NationStates Jolt Archive


Order and the Scorpion (Closed, ATTN: Blackgrue)

Alkesh Naranek
04-02-2007, 19:22
Ilkail, Within Vorlon Space...

Missiles impacted the hill, along with bursts of PPG style weapons fire and concentrated beams of searing yellow brightness. The fortifications left over there by the last group to attack the island disintegrated at their corner, rubble and molten mush rolling down the hill. Hovering, Gravitic ‘Shriek’ (an alien name of no commonality with the English word) tanks and personnel carriers surged forwards, some of the latter dropping out smaller, man-sized assault platforms.

They weren’t actually attacking anyone; the whole area was deserted but for the attackers; The closest the various groups on the planet got to live-fire warfare was in occasionally blowing up things left behind by the others in these unoccupied areas.

While the Vorlons strongly disapproved of war, such activities served both as a pressure valve for the inhabitants of Ilkail, whole populations of younger races occupying the surface of the planet, which had been broken up into thousands of islands and even more sub-surface caverns; though people didn’t go there often.

The place served four purposes; firstly grounding and evidence for use in Vorlon religious intercessions (hence, some of the most rarely visited caverns in the planet’s dead core were even decked out as various races’ imaginings of hell), second a place to study the societal development of Young Races in a gigantic, planet sized fish tank and watch interactions between cultures and sub-cultures. Third, Ilkail was part of a long running Vorlon project to establish a baseline state by which environments of all worlds could be adjusted to a state of equilibrium with their sapient inhabitants (whom, on Ilkail, did not age, this too was to eventually be distributed throughout the galaxy), an ultimate refutation, or rather, negation of the role of evolution. Finally, it also served as a store of genetically viable communities from every race the Vorlons had encountered – this was ostensibly to be able to ensure the survival of all races despite predation by the Enemy, or each other, but cynics might say it also gave the Vorlons justification in being able to act with impunity and destroy the main populations of Young Races without truly committing genocide.

For the most part, the agents the Vorlons used elsewhere were not selected from the inhabitants of Ilkail. Its existence was a rather guarded secret.

Travel was restricted on Ilkail to match the same degree of difficulty as each culture would have travelling to the territories of other races in the galaxy at large. Meaning that the Vorlons discouraged too many visitors to others’ territories (although the numerous stations dotting the planet’s orbital pathways were another story, and socialisation was free there) and even took violent action against those attempting to invade, annex, or travel beyond reasonable limits – the last time such had happened, when a Narn area had attempted to annex a Centauri island, those involved were stopped by an attack on their transports and the offenders’ island punished with sixteen days of continuous rainfall. Of course, the many vaults beneath the surface, which were not part of the planetary homeostasis experiment, were exempt from this; but most often, the inhabitants of Ilkail only went there to retrieve things that had been archived in such vast spaces; often including their own kind, who frequently, every few centuries, disappeared into stasis with a given set of ‘wake up conditions.’

Another area with relatively unrestricted travel were numerous competitive zones such as this one. The Vorlons had distaste for unrestricted competition of any kind. Even this dry assault was faintly disgusting to the Vorlon watching it, but in more structured efforts, it was quite acceptable; even orderly.

Ulkesh watched the Minbari Warriors sprint from their moulded, low profile vehicles, the remnants of the quasi-trench fortifications that were simultaneously dug back into the hill and jutting forth were kept under continuous fire, the forward section enfiladed by cunningly established positions tangential to its corners. He found it relaxing, after a fashion, to watch these activities. It reminded him of his identity.


An identity born, after a fashion, in similar circumstances, once, not long ago by the reckoning of many Vorlons, Ulkesh had been highly enthusiastic about the Younger Races. Devoted, generous, extroverted loving – by the standards of Vorlons, at least. That had changed many thousands of years ago.

He’d been burnt.

Quite literally.

