The strangely limited spaces to move through continued as Helvetica was forced to ride the turbolift repeatedly to walk down eerily similar corridors–however, unlike before, said corridors were filled with target dummies in the form of Borg. And, very similar to World of Warcraft, they were overflowing with goodies!
After each fight, Helvetica would paw through the dead bodies piled up on the floor to see what interesting thing she could pilfer.
Already she was wearing two personal shields, wielding a phaser pistol in one hand and a disruptor pistol in the other, and had put a banana split into her backpack. The last item seemed a little out of place on a Borg drone, but she figured the drone might have gotten it from one of the replicators she had fixed earlier–otherwise it would have been a succulent.
The most recent drone had body armor, which she stripped off with glee.
As she was pulling it on, the computer piped up again.
“How did you equip more than one personal shield? You have more sheilds than you have health right now.”
“I don’t know.” She spoke as she slid her legs into the hot-pink body armor. It was slightly metallic and covered with metal plates. It seemed a little odd that the drone had not chosen to wear the armor. Wearing it might have improved its chances. Instead, it had the body armor in a small paper bag it had tied to its side like a fanny pack.
“Is there a tag still attached to this armor?” She yanked what looked like an in-store tag off the side and let it flutter to the floor.
“I think you might be bugged,” the computer said.
Helvetica shrugged. “Makes sense to me. One shield for my front, one shield for my back. Or do they both work at the same time?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” the computer said.
Helvetica picked another bag up off the floor. “Why does this drone have a catfish sandwich? Where could the Borg possibly get catfish, or bread, or even form the desire to make them into a sandwich?”
“Just take it.”
She rolled her eyes and put it with the banana split sundae.
***
Meanwhile, on the Borg Sphere currently engaged in blasting the Oxford…
On the lowest deck, next to the transporter array, a small kiosk had been set up against one of the green-glowing walls. The space, humble as it was, consisted of a set of raised sections of floor that formed a makeshift bar, with stools out front, enclosing a small kitchen. Inside, a single Borg drone wearing a chef’s hat flipped burgers, chopped tomatoes, and withdrew items from a nearby cooler.
“You beaming over to the human ship before we assimilate them?” the chef asked a drone standing idly near the strange cafe.
The drone turned, red laser-light from an ocular implant shining around the room. Wordlessly it strode over.
“You should take a catfish sandwich with you,” the Borg chef said. “Just in case you get peckish. I have one cooking right now and I could box it up for you to-go.”
The author Helvetica writes the Helvetica Voyage, Helvetica Venture, and Hellvetica Chronicles for Vox Ex Machina and proudly supports the works of Kyt Dotson, whose writing includes Mill Avenue Vexations (a gothic webserial featuring cab driver Vex Harrow), Black Hat Magick, and Helljammer and invites you to check out the novel, The Specter in the Spectacles by Kyt Dotson.
Recent Comments