“Sir they are approaching” a young voice called out T’vek walked to the center of his bridge “On viewer” he ordered, the image of a huge black and green cube filled the screen, his well trained staff did not shiver at the sight, as he suspected a weak Federation crew would a deep voice filled the bridge “WE ARE THE BORG, LOWER YOUR SHIELDS AND PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED, YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL WILL BE ADDED TO OUR OWN, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE”
***Stardate 88.2404***
U.S.S. Fang, Starbase 47
“Computer tea, white, no sugar” the soft sound of the replicater filled the room, as he picked his drink up from the stand he thought how he missed the soft hum of his ships engines, with the Fang docked at Starbase there was no need to keep the ship powered on its own, the Starbase’s power grid could easily power the ship.
Walking back over to his desk Paul Drew again read over his new mission orders, checking the computer system for any data that would assist him before giving his senior staff a full briefing, if what was suspected was true the Alpha Quadrant could be thrown into chaos, it was his and his crew’s job to make sure that did not happen, satisfied he had enough information he pressed a side control “Senior Staff report to the conference room”.
A few minutes later the Fang’s senior staff were gathered in the large room, only two chairs remained unused – KezTrek’s and Beckie’s usual places. The Fang’s newest member Ensign Nikki Archer looked eagerly at Drew wanting to know the details of her first mission faster then a ship at Warp 9, Drew smiled at her politely, she seemed like a good officer, her Academy Instructors had spoken very highly of her and she was predicated an growing career, all she had to do was prove herself. The remaining members of Drew’s seasoned staff waited patiently for Drew to begin, after all their adventures of late they were in no hurry to get themselves into more trouble.
Waiting for everyone to be comfortable Drew began “Six days ago our probe in the Feta system detected unusual sensor readings” walking over to the viewer Drew brought up the visual logs, a fizzy picture appeared on screen, with a cube shaped ship just see able, a shiver ran through the room as everyone realised what it could be “These were the last images received from the probe before all contact was lost, we believe it was destroyed”.
A silence fall across the room as everyone thought this information over, Graeme was the first to speak “Sir, is that what it looks like” “That’s what we are going to find out Lt. Commander, Starfleet Command want us to head to the Feta System, investigate the lost of contact with the probe and take further action if necessary” looking them all in the eye he continued “I don’t need to tell you all what this could mean if the Borg are again sending ships to the Alpha Quadrant, sufficient to say if the Borg are again invading our space we need to be ready or all could be lost, - we leave Starbase within the hour dismissed”
As the staff pilled out of the room heading for there stations Anna stayed behind “What if it is the Borg?” she asked Drew looked to the star port “Then we pray to god we can stop them”
As they filed out of the briefing room Kern, Leah and the Chief were heading towards turbo-lift 3.
Chief "Engineering"
Leah "Bridge"
Kern "Deck 6"
As the turbo-lift whirled to life the three began talking.
Leah "Why is it that Starfleet always sends 1 ship out to investigate? Especially against a suspected Borg invasion."
Chief "I agree, it's not as if one ship could stop a cube"
Kern "We don't know for sure that it is a cube."
The three stood silent for a moment, then Kern turned towards them
“It could be a fleet”
Chief "Our sensor grids would have picked up a fleet by now"
Leah "Not if they're traveling in a transwarp conduit"
Chief “And why do they always go after the Federation? There are so many other powers in the alpha quadrant. The Breen, The Klingons, The Cardassians, they’ve never launch a direct assault against them.”
Leah “Yes, the Romulans neither, they seem to have a peculiar fascination with the Federation”
Kern “Well, I suppose if you’re looking for perfection, you don’t go after the Romulans do you?”
Kern began laughing at this but stopped when he realised no1 else was.
The doors parted and the Chief stepped out into engineering.
As the turbo-lift doors closed and the journey resumed Leah and Kern continued the conversation.
Leah “And their methods are so strange as well, they only ever send one ship”
Kern “Wolf 359 would have been a lot worse if there had been even one more ship”
Leah “Yes. I mean they were knocking at the door with noone to stop them. They could easily have assimilated earth by now if they launched a massive invasion, but this cloak and dagger stuff is what’s getting to me.”
Kern “I know what you mean, if they were launching another invasion of the Federation they wouldn’t bother destroying observation posts. They’d just role on in. It makes you wonder what they’re trying to hide.”
The turbo-lift stopped once more at the bridge; stepping out Leah turned back “see you in the mess hall at 16.00?”
Kern “I’ve got a staff meeting at 14.30. Meet you there at 17.00?”
Leah nodded and headed towards Ops. The door closed once more and Kern began to chuckle again at his joke as he headed for deck 6.
The chief walked into engineering, for a second the staff that were around him didn't notice his arrival.