The ‘body’ of a Vorlon was a mix of what could be called organic and technological parts. Crystalline auxiliary memory with a total storage capacity of 2¹°° bits capable of holding billions of years of memory (planning ahead, essential for an immortal race), quasi-fluid processing gel, smaller crystalline main (short term) memory units distributed throughout it. Nanoscale ‘skin’ sense web capable of interfacing with organic minds or computer systems, and feeling the minute imperfections in a glass surface or the tiny fluctuations of heat left by the friction of an ant’s limbs or a bacteria’s respiration. This skin was laced with Effector grids capable of detecting electromagnetic radiation on any wavelength, and inducing remote effects in brain matter or computers alike, sensing a current of one ampere from an unbelievable distance.

Despite this, or rather, because of it, the Vorlons were capable of adjusting their sensory capacity, to avoid feeling the sensory overload that would qualify as pain. When they were expecting it.

He’d been caught off guard. The planet in question was forgotten now; to all but Ulkesh. It had been a failure; they had moved too openly there. Energy weapons. Fusion bombs. Telepaths.

Atrocities, that the Vorlons had colluded with, or been unaware of, or simply deemed necessary. False religion, a means of control that some had argued against.

They had been ready to go to the stars. Aboard a Vorlon vessel, the first group of leaders and thinkers were to have a demonstration of interplanetary flight. They had bided their time, nursing a hatred the Vorlons had been too respecting to discover. Ulkesh was one of the lucky ones on that occasion; such weapons had little lasting effect on Vorlons, and he had merely been burnt and wounded, outside his protective encounter suit. But as one would expect; the sensory overload – pain – had been staggering.

When he and a few of the others aboard escaped the wreckage, they had been attacked with those same energy weapons. He was the only survivor. The race in question had been punished – almost destroyed completely by the bombardment – for it, but Ulkesh had no forgiveness in his personality. A fanatic by nature, he had simply changed his beliefs; what wrong could the Vorlons do? There was only the Enemy and the failure of disobedient lessers, never Vorlon error.


A ribbed Minbari vehicle swept overhead; perhaps intending to impress the Vorlon, and indeed, he looked up. He merely thought that its deep sea-blue hull was a giant collection of shot traps, even though that was a mostly redundant phrase on the battlefield it had been designed for. Then he realised that it was parking next to him. He turned; absentmindedly-brushing dust kicked up by the transport from the hems the Centauri Imperial Purple robes that hung from his suit with a telekinetic impulse, looking at the Minbari vehicle.

It was with a degree of irritation almost below that he observed his erstwhile competitor disembark from the crude – by his standards – craft. He and the other Vorlon, known to the younger races of Ilkail as Alkesh, were essentially the two assigned to tasks that took them into direct and overt contact with the ‘younger races.’

The other Vorlon spoke, in the incomprehensible speech-song of the Vorlons. It could not be rendered precisely into English. Merely a shadow of its light:

You have a request?

You are required. You have not answered.

I have been introspecting. What is the request?

You are needed to contact this race/hive/hegemonic swarm <Data transfer>

I doubt this will work.

I do too. All do. But it is nevertheless to be tried.


That was the cliff notes version, of course. The reasoning and lines of inquiry were… irritating. Nevertheless, disobedience was unthinkable. The collective will of Vorlon would be obeyed. He drifted over to the personnel carrier, and they both boarded again. From there, it would take them to a flyer, and from there to the station in orbit where dozens of transports, including their own, sat in bays attended by acolytes of a strange cult that had grown up around the starships of the Vorlons.

Alkesh would go to Fiacra, another world in the empire, to prepare a new ship for Ulkesh, who had an errand on the homeworld before he departed.

The landing deck was wide, almost two hundred and fifty meters so, and long; the best part of a kilometer long. It was one of the lowest decks on the large Minbari station that orbited Ilkail, and reserved entirely for Vorlon transports. There were always four there at least; Ilkail had three Vorlon supervisors and its orbital space one, and there was a higher transitory population of Vorlons; often taking the numbers up to ten or twelve ships. They settled down into sculpted, padded docks when they landed, each one with its own thick doorway, guidance lights, and flock of worshippers.

