Stop at the Library
Posted on Tue Sep 2nd, 2025 @ 2:27am by Captain M'Raz & Ensign Kaelun Merak
Edited on on Fri Sep 5th, 2025 @ 7:03pm
3,193 words; about a 16 minute read
Mission:
The Raz Defense
Location: Library, Memory Alpha
Timeline: MD002 - 1340
Libraries were special places to Raz; compilations of history and art, memories and dreams. A place where his love of reading was shared by countless others; course, that had been in happier times. Before the Borg. Now, he hoped that it would provide some much needed information. With his clearance, he had access to a part of the collection off-limits to most and it was there that he hoped to find pieces to the puzzle that was the surprise attack by the Borg.
Kaelun rubbed at his temples, eyes stinging from hours of scrolling through half-forgotten research buried deep in the archives. His desk was littered with PADDs stacked haphazardly, each one holding a thread of some theory he’d already chased to a dead end. The stillness of Memory Alpha’s library should have been comforting, but now it felt oppressive, like the silence of a tomb. the Battle of Sector 001 was barely a week behind them, and Starfleet had nothing to show for it but wreckage and casualty lists.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kaelun noticed someone else stepping into the restricted stacks—tall, confident stride, captain’s insignia gleaming faintly in the low light. He let out a tired breath that might have been a laugh if there’d been any humor left in him.
“You too, huh?” he muttered, voice carrying just enough to be heard without breaking the library’s hush. “Another soul hoping these shelves are hiding the one thing the rest of us missed.”
Surprised to see someone with a classification equal to his own, Raz stopped and nodded. "Yes, frankly," he said. "Captain M'Raz of the J ... USS Crazy Horse."
Kaelun blinked, the faintest spark of surprise pulling him out of his haze. A captain. He hadn’t expected anyone of that rank to be combing the archives themselves. For days now he’d shut himself away in these stacks, surviving on ration bars and recycled air while burying himself in data. Most of the researchers he’d brushed shoulders with over the years had been like him—doctors, scientists, analysts. Informality was the lingua franca of laboratories and libraries. But this wasn’t Starfleet Medical anymore, and Memory Alpha wasn’t immune from the shadow of the Borg.
But then the name registered—Captain M’Raz. The insignia on the man’s collar caught Kaelun’s weary gaze, and something shifted inside him. He straightened almost without thinking, the ingrained discipline of Jaret—the Marine host—surfacing through the fog of fatigue. His shoulders squared, chin lifted, and the words that followed came out sharper, more formal, than his usual manner.
“Apologies, Captain,” he said, tone steady now. He straightened in his chair, instinctively smoothing the front of his uniform, though fatigue still weighed heavily on him. “Captain M’Raz,” he said, voice shifting into something more measured, respectful. “Ensign Kaelun Merak, Starfleet Science Division. Forgive the lack of formality earlier—my time has mostly been with Starfleet Medical Research Command. I’m not exactly used to ship captains crossing my path in a library,” he said.
"Understood," Raz said. The weight of need, the research he wanted to do in the more restricted access section, the stuff that most didn't get to see, pressed on him and yet, he paused, responding to the military bearing. And so, he listened as the man continued speaking.
He gestured to the scatter of PADDs across his desk. “I’ve been in here since the news from Sector 011. Trying to understand the Borg through the only lens I have—virology. Their assimilation process mirrors infection, replication, immune evasion. Toval—another host of mine—spent his life studying viral delivery systems. I’ve been leaning on his expertise, hoping some principle might translate into a countermeasure.”
"How did you know," Raz asked quietly, "that they take over those they capture? With our communications network out of action, I wasn't aware that anyone outside of individual ships had that knowledge as yet."
Kaelun’s eyes flickered away for a moment, the measured tone in his voice holding, though something darker edged beneath it.
“I didn’t read it in a report, Captain. I saw it.”