One ensign turned around and caught sight of the chief
"morning' chief"
Ragin nodded in the ensign direction
"all right boys and girls, listen up, cos we have work to do!"
engineering fell silent as the chiefs voice carried all around the large room
"I want every system checked and double checked, everything has to be guaranteed to work within two hours!"
a murmur rang around engineering, the chief had been withdrawn ever since Beckie left the fang, for the first time in what seemed like ages the chief was back to his old self
"Naysmith!" called the chief
as one of the brightest of the engineers under him the chief usually called on Ensign Naysmith to perform stuff the chief would normally do himself, only for that time dictated otherwise
he took the young man to one side
"I want you to work with Janeway and if you need to ask kern for help
I want our Borg defences tested and if possible improved.
Anything you think you can do to give us an edge, do it"
Ensign Naysmith turned a deathly pale
"the Borg, sir?"
"Naysmith.." the chief paused, the situation called for a more personal approach
" Michael, I trust I don't have to tell you to keep this quiet until it becomes public knowledge. take whom you need, your in charge, I’m trusting you with this."
Michael Naysmith nodded.
"yes sir"
the young man turned to leave
"Michael"
"yes sir"
"for the last bloody time, call me chief, call me Ragin but for the love of jebus don't call me sir"
"yes si.. chief"
Ragin had to smile as the kid left
he was good, a little uptight, but a talented engineer
around him teams went about their business in a favoured manner
"come on people, move like you got a purpose" shouted the chief as he picked up a tool kit and headed towards the Jeffries tubes.
Nikki sat at the ships helm, it was a strange place to be, it wasn't the first time she'd sat here but it was the first time she was here as a senior officer on the way to a mission that could end up to be of extreme importance to the future of the entire Alpha Quadrant.
She didn't kid herself there were far better people for this job as far as experience in space went, but she knew she was a good pilot at least, one of the best ever to grace the academy if her instructors were to be believed, although that wasn't something she was entirely sure she believed.
The crew weren't really paying much attention to her as yet, and although it left her occasionally lonely it was something she was almost glad off, she knew they were still morning the loss of the last helm officer which left Nikki with the feeling she was always living up to the expectations of a dead women.
This mission scared her more than anything, she hadn't had enough time to form any real bonds and now she had to trust these people with her life and earn their trust in return, it wasn't something she was sure she could do, what she wouldn't do to be home with her family right now, but no Starfleet was what she had chosen and she wouldn't give in that easily. Nikki suddenly found herself straitening her shoulders pulling her back ramrod straight, this mission was her chance to prove she belonged here, and she would prove it.
"Ensign" the voice came from behind her and she turned her head to see who was talking to her.............
It was Leah who was trying to get the new helm's attention.
"What is it Commander?" Nikki asked.
"I have been doing some scans on the long range scanners since we will be approaching the Feta system very soon. I am getting some strange readings, will you please confirm them for me? Sector 32/45."
"Alright, just a moment Commander" Nikki said. Strange readings...she guessed that definitely meant the start of this adventurous and dangerous mission.
She tapped around on her console for a while and kept frowning more and more. "Well I have not been out in space for very long but I have no idea what those readings are trying to tell us. Are you sure it's not a malfunction?"
"The diagnosis system says it isn't" Leah said smiling at the young officer. "But to relieve you in all my years in space I haven't seen anything like that before."
Anna, who was keeping warm the captain's chair at the moment had followed the conversation and now stood up.
"Do you think it has to do with the Borg?" she asked Leah.
"Not sure" the ops officer replied. "It's not something like a transwarp channel or other Borg technology I have seen before. But who knows what new things they have assimilated..."
"What is our ETA Ensign Archer?" Anna asked.
"One hour at current speed Sir" the ensign replied.
"Increase speed to warp 8. I am more than curious to find out what is going on here. =^= Commodore Drew to the bridge =^="
"Aye Sir" Nikki said and made the Fang leap forward in high warp. "ETA now in 20 minutes"
"Keep an eye on those readings Leah, maybe they will get more clear when we are closer."
"Of course Sir" Leah said and Anna turned and smiled at her after she was being called Sir by a friend who had hold the same rank as her for quite a while now. It was something she would have to get used to yet, but she also secretly thought she somehow liked it.
In that moment Drew entered the bridge from his ready room and Anna stepped over to the first officer's seat.
"Report" Drew said and Leah told him about the curious readings she had gotten from the Feta system.
"I see" he replied when she had finished. "Looks like the newest adventure of the Fang is already starting to get interesting..."
“Report!” Drew ordered as he walked onto the bridge taking his chair “We have detected something on sensors” Anna reported “What kind of something?” Drew asked calling up a sensor report on his console “Uncertain Captain” the science officer covering for Kern at his staff meeting reported Drew looked to Leah who shook her head, understanding his unasked question.
