The Lots42 Project

"But Seven!" Josh cried. Tuvok stepped forward and raised his hand. "An explanation is in order, Ensign. My understanding was that your "project" would in no way endanger this ship. But that is obviously not the case."

"But that isn't obvious, Tuvok," Josh replied. The Vulcan cocked his brow. "This Borg drone attempted to assimilate Neelix," Tuvok said, "are you suggesting that there was no danger?" "Yes!" Josh answered. "Like I said, Lots42 only thinks he's a Borg. But he's more like a stripped down version of a drone, completely emasculated. For one thing, there aren't any nano-probes inside of him. Assimilation is an impossibility. So, no, there really wasn't any danger." Tuvok listened to the Ensign without comment and then ordered his men to take the drone to engineering and have it put in stasis. He then had Josh follow him to the Captain's ready room. A detailed explanation needed to be given to Janeway.

As Josh walked alongside Tuvok, he thought back on how this had all started. During the time Voyager had spent traveling through the Delta Quadrant, it had had more than enough run-ins with the Borg. These contacts had given them the opportunity to secure Borg technology for analysis. With Seven of Nine's help, some of that technology had even been integrated into the ship. Deactivated (ie. dead), but still intact, Borg drones had also been taken for study. The Federation would dearly have loved to know what the engineering staff of Voyager knew about the Borg drone systems.

But after Voyager had safely navigated through Borg space, much of the effort of discovering the secrets of the advanced biomechanics of the drones had been abandoned. There simply wasn't any immediate need, and there were a lot of other problems that the engineers found much more pressing. But Josh had continued poking around the drone innards. He did it on his own time and gave full reports to Lt.Torres. Captain Janeway had given her full approval. And in time Josh had advanced quite a bit in his understanding of the mechanical lifeforms. The applications of what he had learned were incredible, but what he most wished to achieve was the creation of an autonomous self-actuating mobile security platform. In other words, a walking, talking robot designed around the Borg netware configuration and built from a drone chassis and loaded with enough firepower to take down an entire squad of assimilation drones. That was Josh's ultimate goal, that was his special project. Project Lots42.

But everyone, including Josh, had believed the retrieved Borg drones were only inert pieces of metal and wire, devoid of life, their command programs completely shut down. No one had dreamed that one of them would suddenly wake up and run amok on the ship. And now Ensign Josh Bieber was going to have to face his Captain and explain what had gone wrong.

1. They entered the ready room.

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