburst maneuver in. Int. Enterprise F bridge. MARRISSA All fighters, open fire! Tactical, full phaser spread, engage all available quantum torpedo tubes and fire! Ext. Enterprise F and fighters. An unimaginable cacophony of phaser and torpedo fire erupts from every nook and cranny of the Nova-class Enterprise and from each Federation fighter in view. The last poor Borg fighter finds itself at the focal point of all these terawatts upon terawatts of destructive energy, and goes straight from a solid to a plasma. Some of its lighter component atoms even undergo a brief bout of nuclear fusion. Int. Enterprise F bridge. Marrissa buffs her nails against her uniform. MARRISSA Ender Wiggin's got nothin' on me. Ext. Roanoke. They're not doing nearly as well as Marrissa. Patches of the Romulan shields flicker as torpedoes from the Borg fighters impact them. Int. Roakoke bridge. There are still little splatters of strawberry juice here and there. Angle on viewscreen. RIKER Helm! Evasive pattern Marrissa Rossini's Overture to William Tell! Engage! Viewscreen shows the stars streak by in a different direction as the crew practices a Bridge Lurch. However, a second later, the ship still rocks from the impact of another Borg torpedo. A door to the bridge slides open. Picard enters. RIKER No, darn it! Evasive pattern Marrissa Wagner's Das Rheingold Act One, Engage! PICARD (interrupting) Ops, engage the cloaking device! RIKER But sir! We can't shoot them when we're cloaked! PICARD You're not shooting them *now*, in case you haven't noticed. Ext. Roanoke. The Romulan Bird of Prey wavers and turns invisible. Int. Roanoke bridge. DATA The Borg fighters are breaking off their attack, sir. PICARD They figure if they can't see us, we must not be there. RIKER You didn't even let me shoot *one* of them! I've never had the chance to fire a Romulan plasma torpedo before! *Now* how am I going to get my Borg sharpshooter merit badge? PICARD If we'd stayed visible much longer, this whole ship would have been destoryed. RIKER De-*storied*? PICARD Di - di - I meant, de-*stroyed*! Cripes, now even my speech patterns are beginning to sound like typos! DATA Admiral, incoming message from the Enterprise. PICARD Onscreen. Angle on Roanoke's viewscreen. Marrissa appears. MARRISSA Oh, dad, thanks so much for the show, but I can handle it from here. Now don't get too close to that naughty Borg cube, I wouldn't want you to get hurt. Enterprise out. Viewscreen switches back to the starfield. PICARD But -- (beat) Great. Just great. TROI I sense frustration, Admiral. Picard throws a threatening glance at Troi. PICARD I swear, if I could think right now, I'd be coming up with creative ways to kill you. (beat) Except that I'd enjoy it more if I used them on Marrissa. Int. Enterprise F bridge. Marrissa is relaxing with yet another glass of strawberry juice. She is admiring the glint of her scepter. The first officer's seat is noticeably empty. MARRISSA'S VOICE (voice-over) Princess Commanding Admiral's log, stardate 65127.6. Now that those pesky Sigma Fleet ships are out of my hair, I'm free to engage the Borg one-on-one. It's good ta be da king. Er, queen. Er, first-in-line princess. At least I'll *get* to be the queen when that old crone-on-the-throne finally keels over. Did I mention how much I detest my personal titles? MARRISSA (glancing over at the first officer's seat) Now where'd my first officer get to? We're only a few minutes away from the Borg cube. CLARA Jay's your husband, too, you know. MARRISSA Which is why it's so much fun to assign him to a position directly under me. Marrissa suddenly realizes the unintentional innuendo of what she just said. MARRISSA Oh, geez, get that idea *right* out of your prurient little minds! PATTERSON But we didn't say any-- MARRISSA You *know* Jay and I only ever "did it" on our wedding night! CLARA (surprised) You only ... *once*?! MARRISSA One pregnancy was enough! Feh! And, and he used his icky boy-thing, too! Ew, yuck! I knew I should have kept my virginity intact. SHAYNA (mouthing the words silently:) Boy-thing? CLARA (uneasy at Marrissa's admission) But if you'd kept your, uh, virginity intact, you'd've never had little Sara Alara. MARRISSA Big deal. An eighteen-oh-three Kobayashi Maru time. I could do that in my *sleep* at her age. Is that little rugrat still on board? The turbolift opens. Jay Gordon enters the bridge, holding hands with a four-year-old girl. JAY GORDON She certainly is. Marrissa turns an