“I recommend going to Red Alert” Graeme reported from tactical Drew allowed himself a small smile “Not yet, bring us to yellow alert as soon as we drop out of warp” seeing Graeme about to protest Drew added “At the first sign of trouble go to Red Alert” Graeme looked back down to his station read outs satisfied for now. The Fang slowly dropped out of warp and went to impulse speeds “Entering Feta system” Nikki reported Drew noticed the speed at which the bridge's status lights turned yellow, he nodded his head impressed, Graeme was anything if not quick.
“Try the sensors again” Anna ordered “Still nothing” the Officer reported “Wait, I detected what appeared to be a ship for a brief moment” “What type of ship?” Drew asked, “Unknown sir, I did not get a proper reading”.
Drew nodded his head carefully thinking his next move “Leah find the probe and relay coordinates to the helm – maybe that can give us some answers” “Scanning for the probe now, found it, relaying to the helm” “Put the probe on screen” Drew requested. The small object appeared on the large viewer at the front of the bridge.
“Lt. Commander Kern report to the bridge” Drew called into the comm system “Leah beam the probe to cargo bay 2, when Kern gets up here you and him begin analysing it, find out anything you can I want a full report in the hour” “Aye sir” Leah replied moving her hands quickly over the transport controls. “Energizing – probe is in Cargo Bay 2” “Science continue scans of the region try and see if you can find that ship again – Number One you have the bridge I will be down in engineering” “Engineering?” Anna called out to him as he entered the turbo left “I want to make sure the Chief is ready for anything” he answered her with a smile.
COMMANDER Kern and Leah made their way to cargo bay 2.
Leah "We have to have a full report in the hour"
COMMANDER Kern "What, we'll never finish in time"
Leah "Oh stop moaning, orders are orders. What was I going to do, say no"
COMMANDER Kern "Well you could have done a Ragin on it"
Leah "A what?"
They entered cargo bay two and approached the probe
COMMANDER "A Ragin, you know an engineer"
Leah "Riiiiiight" under her breath "one too many hits with a bath'leh"
COMMANDER Kern "Engineers, they always give themselves a breathing space when it comes to time. If a job takes three hrs, they say they'll need at least four."
Leah "Why would they do that?2
COMMANDER Kern "So if anything goes unaccording to plan, they have more time to fix it. And if they get it done in 3, it makes em look good for finishing an hour early"
Leah "Ragin doesn't do that"
COMMANDER Kern looked at her "Right"
They continued their scans.
COMMANDER "I'm picking up stress fractures on the hull."
Leah "Tractor beam"
COMMANDER Kern "Possibly"
Leah stooped down and look punched in a few commands. I'll try to access the sensor logs, see who's been by recently"
Kern took a few scans of the area, you won't be able to, there's a micro-fracture in the relay behind the panel, we'll have to take the data module out and access it from the science lab.
Having removed it they walked towards the doors. Kern was scanning the module, it appeared to be in tact.
As the doors closed behind them "I can't believe you said we'd have a report within the hour"
Leah "Shut up Kern"
Meanwhile in engineering
the chief was busy testing back-up systems when his comm badge beeped
"si... chief?" asked a familiar voice
"yes Naysmith, what’s up?" asked the chief
"the captain is here to see you"
*'bout five min later*
the chief opened the door out into engineering and looked about
seeing Drew he walked over
"Hey drew.. what’s up?"
"just making sure you’re all in shape down here"
"no need to worry sir, we're going as fast as we can, everything will be tried and tested in about.. ohh 45 min"
drew nodded and the two men stood silent for a moment or two
"well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll get back to work"
said the chief as he turned to head back into the Jeffries tubes
pausing just to see if drew had anything else to say....
“Actually there was something else,” Drew said Ragin turned back to face him “Oh?” “I want you to begin working on a way to mask our power signature from any form of sensors, especially Borg sensors, if it is the Borg out there I don’t want them knowing we are around until we are right on there doorstep” Ragin nodded his head “Don’t you worry Drew with the tricks I have up my sleeve the most powerful sensor array in the quadrant could not detect us”.
Drew noticed some of Ragin’s work crews turning to see what the two were discussing Drew moved Ragin into a corner before continuing “Chief, in your opinion what chance does this ship have against a Borg cube?” “Every system on the ship was designed to fight and defend from the Borg, the Prometheus Class is more weapons then anything else” the Chief told him a touch of pride in his voice as he spoke of the ships capabilities, though Drew sensed a but coming.
“But” Ragin continued “This is just one ship, even at peak efficiency it would be one hell of a job for us to hold our own against a cube, not many Prometheus’s have gone up alone with the Borg, even after a decade of service the Corps of Engineers still don’t know if the Prometheus class could handle itself”. Drew looked at the powerful warp core in the centre of the room “I never liked being a test bud” he commented “Let me know when you have completed the work, I will be in cargo bay 2” Ragin step aside to let him pass “Will do”
Cargo Bay 2
It had only been 30 minutes since Drew had sent COMMANDERS Kern and Lamont to investigate the probe but he wanted to see what progress they had made. The two did not notice him and Leah jumped slightly has he said “How’s it going?”.
