Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Photogrey ❯ Part 3: ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: 117

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Date: 180408, 220408, 280408

Disclaimer: All Ranma/ST characters and concepts belonged to their respective creators and owners.

Synopsis: Where in the world is the Nerima Wrecking Crew?

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PHOTOGREY

Part 3:

Why do I even bother? When it comes to Ranma, negotiations only go so far ... the middle Tendo sister thought before opening fire on one of the Romulan ships herself ^_^.

'There's too many of them! I don't think we'll be able to make it to the Kunos in time!' the middle Tendo sister shouted as she narrowly avoided being caught in a crossfire between several Romulan ships.

That would have been bad. Only her ability at 'Anything Goes Starship Combat' enabled her to survive the crossfire virtually unscathed.

'Failure is not an acceptable outcome,' Ranma replied grimly while shooting at the Romulan ships and dodging or adapting his shields to match their return fire.

'Why don't we assimilate the Romulan ships and turn some of them to our side since we're perfectly capable of doing so? That way we don't have to kill them and less lives would be lost.' the eldest Tendo sister suggested.

'A good idea since it would give us more resources and firepower to use from,' the middle Tendo sister agreed.

'Assimilation is preferable to death. Death is permanent. Assimilation is not,' the Jusenkyo-cursed martial answered, voicing his agreement to Kasumi's suggestion and responded by beaming a full squad of Borg marines onto the Vereleus Battlebird whose shields were already down.

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Onboard the Romulan flagship, things were proceeding frantically as Romulan personnel ran back and forth to jumpstart the ship's engines inro working mode again. So busy were they trying to get the ship moving that they did not notice the tell-tale signs of transporter activity in the immediate vicinity.

Several figures decked out with cybernetic implants and advanced combat armour appeared on the ship. They moved swiftly firing their strange looking weapons attached to their wrists, releasing a cache of darts all over the immediate area.

The darts were pre-programmed to track biological lifesigns as well as turn around corners in their search. Each dart contained microscopic nanoprobes designed to penetrate the skin and turn their targets into new Borg drones.

A Romulan personnel like so many others was busy trying to repair a damaged section of the ship when he felt something struck him on the neck. It felt like a pinprick and then a strange cool feeling began to spread from that area to the rest of his body. Cybernetic implants grew out of his body and his perception changed rapidly.

Suddenly, the Romulan felt his mind linked to new minds aboard another ship.

'I'm being assimilated!' he mentally shrieked as comprehension dawned upon him.

Not faraway, his fellow crewmember lay on the ground, incapacitated and pretty much unable to help him as cybernetic implants and new combat armour grew all over his body.

Unlike other assimilation attempts by the Borg, Ranma and Kasumi's assimilation methods were very fast, precise and silent, not even giving their targets a chance to react. Most of their targets did not even register being assimilated at all until it was too late.

Once the assimilation process was complete, the new Borg drones went about their assigned tasks automatically without a word, namely repairing and upgrading the Romulan ship to Borg standards. As in every encounter with a new alien race barring Species 8472, any new technology not known by the Borg was immediately acquired, analysed and then before long ... put to use by the Borg on all their ships.

Take for example - the Romulan cloaking device. Upon successful assimilation of the Vereleus Battlebird by Ranma, Nabiki had gained access to Romulan cloaking technology. Without any hesitation, she had re-created the same cloaking device aboard her ship using Borg technology while dodging and attacking her foes.

The only thing was, it took time for the device to be ready so she couldn't use it straight away ... not that it was particularly useful in combat anyway but outside of it ... the possibilities were intriguing to say the least.

As for the Vereleus Battlebird, it was now firing on the other Romulan ships giving them another fully functional Borg-assimilated ship upgraded with the standard Borg technology to worry about.

Thanks to their special subspace link, Ranma, Nabiki and Kasumi were able to coordinate their defenses, attacks and movements with accuracy and precision. Disruptor blasts, phaser blasts, photon torpedoes and plasma torpedoes that could not be avoided were dealt with using their adaptive shielding technology which was made easier with three Borg ships instead of the usual one Borg ship involved in the fight.