His hand tightened briefly on the edge of the desk before he forced it to still. “When the Borg broke through the defense line and reached the surface, everything turned to chaos. The transport I escaped on, the USS Portland, wasn’t crewed for combat. It was just… whoever could get to the docking ports before they sealed the hatches. Families, wounded officers, civilians—no time for screening.”
He drew in a slow breath. “At first, we thought the injured were stable enough to survive the journey. But within hours, the Medical staff realized something was wrong. Their wounds weren’t healing—they were changing. Skin paling, tissue hardening, strange implants forcing their way out. We thought some had died of their injuries, but then they—” Kaelun’s jaw clenched as he searched for the right word. “—they reanimated. Not as themselves, not anymore. By then, we were already at warp. There was no turning back.”
Kaelun’s voice grew quieter, sharper. “They had strength beyond anything human, and a tolerance for pain that made them impossible to restrain. It was as if their bodies were being rewritten—less human with every passing minute, more machine with every breath they didn’t need to take.”
Kaelun exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the PADD in front of him though he wasn’t reading it. “We couldn’t study them—the transport wasn’t equipped for proper research, not with the chaos and wounded we already had onboard. And in the end, the only way the crew could stop those things from overrunning the ship was by venting them into space." he said.
He forced himself upright, voice tightening with the practiced precision of Jaret’s Marine discipline even as the memories pressed against him. “Hell of a way for a scientist to learn something new, huh? From watching people I shared a deck with cease to be who they were,” he said ruefully.
Raz sat down beside the man, compassion gentling his tone, smoothing the rougher edges of his voice. "I was in Sol System," he said quietly, "during the first attack, where we faced a cube, and then again at Arcturus, where Gamelin's task force was caught between two spheres. I'm here with my ship and my crew gathering information so that we can mount a defense. Take back the Federation." He paused a moment, letting the words sink in, hesitant to ask but knowing it was necessary. War comes with a price tag, he thought. Always has. He gathered himself and continued on. "I know you've been through a lot and I don't want to be the one to pile more on but this place isn't safe. The Borg will be coming and I don't know how long you have until they get here."
Kaelun gave a short, humorless laugh, the sound rough from exhaustion. “Well, that’s encouraging. Imagine that. . .being on the guest list when the Borg come knocking.” His tone was sardonic, but there was the faintest spark beneath it, something that hadn’t yet given up.
He glanced around the chamber, then back at Raz. “This place?” He gestured to the walls with a curt sweep of his hand. “Memory Alpha was built to safeguard knowledge, not to withstand an assault. If the Borg come here in force, we both know how that ends.”
His gaze shifted back to Raz, and something steadier entered his voice. “But you said you’re gathering information to mount a defense. That means you’ve got more than just grim numbers in mind. So tell me—what exactly does Starfleet plan to do to take the fight back to them? And more importantly…” He gestured to the scatter of PADDs, the raw hours of work bleeding through in their disorder. “…how can I help?”
A Caitian can't smile, not the way a human can, but there was nevertheless approval mixed with relentless determination in his gaze as h nodded. "Well, by speaking with my Chief Medical Officer and what's left of our Science Department," he said at once. "My plan, for now, is to figure out these Borg and starts with going to go through everything in the eyes-only section for command and after that, making a visit to an Intel base that I know of ... see what news they can provide. Between those two, the J ... Crazy Horse ... can take everyone here to a safer location, yourself included."
Kaelun let out a slow breath, the weight of Memory Alpha heavy on his shoulders. He glanced around the chamber one last time, then back to Raz. “You’re right, Captain. This station was never meant to stand against what’s coming. If the Crazy Horse can get these people to safety, then I’d be a damned fool to stay buried here in the stacks.”
He pushed himself up from the chair, smoothing his uniform as though the motion itself restored some order. “My work belongs where it can make a difference, and if that means long nights in Sickbay instead of here, so be it. Better to put what I know to use than to waste time pretending this place can hold out.”
