The sun beat down on the gilded city of Alexandria, but the shadows were growing long, cast not by the setting sun, but by a presence utterly alien to the ancient world. Mark Antony, his face grimed with sweat and dust, stood on the ramparts of the city, watching a sight that made his Roman legionaries—men who had faced Gauls, Parthians, and their own countrymen in civil war—shift nervously and whisper prayers to forgotten gods.
They had been defeated, not by Octavian, but by the impossible.
The Battle of Actium had ended in a colossal, inexplicable disaster. As the Roman and Egyptian fleets clashed in the Ionian Sea, a single, silent vessel had emerged from a swirling patch of black nothingness. It was a perfect, dark cube, many times the size of Cleopatra's flagship, bearing down on their lines with unnerving speed. No sails, no oars, no men—just that flawless, obsidian geometry.
When it reached the battle, it did not ram or fire projectiles. It simply drained the life from the warships. Antony’s heavy quinqueremes, the pride of his fleet, faltered as their crews froze, eyes wide and unseeing, covered in thin, metallic dust before collapsing into husks. Cleopatra's royal barge, the Antonias, managed to flee, but the sense of divine wrath was palpable.
Back in Alexandria, the siege had begun. Not by Roman catapults, but by Borg Drones, marching in perfect, horrifying synchronicity across the desert sands. They were biomechanical phantoms, each one a fusion of metal and stolen flesh, armed with energy weapons that vaporized the Pharaoh's elite guards.
Cleopatra VII, Queen of the Nile, stood in her library tower, surrounded by scrolls and the scent of jasmine. Her regal composure had not cracked, but her eyes held a cold, terrifying understanding.
"They seek knowledge, Marcus," she said, turning to Antony. Her voice was steady, the voice of a ruler. "Not my gold, not my children's titles, but the whole of the Library. The geometry of the Pyramids. The mathematics of the stars. The chemical secrets of embalming. Everything that made Egypt great."
Antony, stripped of his general's armour, held a Roman sword. His spirit, broken by the final, ignominious rout, was struggling for a last flicker of Roman pride. "Then we give them nothing, my Queen. We die as free Romans and Egyptians. We will deny them the pleasure of our triumph."
Cleopatra offered a small, sad smile, the one that had charmed Julius Caesar and enslaved the heart of a Triumvir. "A noble thought, my general. But these... these 'Borg'—they do not take pleasure. They merely take. And they are at the gate."
The sound of the Borg entering the compound was not the clamour of war, but the sickening hiss of an airlock being breached, followed by the terrifying, repetitive rhythm of their marching.
The Queen looked down at the asp in the basket, the last recourse of a pharaoh, but she knew. The Borg would prevent it. They would optimize her death and the knowledge she represented.
The doors to the library burst inward, not splintering from brute force, but silently dissolving into dust. Ten Borg Drones stood in the doorway, their cranial implants glowing. Among them were two towering figures, freshly assimilated from Octavian’s forces: the Borg had taken a few Roman Centurions, adding their discipline and knowledge of legionary tactics.
The synthesized voice, devoid of all inflection, echoed in the vast, silent room.
"Cleopatra of Ptolemaic Egypt. Mark Antony of Rome. Your biological and intellectual distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."
Antony roared, a final, desperate cry of defiance, and charged the nearest Drone, his sword held high. The Roman steel struck the metallic shell and merely scraped against it. In the blink of an eye, a metallic arm shot out, delivering the sharp, surgical sting of the nanoprobes into his neck.
Antony’s consciousness, the soldier, the lover, the statesman, was instantly invaded. His memories of the glory days with Caesar, the intoxicating feasts in Alexandria, the tactical brilliance of the legions—all became data points. The Borg cataloged his hubris, his devotion, and the exact process of Roman governance.
Cleopatra did not move. She merely watched Antony’s eyes go blank, his body convulsing as the transformation began. As the Drones turned their attention to her, she did the only thing a Queen could: she offered her greatest strength, her intellect, as a final sacrifice.
"I speak ten languages," she whispered, her voice a tremor of pure, defiant knowledge. "I command the largest trade network in the East. I know the weakness of your Roman enemy—the one you call Octavian. Take it. Take all of it."
The nanoprobes swarmed over her, and the last, great ruler of Egypt’s identity was absorbed into the Collective. The Borg took her understanding of geo-politics, her mastery of persuasion, her library of secrets, and the profound, genetic history of a dynasty spanning three centuries.
When the transformation was complete, a new pair of Borg emerged from the wreckage of the Egyptian court: **Drone 7 of 9, Sub-designation: Strategist, (formerly Antony), and Drone 8 of 9, Sub-designation: Architect, (formerly Cleopatra).
Drone 8 of 9 (Cleopatra) turned her new, cold gaze to the map of the Mediterranean.
"The Roman weakness is internal ambition and reliance on brittle logistics. Octavian’s fleet is concentrated at Brundisium. Assimilate Octavian. Assimilate Rome. Utilize the network of trade routes to distribute nanoprobes across the known world."
The Borg did not want the Roman Empire to fall. They wanted to inherit it, intact and optimized.
The fall of Alexandria did not end with suicide, but with the silence of perfect, efficient order. On the walls of the palace, the Roman standards of Octavian's victorious legions were replaced by the cold, gleaming perfection of Borg technology, signaling the end of the Age of Iron and the beginning of the Age of the Collective, ushered in by the terrifying, stolen brilliance of the last Queen of Egypt and her Roman General.