They didn’t really worship the ships, but it was a fairly popular activity to occasionally come down and have a look at the alien ships. They were marvels, and one could easily become entranced studying the constantly changing mottling of their hulls, an outward projection of electromagnetic jamming stealth technologies. Those who spent long enough around the ships tended to hear them in dreams, and eventually, even be allowed near the vessels without triggering their numerous defensive systems.

The doors opened, and the two squid-formed vessels shot from the station, and out to the strictly controlled jump gate that orbited with it, disappearing into the blue flux that appeared.


Alkesh’s ship didn’t remain in hyperspace for more than a few minutes though, carefully diverting itself off the tenuous beacons provided within the Empire, and reemerging near one of the system’s outer planets. Dozens like it zoomed past, apparently oblivious to the new arrival. And why shouldn’t they be; they were out as far as the eye could see around this world, which they used as a place to produce more of themselves, a factory, of a sort. These ships weren’t jump capable; they remained in the Ilkail system at all times; theoretically, they could be used to make a titanic war, but they were mostly left alone. The Vorlons didn’t truly trust these constructs, and so they were more like living defenses than true ships.

Each one was built around, instead of a jump engine, a knot of energy storage cells. From birth, the vessels charged themselves up, giving them a higher capacitance than any other ship save the greatest motherships. When activated simultaneously, these could create a titanic explosion.

That said, like all Vorlon constructs, the swarm fleets did obey. Alkesh contacted one of the vessels, almost at random, (though being who he was, he did make something of an intelligent selection anyway) and put it on a course for the jump point, bringing it alongside his own ship.


Ulkesh’s vessel was a deep red, which was a rare sign of individuality among Vorlons. It blended with the background of hyperspace as it journeyed to its own destination; the homeworld. There, it would land, and Ulkesh would merge with devices there. It would take almost a month of introspection while linked with such a machine, before his self was completely transcribed; a redundancy measure required in order to assure he would not truly die on such an ill-concieved mission.

In the same manner, he would not risk his usual ship on the voyage to meet these Borg…


The planet Alkesh brought the new ship to was a vast conglomoration of ‘islands’ linked to one another by thick cords, in theory, each was detachable, powered by a hyperspatial tap and capable of incredible industry. Jump gates and hyperspace folds and funnels dotted the world of Fiachra, and fleets of ships were docked. Despite this, Fiachra was idle at the moment, most of the rebuilding that was necessary had been done; and so its folds contained fleets of vessels of every size.

Fighter-craft met the ships as they approached Fiachra, not because attack was anticipated, but to act as tugs and guide the other ships deep into Fiachra’s chasms. Passing inactive jump gates miles wide, and slipping past spars and pylons that crackled with bio-electric power that seemed to serve no discernable purpose the ships came to a docking spar, and Alkesh’s ship stopped, pressing to it, and delivering the Vorlon to the chambers controlling this active ‘island.’

Fiachra had once been a massive terrestrial world, with an almost obscene wealth of materials. The Vorlons had chosen it to be a mining colony. It had grown, as their industry had sunk, to become the industrial heartland of the Vorlon Empire. Changing, dying, and being born in a wholly new and glorious way, Fiachra was quite possibly the strangest, most engineered and technological world in the galaxy.

Alkesh spoke with the controllers of the world, to have modifications made to the swarm ship. It wasn’t possible to turn it into a standard transport without removing its explosive ability, instead, a compact jump point generator replaced some of the cargo space; capable of creating one large enough for the transport only about ten times per day before it would damage itself.

Though, being the same entities that thought up their grandiose Ilkail scheme, the Vorlon engineers had another surprise too; it was almost a month before Ulkesh would be ready, so they decided to alter it a little further, too, adding a few other features.