Kaelun’s gaze sharpened, a spark of his scientist’s curiosity piercing through the fatigue. “You mentioned what’s left of your Science Department. What condition is it in? Who’s heading it now? If I’m going to contribute, I need to know who I’ll be working with—and what resources your Chief has left to work with.”
"Equipment isn't a problem," Raz said quietly, his gaze slanting away for a moment, as he remembered the conversation. "Expertise is. My Chief Science Officer resigned his commission. After our second encounter with the Borg, he decided that Starfleet wasn't for him."
Kaelun blinked, the information taking a moment to fully register. Then, despite everything—the devastation, the weight of abandoning Memory Alpha, the looming Borg threat—a bark of incredulous laughter escaped him.
"He resigned? In the middle of a Borg crisis?" Kaelun shook his head. "Well, I suppose there's something to be said for perfect timing. Nothing quite like facing an unstoppable enemy to really clarify one's career priorities."
The humor was sharp-edged, tinged with the kind of gallows wit that came from staring down impossible odds. But it faded quickly as the practical implications hit him.
"So your Assistant Chief is running the department now, then?" He straightened, already shifting into problem-solving mode. "What's their specialty? And how are they handling the transition? Taking over a science department during a crisis like this..." Kaelun let out a low whistle. "That's not exactly standard operating procedure material."
He paused, studying Raz's expression more carefully. There was something in the captain's manner—that slight shift of his gaze, the quiet way he'd delivered the news. It suggested there was more to this story than a simple resignation and promotion. "Captain, just how short-staffed are we talking here?"
Raz dropped into a nearby seat, meeting the man's gaze eye to eye, his tail automatically curving around, a habit now after years of sitting on furniture never intended for a Cait, and gave out more information than he generally did. The war, two defeats so close together, the loss of crew, friends, worlds, his ship, seemed to push aside normal conventions. Then too, the man had information; a conversation or two with his people might provide important clues. He didn't expect anything more than that. Just whatever he knew in return for a ride to somewhere safer.
"Personally, I suspect he shared his concerns with his team," Raz said, "and in the end, took half of them with him including the Assistant Chief." He shook his head slightly though his gaze remained steady, focused. "Scientists sometimes think of themselves as a species apart. Starfleet in name only. And I get it ... in a sense ... The attacks were brutal. We were all taken by surprise. But in their case, well, they broke and ran. No kinder way to put it really."
"So we don't have much in the way of Science at this point but I'll start putting in requests for people once Admiral Stillwell gets things up and running. What I know is this. There's alot needs doing before we meet them in battle again and it won't be safe. Or easy." His voice deepened, rumbled, almost growled as his thoughts returned to his last meeting with them. "I had them all resign individually, to me, and what I heard were comments like 'more than they bargained for' and 'hopeless'. That sort of thing."
Kaelun blinked, his lips parting in disbelief. “Half the department?” He shook his head slowly, as though trying to reconcile the words with the image of Starfleet officers he had always known—disciplined, committed, steadfast. “Resigned… in the middle of this?”
For a moment, his scientist’s mind spun through the implications—lost expertise, fractured projects, the collapse of collaborative structures that took years to build. His jaw tightened. “Walking away when the galaxy’s burning? That’s not resignation, Captain. That’s surrender.” The Trill said.
The word tasted bitter, and he felt the weight of it pulling at him, tempting him. He thought of Memory Alpha, the relative safety of its walls, the anonymity of retreat into endless data. Maybe there was sense in it—minimizing risk, preserving what little remained. Maybe survival was the only rational choice.
But then the images rose unbidden: bodies hardening into something unrecognizable, friends and strangers alike vented into space, Earth’s skies on fire. So many lives already gone. And more, countless more, would follow if Starfleet failed to find a way to strike back.
The living fight for the dead... Jaret’s voice cut through, low and insistent, carrying the weight of every battlefield he had endured.