What was more, they were able to triangulate all their attacks and defense strategies on any ship that had the misfortune of becoming their next target. And this was not limited to them alone since they were also coordinating the movements of the assimilated ships, the Vereleus Battlebird, being the strongest among them with its unique heavy armament of singularity torpedoes instead of the usual plasma torpedoes utilised by the Romulan Navy.

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The battle raged fiercely for awhile ... with both sides giving their all in a battle to the death. Finally, Ranma, Kasumi and Nabiki stood triumphant amidst the remains of the Romulan fleet. The Federation starship remained intact although its hull was battered and its shields were down.

Both Kodachi and Sasuke were little better off ... with their shield strength at less than five percent remaining and their arsenal of disruptor blasts and plasma torpedoes completely exhausted.

Nabiki was busy 'assimilating' the remains of the Romulan fleet from the battlefield with the help of the Vereleus Battlebird, the sole surviving assimilated ship from the battle. When asked what she was doing with the remains, the middle Tendo sister simply smiled and said, 'It's a surprise.'

All in all, Ranma surmised that things had turned out alright although it could have been better. Speaking of which ... Kuno was back to his usual self cursing the foul sorceror Saotome for the use of his 'foul magicks' to win the fight. While both Kodachi and Sasuke did their usual stuff with Kodachi loudly proclaiming her love for him and Sasuke apologising to Kuno for being forced to open fire upon him by his sister.

"FOUL SORCEROR!"

'For once, you would think that Kuno would be grateful to us for saving his bacon from the fire but no ... he's still blaming the foul sorceror Saotome for all of his problems ...' Ranma spoke in disgust while listening to the Blue Thunder's tirade.

Ranma was sorely tempted to put Kuno out of action for good but doing so would have killed the crew of the Enterprise.

"IT IS CLEAR NOW! THY CURRENT EVIL WORKS WERE NOT ENOUGH TO STOP THE BLUE THUNDER ALONE! THUS THOU HAS SUMMONED ADDITIONAL MINIONS TO DO THY BIDDING!" went the ranting voice of the Blue Thunder.

'I know what you mean Ranma-kun ... Don't think about it. It will get you down. Besides I will always be there for you ...,' the eldest Tendo sister answered, trying to lighten up Ranma's depressed state.

'Thank you Kasumi-chan. Your words mean very much to me,' Ranma answered, meaning what he said in every sense of the word.

'Alright! Alright! That's enough you two lovebirds! Take your talk to the private channel!' the middle Tendo sister chided the other two Borg ships just before they descended into their usual 'talk'.

'Nabiki ... you've constructed new Scout Cubes! Whatever for?!!' Ranma asked bewildered at the new ships he was picking up on his sensors.

'After having your mind upgraded by the Borg Collective and continual access to their database, your intelligence certainly hasn't improved in the slightest,' Nabiki shook her head in her impersonation of a very wise old zen master shaking his head in disbelief.

'Hey! Are you saying I'm stupid?' the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist warned as one of his light weapon arrays began to power up.

'No. Of course not ...,' Nabiki replied quickly upon picking up the power buildup from Ranma.

'Think about it, Ranma! We're in an alien universe! One we couldn't even have conceivably imagined while in Nerima ... until the Wishbringer Incident! If we are here ... it stands to reason that the others would also be here. You, Kasumi, me, Ryoga, Kuno, Kodachi and Sasuke have all been accounted for. Akane's still missing. So is Ukyo, Konatsu, dad, Uncle Genma, Auntie Nodoka, Shampoo and Moose! We have to find out where the rest of the Nerima gang are! Or where they have all gone too! We have a better chance of survival if we stick together then if we're going to go separately! But to do that, we need more information!' the middle Tendo sister explained as a few of the Borg Scout Cubes began to power up their warp drives.