looks. MARRISSA Sara! JAY GORDON (to the little girl) Sara Alara, I'd like to introduce you to (points at Marrissa) your mother. SARA (screams) Eeeeeeeeeeeee! Sara runs around behind Jay Gordon and hides behind one of his legs. SARA (pointing at Marrissa) Demon! Deeeeeeeeemonnnnn! MARRISSA Don't be ridiculous. It's me! Mommy! SARA She's in all my nightmares, daddy! Make her go away! JAY GORDON Uh, maybe this isn't such a good time for you two to get re-acquainted. Uh, Timmy? A Kids Crew Acting Ensign, not much older than Sara, steps out of the turbolift and escorts the girl off the bridge. The girl is more than happy to leave. TIMMY Come on, Sara, wanna go play redshirts and Romulans? The two enter the turbolift. Clara enters the turbolift too, 'cause she's supposed to be in engineering which I forgot. The turbolift closes and leaves. Jay Gordon walks back to his First Officer's chair. MARRISSA That's not the Sara Alara *I* remember bringing up. First thing tomorrow, batl'eth drills for her. With the holodeck safety protocols disengaged. JAY GORDON Give her a little time to adjust, she hasn't seen you in -- MARRISSA Don't question me. JAY GORDON (quickly) Yes'm. ALEXANDER Borg vessel within range, Admiral. MARRISSA Onscreen. Angle on viewscreen. It looks like every other Borg cube you've ever seen. MARRISSA Red alert! Shields up! Start cycling the quantum torpedoes! Helm, take us in nice and close. SHAYNA Maneuvering in close, Admiral. Ext. Enterprise F closes in on the Borg cube. Int. Enterprise F bridge. PATTERSON Incoming message from the Borg cube. MARRISSA (yawns) Gimmie audio only. BORG VOICE (off-screen, filtered) We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. MARRISSA Close the channel. BORG VOICE You will be assimi-- The transmission cuts off. The viewscreen shows that the Borg cube is getting mighty close. A wide flickering bluish beam appears out of the cube's upper corner. ALEXANDER Borg vessel at fifty thousand kilometers and closing. They're attempting to lock on with a tractor beam. MARRISSA All right! Helm, take evasive pattern (beat) Beethoven's Symphony Number Nine in D minor -- Fourth Movement! And switch on the contrail! SHAYNA (astounded) Aye, ma'am! Ext. Enterprise F evading the Borg cube. Tractor beams lance out behind the Enterprise, narrowly missing it at each turn. From behind the two warp nacelles, a glowing orange-pink trail of ions starts appearing behind the ship. As the Enterprise dodges and curves, the ion contrail begins to take on a definite shape. It looks like handwriting. When the Enterprise is done swooping across the void in front of the Borg ship, our point of view zooms back, and we can see that the ship's contrail has spelled out the words, "I lost to a bunch of kids". Int. Enterprise F bridge. Marrissa frowns. MARRISSA You forgot to dot the "i"! Marrissa smacks Shayna on the back of the head with her scepter. SHAYNA Ow! PATTERSON Another incoming message from the Borg. MARRISSA Put it on audio. BORG VOICE (off-screen, filtered) Losing to a bunch of kids is futile. You will be assimilated. MARRISSA Cut the channel. PATTERSON Channel closed. The ship lurches a little bit. ALEXANDER They've succeeded in locking a tractor beam onto us! MARRISSA Helm, turn us to face the cube. (she grins evilly) Shayna, (beat) Lower the forward shields! SHAYNA But, ma'am -- Marrissa raises her scepter as if to strike Shayna again. SHAYNA Lowering forward shields! The viewscreen shows the Borg cube drawing them closer ... closer ... MARRISSA (ominously) Now ... (beat) Transporter room ... beam me onto the Borg cube! All stare at Marrissa in open-mouthed astonishment. Even her normally stoic bridesmaids raise their eyebrows. TRANSPORTER CHIEF'S VOICE (off-screen, filtered) Energizing! Transporter effect. Marrissa, her 45-foot wedding train, and her six bridesmaids all shimmer and vanish. Int. Borg cube. One of the cube's larger receiving areas. Marrissa and her bridesmaids (and her wedding train) all sparkle into existence. Several Borg drones march toward her. Close-up on the Borg drones. They have the pointy ears, devilish eyebrows, and bumpy foreheads characteristic of ... Romulans. MARRISSA (licking her chops) Romulan Borg. The best of both worlds. Marrissa sticks her arms out to either side, like a crucifix. MARRISSA *Assimilate* *me*, *baby*!! The Borg reach her and stick those Borg assimilation probes into her neck. And into the necks of her six bridesmaids. Marrissa appears to fall unconscious