He drew in a long breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was steadier, resigned but edged with purpose. “I can’t say I don’t understand why they broke, Captain. But I won’t follow them. I’ll come aboard the Crazy Horse. You need a scientist, and I need to believe this fight isn’t over. Whatever’s left of your department—I’ll work with them. Because if we don’t stand in that gap, then everything those people died for was wasted.”
Kaelun’s eyes hardened, fatigue burning into conviction. “So tell me where you want me, sir." Kaelun felt his shoulders square almost unconsciously at the echo.
Privately, Raz agreed with the man though he'd kept those words out of the conversation so far. Quit had never been a word that could be fairly applied to him -- not on his home world when everyone believed him to be inferior by virtue of his white fur, or when when the love of his life had walked away from him because she believed family obligations mattered more than he did, or when he had been beaten nearly to death and left on an alien world and told 'don't ever come back'. Quit wasn't a word that applied to him; the Borg meant to take everything unless a way was found to stop them. He meant to find that way.
And while all this was running through his tired mind, something in the man's words caught his attention. "I had meant only an interview with our doctor and a ride to the nearest starbase," Raz said, his head cocked to one side. "It seems you're asking to become part of the crew ... or am I mistaken in that?"
Kaelun straightened, the Marine echo stiffening his spine even as the scientist’s self-assurance hardened his words. “Yes, sir. I’m asking to become part of your crew," he replied pointedly.
He gestured toward the scattered PADDs, the hours of work piled up in restless stacks. “You need every advantage you can get, and I am one. I’ve spent lifetimes in research—genetics, virology, systems biology. I know how to take problems and start pulling the threads until they unravel. If there’s a vulnerability in the Borg, even the faintest fracture line, I believe I can find it. That’s what I do. That’s who I am," he said.
"Besides...a starbase might offer me a quiet post and a clean bed, but it won’t change what’s coming," he said realistically.
Raz nodded, his expression softening, "very true," he said. "And personally, I'd rather be a moving target." He stood up and tapped his commbadge. "M'Raz to Crazy Horse."
"Crazy Horse here," the on-duty Operations office said at once. "What can we do for you Captain?"
"Arrange transport for everyone here on Memory Alpha and have H'iri assigned quarters to Lieutenant Merak. He's going to be running the Science Department."
"Aye, Sir," the officer said. "We'll get to work on it."
"Very good. M'Raz out." He turned his attention to the Lieutenant as he continued, "once I'm back on board, meet me in my Ready Room and we'll go through the formalities. Gather your stuff and report aboard the Crazy Horse."
Kaelun’s eyes widened a fraction, and despite the fatigue, a spark of something brighter broke through. “Running the Science Department…” he murmured, almost to himself. The words lingered there, pride edging his tone as if the weight of the assignment had briefly eclipsed the chaos around them. “Not exactly what I envisioned when I left Earth, but—” he let out a dry huff of air, almost a laugh—“it’s a role I can handle. More than handle.”
Then the rest of Raz’s words caught up with him, and Kaelun blinked. “Lieutenant?” His brow knit as he straightened, almost unconsciously smoothing his uniform. “Captain, I—unless Memory Alpha has been secretly issuing promotions, I’m still an Ensign,” he managed to force out of his mouth.
"Oh .. I ... sorry, Ensign," Raz said as he focused on the pips ... or rather pip ... adorning his collar. "My mistake. I must be more tired than I thought. Haven't got much sleep the last few nights." Or any really, he silently amended.
"Well, that changes things, doesn't it," Raz said. "I can offer you a berth as a science officer but you don't have the rank to run a department. You'll report to the most senior of those that are still there but I'll make sure that whomever that turns out to be understands that you have valuable input on the Borg. Hopefully, your new boss won't have a problem with you running point on that project."
"Very well, sir. I'll have my things ready to beam over as soon as possible," Ensign Kaelun replied.
"See you on board," Raz answered and then moved off to consult the classified database.
Captain M'Raz
Commanding Officer
USS Crazy Horse
and
Ensign Kaelun Merak
Science Officer
USS Crazy Horse
RSS Feed