They met again in the fringes of Fiachra, Ulkesh took his new ship, and prepared to leave. The jump points of the planet were strange; some lead directly into axial corridors, and were attached to systems that could impel a ship powerfully. They cut into travel time significantly if one was headed in vaguely the right direction. The new transport aligned itself, and strong gravitic hands caught it. The jump gate flared, and it disappeared.

It would take some time to make contact…
BLACKGRUE
05-02-2007, 04:33
A nearby system was the Borg's newest target. Nearly 30 pulsar cycles after first arriving in this universe, diamond class explorers discovered a neighboring unclaimed system inhabited by only an information-age race calling itself the "Torian Confederacy".

Although technologically backwards, the Torians had an excellent biological makeup and their planet was very resource-heavy... And there was another planet that with a little work could be a useful mining colony. Lacking the large transports they arrived in, the Borg had instead opted to constuct a Pyrimid-class "colony ship" although "planitary assimilation platform" was a more apt name for it. The pyramid and the Borg queen's diamond warped into the system flanked by a pair of cubes.

A suprised astronomer was the first to see the massive vessels arrive. "Talar! Talar look at this!" He called to his assistant pointing to a primitive RADIO telescope display. "Is there something wrong with the display?"

Talar checked another primitive CRT screen. "No... the display is fine..."

"But that's impossible... the only way this display can be accurate is if..." he trailed off. "If something was between us and the stars."

The pyramid meandered into a high orbit as the cubes on all RADIO frequencies used by the inhabitants of this planet transmitted "WE ARE THE BORG. EXISTANCE AS YOU KNOW IT IS OVER. WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."

The pyramid fired the first stage of its assimilation cannon. billions of nanites entered the atmosphere spread by the air currents to all facets of civilization on this world. Inhaled by the unsuspecting (albeit panicked) populous, the nanites quickly went to work assimilating them from the inside out.

http://ditl.org/gpaf/GBorgNanoprobes.jpg

The second stage fired only 10 minutes after the first, this time the nanites went to work redesigning the atmosphere for optimal Borg operation. The oxygen/nitrogen mixture quickly turned into a methane/carbon dioxide mixture, all animal and plant life on the planet that was not assimilated quickly withered and died.

There was still some matter of industialising the planet, but all usable life had been assimilated. the remaining organic matter would go towards cloning vats to further populate the collective.

Then an alert was rang throughout the collective.

"Alert! Unknown subspace frequency approaching rapidly towards grid 3-3-8. Processing... Processing... Scans indicate a vessel traveling directly through subspace towards this position. Pinpointing logical exit points." 2 points in the system where the vessel could easily escape subspace were singled out as the cubes moved to cover them.
Alkesh Naranek
06-02-2007, 00:29
The construction of personality vaults and telepathic vaults were things the ‘young race’ telepaths of the Vorlons occasionally did as preparations for upcoming strife. Ulkesh’s actions were much less typical, they reflected who he was.

He spent time stringing his effectors together to sense danger in his general vicinity, to perform a low level, invisible, even to other telepaths, scan of electronics and organic minds to determine when hostile actions were being embarked upon.

This was nothing, many of the younger races had this as a matter of course; it could even extend far enough to detect when a ship was about to open fire on them.

Instead, however, he did something far more complex. He linked it to his consciousness, to determine the location, distance, and nature of such threats, and daisy-chained that to an artificial (what wasn’t?) response pattern; essentially meaning that his response would be an autonomic reflex.

Save that it’d result – against ground based or otherwise local threats – in him turning and shooting anything conscious that threatened him, before it actually attacked. While he could restrain this reaction as it detected thoughts (he could even perform mass scans, which was what this was something of an iterated, specific – sometimes called ‘skim’ - form of, but it was rather draining, and he saw no need for such drastic acts here) as a man could rigidly resist reacting to a tap to his knee, the default was ‘blast the offender into chunks of smoking meat.’ Aggression was a major, even dominant, part of who he was.