with the most satisfied smile on her face we've seen yet. Special Effects: We get to see the Borg collective from Marrissa's point of view. It looks rather like the part in _Tron_ where Flynn got sucked into the computer. Or the part in _The Lawnmower Man_ where the guy's mind got sucked into the computer. Or ... well, you get the picture. Marrissa's consciousness is now inside a cheesy (but expensive-looking) computer- generated universe. MARRISSA'S VOICE (off-screen) The whole Borg collective. All laid out right in front of me. The point of view begins to move forward. First slowly, then faster and faster. We are headed toward a ball of light up ahead with several glowing pipelines converging in it. MARRISSA'S VOICE (off-screen) Come to mama. We enter the ball of light, and the whole universe fragments into several pieces, all headed in different directions. We're trying to artfully imply that Marrissa has sent her consciousness off in several directions at once, here, guys. Soon, each of these new fragmented points of view reaches another ball-of-light-with-glowing-pipelines-converging in it, and then these sections of the screen split up further into whole lots of different points of view. And we keep going faster all the time. MARRISSA'S VOICE (off-screen) I ... am ... Marrissa! ... Queen ... of ... the ... universe! ... The whirling cacophony of light and sound reaches a feverish pitch. MARRISSA'S VOICE (off-screen) *Resistance* ... *is* ... *futile*!! Ext. Borg cube. The whole Borg cube blows up. Int. Enterprise F bridge. Panicked eyes look on as the cube containing their Renowned Leader blast itself to bits. PATTERSON Reports are coming in from all over the quadrant! Borg ships are either powering down completely, or blowing up on their own! There is a low hum. The green wavering of the Borg transporter effect fills the area in front of the command chair (and a fat ribbon behind it). SHAYNA Confirmed. All the Borg in the quadrant are dead! The Borg transporter effect finishes. Marrissa stands facing the viewscreen, scepter and tiara and all, her wedding train outstretched behind her, her bridesmaids wearing a few Borg implants but looking none the worse for wear. Marrissa's arms are still outstretched crucifix-style. There is a small Borg implant just below and to one side of her chin. MARRISSA *Damn*!! (lowers her arms) Stunned silence. ALEXANDER Uh, ma'am ... ? MARRISSA Half the collective severed its link before I could get to them! Almost all the Borg in the Delta Quadrant are still alive! She rips the Borg implant out of her neck and throws it on the deck. MARRISSA Stupid Borg hardware! Can't even sustain a decent high-bandwidth uplink! She clenches her fists, closes her eyes hard, grits her teeth, and growls toward the ceiling. MARRISSA *Aaarrrrrrrgh*!! (pants heavily, in anger, then calms down. A little.) All right, I'll just have to pick 'em off one at a time, then! Helm, set a course for the Delta Quadrant! Warp thirty! SHAYNA Warp *thirty*?!! Maximum warp for the Nova class is eighteen! MARRISSA What?!? (taps comm badge) Bridge to engineering! I need warp thirty! CLARA'S VOICE (off-screen, filtered) Uh ... if you're willing to risk blowing a gasket on the injection chamber, I might be able to pull warp eighteen point five. MARRISSA Oh, come *on*, Clara! You've had three years to find new integer warp speeds and break all the laws of physics! You should be up to at *least* warp 35 by now! CLARA'S VOICE Yes, I *did* have three years, and one of the things I discovered in that time was that there *are* no integer warp speeds past Warp Seventeen. I did a whole long mathematical proof of it and everything. MARRISSA Whassa matter, ya chicken? Buck, buck, buck-awk! CLARA'S VOICE Well ... there *is* the old Transwarp Threshold. You know, what we used to call the "Warp Ten Barrier"? MARRISSA Well then. Let's go! CLARA'S VOICE But if we go infinite speed, we all turn into giant lizards and mate with each other. MARRISSA Mate? Ewww! With those boy-things and everything! Ew, gross! SHAYNA'S VOICE (pensive) Then again ... we *could* store everybody's old DNA in the transporter pattern buffers, and have the computer automatically switch us back to our original species after we drop back to finite speed. MARRISSA Now you're talking! Let's do it! Next stop, the Delta Quadrant! (beat) And when the Borg are extinct, there'll be no one to stand in my way. Dramatic chord. Fade to commercial. [continued in part 3 of 3]