'You're going to send all of them out??!!!' Ranma asked in bewilderment.

'Well not all of them,' Nabiki answered as seven of the remaining Borg Scout Cubes remained behind before approaching the middle Tendo sister's position.

'What ..?' asked the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist while pondering the meaning of the middle Tendo sister's words.

The new Scout Cubes closed in onto Nabiki's ship and right before the eyes of everyone in the immediate area, they began joining up with Nabiki's Scout Cube. They fused quickly, helped by the fact that most if not all Borg ships were geometrically symmetrical in structure formation and their systems evenly distributed on all sides.

'Besides I'm merely a light combat vessel unlike both you and Kasumi who are capital ships already. Linking up with the other Scout Cubes should improve my own chances of survival considerably,' Nabiki answered after the linkup process was complete giving rise to a larger and more sinister-looking Borg ship ^_^.

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While everyone was still busy taking in Nabiki's size-change from light class combat ship to medium class combat ship, the faint outline of what appeared to be a massive ship began to take form in front of them. It was translucent at first, and then slowly became more solid-looking as time passed. Its outline contined to fill up and finally after fifteen seconds had passed, it had appeared completely and came to a stop in front of the group.

The new arrival rivalled the Vereleus Battlebird in sheer size and firepower though the ship's armaments did not worry Ranma or Kasumi in the slightest. They had both faced down and fought the entire Romulan fleet so what was one ship compared to ninety-three Romulan ships? Furthermore, the ship's weapons, though more numerous, were not as powerful as those onboard the Romulan flagship.

For instance, the Romulan flagship was armed with singularity torpedoes, the most powerful weapon ever designed by the Romulan Empire while this ship was merely armed with photon torpedoes though there appeared to be an usually large number of them from what Ranma was able to gather.

'Fifty-two disruptor banks. Trilithium-based disruptors. Twenty-seven photon torpedo bays. Standard armament of the Federation. Primary and secondary shields. Not bad for a combat warship,' the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist thought after scanning the predatory-looking ship in front of him.

'Not to mention a thalaron generator,' the middle Tendo sister added quizzically.

'A thalaron generator? I didn't see any,' Kasumi doubted.

'Neither did I,' Ranma agreed.

'Positive. I'm a mere scout ship remember and, therefore, my Borg sensors are more penetrating and far-reaching than either of you two,' Nabiki reminded the two smugly, an unmistakable sense of pride in her voice.

Both Ranma and Kasumi shared a look of disbelief.

'Well, seeing is believing. Here let me send the images from my sensors to yours,' the middle Tendo sister added and just then, they picked up a subspace transmission on their receivers.

'We're being hailed. Let's hope it went better than the previous hail.'

TBC

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To all my fans,

Thank you for your encouragement and your reviews! And a pat on the back for the person who correctly guessed that Genma would be a Ferengi warship. I had originally intended for Nabiki and Kasumi to be some other ships.

Nabiki was supposed to have been a Ferengi cargo ship or a Romulan scout ship and Kasumi was supposed to have been the Reman Warbird, Scimitar. I changed my mind just as I was going through the story one last time.

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Story Guide:

Current Progress:

Ranma Saotome - Borg Tactical Sphere (capital class ship)

Kasumi Tendo - Borg Queen's Diamond ship (capital class ship)

Nabiki Tendo - Borg Scout Cube (medium combat class ship)

Ryoga Hibiki - Species 8472 Heavy Bioship (capital class ship)

Tatewaki Kuno - Federation Sovereign Dreadnought - Enterprise-E (capital class ship)

Kodachi Kuno - Romulan Valdore Command Warbird (capital class ship)

Sasuke - Romulan Norexan Warbird (capital class ship)

None - Autonomous Borg assimilated Romulan Vereleus Battlebird (capital class ship)

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What in the world has happened to Kasumi, Nabiki, Ranma and Ryoga? And why? More on what has happened to the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew will be revealed in the coming chapters.

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