It interested him what precisely he would encounter; the degree of integration with the hive mind; he suspected that he could probably tap the memories of individuals with forceful scanning, though this would do significant neurological damage as the force needed to temporarily circumvent the implants that were reportedly used would be… rather more than meat could handle under ideal circumstances. He might test it.

The ship informed him that it neared the emergence point. Perhaps fortunately, the waiting forces hadn’t accounted for one thing, fortunately. The swarm ship didn’t have the deceleration in its normal configuration necessary to enter orbit gracefully; instead, the jump point formed several light seconds out; to give the vessel, which looked even more like a flying jellyfish than it usually did, emerging backwards, secondary engines forwards, blazing brightly, the space to decelerate smoothly.

He resumed the encounter suit – another one, identical to his usual one, which remained in Fiachra, this one was subtly different; some of its devices were older. Like all the transport devices, it was heavily armored and shielded, and designed to resist sensor probes and energies¹ of all varieties. More importantly, it was sterile, comfortable.

To get the right impression, one has to envision something akin to the perfect office chair; comfortable, relaxing; maybe including massage devices and a cup holder. Add armor that’s not at all cumbersome, and a moderately potent offensive suite that included a gun best described as an eye (singular) beam, customarily dialed down to a non-lethal level that merely ‘slapped’ but capable of blasting most humanoids apart or putting holes in armor plate. Less overt abilities were energy manipulation – electricity, vibration of air molecules to produce sound and even flames – active defense fields, and systems designed to, using the same principles of hyperspace electromagnetic manipulation as ‘telepathy’ erase traces of the Vorlon’s presence from electrical and optic-chemical recording devices.

Of course, all that understated just how very relaxing the things were.


The Vorlon ship slipped from the jump-point, and almost instantly, it observed two things.

A truly alarming transformation was taking place on what had previously been an inhabited planet.
There were four other ships in the system, one, a three kilometer cube, was rather closer than was comfortable…

The newly minted Vorlon transport arced towards the nearest of the ships. And waited.

A catch, one could say.

But for whom?

---

¹ In other words; please don't try transporting him. It probably shouldn't work. And the headache in working out how it'd work with such a bizarre life form would give me some sort of aneurysm. ;)
BLACKGRUE
06-02-2007, 17:13
(OOC: In other words; please don't try transporting him. It probably shouldn't work. And the headache in working out how it'd work with such a bizarre life form would give me some sort of aneurysm.

Simple, the transporters on star trek work at a quantum level, and are even capable of transporting phaser fire (although in the episode this was shown, safty protocols did not allow the phaser beam to be re-intigrated). Bear in mind I'm also using borg transporters which are much more efficient and advanced then federation transporters... and have none of the safety protocols that would normally prevent energy from being reintegrated. The trick is scanning through the suit... although I suppose if I beamed a chunk of the ship that wouldn't be a problem. (Note: This has been a public service argument from the coilition of people with too much time on their hands))

IC:

The cube was a menacing if silent vessel for the first few moments after the Vorlon vessel's exit from hyperspace, or subspace depending on which ship's inhabitants you asked about it owing to the fact that the collective consiousness within the borg vessels wasn't sure what to make of some of their readings. The semi-organic nature of the alien vessels beyond that of vessels used by species 5831, known to the Humans of their home timeline as "The Breen"... but not quite to the level of species 8472 from the collective's first failed attempt to conquer an alternate timeline.

Compounding the Borg's confusion about the vessel, it employed some degree of stealth technology that caused the cube's scans to have large gaps in it's readings. They could only estimate power usage, they couldn't scan weapons, lifeforms, defences, or even the communication grid of the Vorlon vessel... The scanners struggled to adapt and slowly the holes began to close, although it was obvious that the cube was scanning over and over again to do so, bathing the vorlon vessel in a number of green sensor sweeps.

After about a minute or so, the cube learned enough about the communication grid to hail the vessel.

