Only One Called Me Richie
Posted on Wed Nov 12th, 2025 @ 4:14pm by Lieutenant Richard Pierce MD
696 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission: Collating Data
Dr. Richard “Popeye” Pierce stood alone in his temporary office, surrounded by equipment that didn’t feel like his. The Crazy Horse’s sickbay was larger than the Jane Addams, newer—even smelled of polish and sterilizer instead of smoke and scorched conduits. His old CMO station was now a skeleton of twisted metal back in drydock.
Too damaged to repair quickly.
Too many memories.
He leaned over the console, sleeves rolled up, uniform jacket abandoned somewhere hours ago. The monitors around him streamed the latest encrypted medical reports from other ships and stations that had encountered the same nightmare.
The newly coined word BORG appeared again and again.
Forced integration of nanotechnology…
Neurological takeover within minutes if untreated…
We do not know how to reverse the process once it reaches the cerebral cortex.
Popeye clenched his jaw, scrolling. This wasn’t just casualty data—these were early research findings, desperate notes from doctors across the fleet trying to understand what had hit them.
Dr. Shran reports attempted surgical removal of implants resulted in systemic organ failure.
Dr. Liu suggests possible nanoprobe stasis using high-frequency EM pulses.
Dr. Ramirez — USS Sirius — proposes that nanoprobe replication might be slowed by—
His head snapped up.
Her name.
He opened the report so fast he nearly fumbled the padd.
Lt. Commander Sofía Ramirez
Initial findings: “Nanoprobes behave like a swarm—attack the host system in phases…”
He knew her voice by heart, and reading her words felt like hearing it again. Not the professional, clipped tone she used for command. No—the softer, quick cadence she reserved for things she believed in.
She had written these hours before the Sirius went dark.
He scrolled to the last line.
If this works, we might be able to save them. — R.
That R was her signature when she sent him private messages.
R — for Ramirez.
Also R — for Richie, her nickname for him.
Nobody else had ever called him that.
His throat tightened.
He opened the casualty section even though he already knew. He’d read it once. He’d tried not to remember. His eyes found the name anyway.
Lt. Commander Sofía Ramirez — Chief Medical Officer — Status: Missing. Presumed assimilated.
He stared at the words.
His breath stopped.
Then the anger hit like a detonating plasma conduit.
With a growl strangled in his throat, Popeye slammed the padd down. It skidded across his desk and crashed to the floor.
“Damn it!”
He drove his fist into the bulkhead.
The impact cracked skin. He hit it again.
She was brilliant.
She was fearless.
And she was gone.
Gone because Starfleet hadn’t known what they were dealing with.
Gone because the Borg didn’t kill—they stole.
Blood smeared the white panel as his knuckles split further. He pressed his forehead to the cool metal, chest aching with something sharp and hollow.
She had always seen through him.
“You pretend to be gruff to scare people off,” she’d once teased during a late-night surgery, eyes dancing.
“But I know who you are, Richie.”
Hearing that name now felt like being flayed open.
He sank to the deck, back against the wall, breathing ragged.
He stayed there—silent, bleeding, the reports still glowing coldly on the display.
After a long moment, he pushed himself up, wrapping his hand in sterile gauze with practiced, mechanical precision. He erased the blood from the wall. No evidence. No weakness. No witnesses.
He returned to the console.
He brought up Sofía’s unfinished research again—her theory that something could disrupt the nanoprobes.
He whispered to the empty room, the words raw:
“I’ll finish it. I swear it.”
Not for Starfleet.
Not for science.
For her.
He closed her report. Opened a new one—his report.
His voice was steady.
His hand still bled beneath the bandage.
Medical Log — Dr. Richard Pierce
Preliminary conclusion: assimilation can be slowed.
It will be stopped.
He wiped his face with the back of his arm, squared his shoulders, and walked toward the lab.
Because he couldn’t save her.
But he could make damn sure the Borg never stole someone else’s Sofía.
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