UNKNOWN VESSEL, UNKNOWN SPECIES. WE ARE THE BORG, THIS SYSTEM IS SPACE CLAIMED BY THE COLLECTIVE. WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS HERE?
Alkesh Naranek
09-02-2007, 14:11
Ulkesh’s ship didn’t need any help, in actual fact, despite its lack of obvious sensors and communications devices, it was quite able to interpret a number of standard signals; for example, it was picking up the radio transmissions of the planet nearby, delayed by several minutes, as it listened, desperate screams of distress as some of the last areas on the planet were overwhelmed – nanites could only spread so fast, after all, before air resistance would burn them. Even strategically delivered, it would take some time before the vast quantities of nanotechnology would plausibly get everywhere.

Not that this mattered at all to whatever poor sod was screaming about things, behind his eyes.

With small populations, the traditional ‘Borg MO’ of beaming up the inhabitants and violating them more directly with surgical instruments in charnel houses of ‘rebirth’ was probably vastly quicker. Though not necessarily more energy efficient, which was perhaps what concerned the borg here. Like any good Von Neumann machines, the nanites would eventually get everything on the planet; at least anything on the surface (doubtless the new drones would organise penetration of any airtight bunkers on the planet) and with borg ships there to blockade it.

To a Vorlon, the whole operation was a display of ‘who the collective was.’ It was something of a brute force lover, clearly. Its approach probably lost a fair percentage – even assuming a shielded ‘particle’ beam – of the overall mass of nanites (which was probably a quite sickening number, gigatonnes maybe) simply due to the friction of firing such things at colossal speed through an atmosphere until they airbursted over cities. Ulkesh expected that when the planet was fully converted, core-taps would be installed to harness ‘free’ energy and recoup the material inefficiencies of the operation.

To Ulkesh, for all his many fascinating character flaws (which were, in alarming truth, the norm for Vorlons, now) actions still spoke louder than words, and the vast majority of his attention was directed at events unfolding on the planet below. He wasn’t as awed as he could have been; he’d seen similar things before, if on a different timescale, and generally injected as missiles.

Nevertheless, part of his attention was directed at the signal, and he formulated a response. It wouldn’t do, yet, to say why he was truly there. His voice, in reply to the hollow, multitudinous borg tones, was controlled deep and tight, almost wicked sounding.

“You,” he said. He was replying to the last sentence of their message, quite directly, but it might seem to be an evasive answer to some. The ship continued towards the cube, half expecting to be pulled inside at any moment…

---

OOCness: Oh, there’s a lot more weirdness about them than that.
BLACKGRUE
09-02-2007, 20:02
(OOC: I did watch babylon 5 a little... i know more about who you're playing then you give me credit for :-P)

Inside cube EF-62, the collective processed the response. Accustomed to clear answers albeit sometimes indirect ones, the collective had to rely on their knowledge from certain species like the Tamarians who spoke by example or countless other species who communicate differently. They began to reply.

YOUR RESPONSE IS CRYPTIC. PLEASE CLARIFY.

The borg of course were assuming that the vessel was as eager to establish relations with the collective as the collective was with them. If the other vessel refused or dodged again, that ppurpose may be in jeapordy... besides city after city was falling on the planit behind the cube as the atmosphere was burning as it shifted to one completely unbreathable by their inhabitant's native species.

It was a gambit. But the cube did believe as new information came in that they could assimilate the vessel if nessicary. If not, hey would simply take the technology and then destroy it. That was the way of the collective. Resistance is futile.
Alkesh Naranek
11-02-2007, 20:53
They wanted clarification, that was a little astute of them, perhaps surprisingly. Normally he wouldn’t bother framing any kind of answer, and leave the ‘subject’ to wonder what he meant, but in this instance, it was of greater immediate relevance that his targets achieved a higher level of contact immediately, therefore he would have to bite the bullet and speak more plainly.

Meanwhile, he considered the mass violation of the race below. He wasn’t the most compassionate of beings, and even less the most compassionate of his own kind, but it was nonetheless, intriguing. An analysis of initial population patterns showed that it was a late stage single-planet civilisation; one the Vorlons hadn’t had the time to visit since they had awoken in a changed universe.

His kind were trained to evaluate entire worlds from very little actual data, and this was no exception. He could easily tell the economic state of the world prior to the borg attack, and its nuclear and geo-political situation. He could tell quite easily that it had been at a mixed developmental level that would perhaps have allowed it to survive into the fusion age without much difficulty, though there was a possibility of nuclear attack – he could even see such a missile in orbit, ineffectually fired as the last gasp of the dying – dead, he corrected, regime. A solitary two megaton burst fission-fusion-fission weapon. It was impressive in a certain light that they’d launched it, though it hadn’t gotten far enough to be a serious risk, and soon it would be the only monument of the Torians, a phallic monument drifting in space, at best, otherwise burning up in a streak of fire above a city being consumed by black mechanical cancers of borg engineering. It was a MIRV containing eight warheads (each a quarter of a megaton), and he considered taking it with him when he left – taking the time to set this monument of a dead race up on some distant world of barren methanes.

Another sapling choked by ivy, he thought, after a fashion and a simplification, now to commune with the ivy.

“You are my business here. Communication, reflection, introspection and learning, are required. I wish to dock with your vessel.”

In truth, docking with a cube was a questionable operation – they were in no small part open to space. But some had sizeable ‘docking bays’ into which they dragged unfortunate vessels, or stored smaller sub-craft.
BLACKGRUE
13-02-2007, 18:37
As a means of answering them, the cube silently constructed a docking bay for the vessel based o6n it's current dimentions,

(my keyboard is freaking out so my replies will 5be short 5because it's pissing me off to edit my posts.)
Alkesh Naranek
15-02-2007, 14:47
It was easy to suspect treachery when the vessel you were docking with went to such extreme lengths to dock; Ulkesh would simply have created a docking hatch of some sort, but here, it had decided to shift thousands of tons of material in order to accommodate the Vorlon transport fully inside.

Where it would be unable to escape.

Its pilot didn’t mind, because he knew something they would not yet; stored as an exotic form of potential nuclear energy, so it wouldn’t show up on scanners, unlike radioactive materials, the Vorlon ship’s power knots would seem like reserve batteries sufficient for at least fourteen hours of continuous operation. Indeed, this was what they were; all Vorlon ships contained such potential-cells, like fat in mammals, or antimatter pods in more conventional ships. The difference in this vessel was that the ring was much closer to the surface, under the ‘wings’ of the vessel that were folded close to the body.

Therefore, at least as far as the possibility of needing to detonate the ship (something Ulkesh was neither keen on, nor particularly worried about) was concerned, the deeper it went into the ship, the more energy would be absorbed.

The ship wanted to start budding fighters to take advantage of the open nature of the ship, but Ulkesh doubted it would be necessary, given the time they were likely to stay, it wouldn’t be done in time.

The ship’s hull changed, as it settled into the cylindrical bay, and the Vorlon float-stepped onto one of the open walkways of the Borg ship, looking around with a modicum of curiosity. Tall, slightly regal (by Terran standards at least) looking, and concealed within the suit completely, a glowing red monocular eye behind an iris of dark metals peered out. There were a few symbols on the hems of his robes. If one expended an immense amount of effort – in truth, it was probably impossible, given the limited referent base – they were perhaps decipherable as quasi-religious scripture, referring to Self-Knowledge, the Ascendance of Order and the destruction of Agents of Chaos.

There was a suggestion of a form beneath the concealing, sensor-damping robes (you could make a ‘tinfoil helmet’ out of the inner robe, and it would work against most telepathy) that could move like a humanoid, but there was no sign of breathing, or the other effects usually associated with them.