"Sir I've promised a report in one hour, we still have half an hour to go..." Leah replied smiling at Drew. She sensed that he was nervous and just walking around to do something, instead of just wait until the Borg would show up.
"I know commander" Drew replied. "But my experience tells me that Starfleet officers really need only half the time they tell their captain they do. We all need time for a coffee break don't we?"
"I'm insulted you could think so of me Commodore!" Leah teased him. "That reminds me I really need some coffee" she added and walked over to the replicater ordering a ractagino. Then she came back with a steaming cup, and after a few sips sighed happily.
"Now we can get to our report" she said.
"I thought it would take another half hour?" Drew asked.
"I never said that, did I? I just said we had another half hour to go..." she replied innocently taking another sip of her racctagino.
"Alright commander. Just report now, will you" Drew said, having relaxed a bit.
"Aye aye Sir. The probe was definitely held by a tractor beam. Scanning the hull showed us that it was most likely Borg technology."
"Meaning there was Borg activity in this sector..." Drew added.
"Most likely yes" Kern said. "But then something strange happened.
"How do you mean?"
"We checked the database of the probe. It is mostly destroyed, but it was definitely accessed. Probably the Borg tried to assimilate it, but something must have gone wrong."
"Borg failing at assimilating something? That definitely is strange" Drew agreed. "Do you think you can restructure parts of the data base? Maybe short range scanner logs or anything else that could be helpful to find out what happened?"
"We were going to try" Leah said. "But it might take a bit more time than just another half hour..."
"Take all the time you need" Drew said "just be done before the Borg decide to show up. That's an order."
"As always Commodore" Leah replied, slightly overconfident.
"I will let you work then" Drew said and thought about where he could go next.
"Off we go Kern" Leah said. "Good thing star fleet officer always manage to reconstructive destroyed data..."
Having re-assigned some of his engineering crew to help hide the power signature of the fang
if this worked they'd have to be within 1.5 light years to detect the fang
the crews went about doing their work as well as they could.
the chief took a moment to look at their progress.
at this rate in about half an hour or so the modifications should be ready.
the chief went over to one of the computer consoles
Computer load program scenario 359
the screen came to life
onscreen a simulated fang and a Borg cube battled it out.
the simulation ended with the destruction of the fang
"computer, are they new modifications been taken into account"
"yes"
"computer how many times has this simulation been run?"
"125 times"
"and the win/loose percentage is?"
"seventy thirty in favour of the Borg"
the chief sighed.
it COULD be done, but it seemed , improbable
"computer, cross reference all the scenarios when the fang won, find common factors then present an overlay of the current status of the fang versus the new data"
"processing"
the chief waited
"process complete"
"implement the new data on the simulation, run a hundred simulations at maximum speed and display the results"
once again the chief waited
"simulations complete,
win ratio is seventy thirty in favour of the Borg"
"sonofabitch" muttered the chief
"Chief!" called a voice
"yes Naysmith?" replied the chief
"the modifications are complete"
the chief nodded and tapped his comm badge
"Ragin' to drew, the modifications are complete"
"thanks you chief, drew out"
Commanders Leah and Kern had been slaving over the data module for some time. Progress had been slow, and tempers were starting the sway.
Leah "For the last time, that algorithm isn't going to work"
Kern "How do we know till we try"
Leah "BeCASUE! Look at the spectral analysis. You can't apply that algorithm to it. It won’t give you anything”
Kern looked at her “Computer, apply Kern algorithm number 62 to the data block.”
<>Application complete<>
Kern “What’s the status of the fragmentation pattern of the data?”
<>Unchanged<>
Leah “Told you. Look we have to have this report done for the captain by 18.00, we’re nowhere near completed”
Kern mumbled something under his breath as he ran another scan with his tri-quarter.
Leah with a little venom in here voice “Excuse me? I must have missed that”
Kern “I said maybe if you hadn’t spent the entire afternoon drinking ractagino we might have gotten somewhere.”
Leah leaped onto the defensive “Well at least I didn’t spend the afternoon running attempting ridiculous algorithmic de-compilers, with absolutely no hope of success”
The two began arguing when Anna walked in.
Anna “Problems?”
Kern “No commander”
Leah “No Anna, we’re just having some professional differences”
Anna “I can see that. What’s the problem?” she walked over to the station they were working at.
Kern “Well the data has been tampered with and we were-“
Anna “Have you run a trans-spectral analysis?”
Leah “Yes but the results”
Punching in a few more commands Anna interrupted once more
“Download the data and then run it through a data compression algorithm. Then you can extrapolate the fragmentation pattern and get the computer to reinitialise the module.”
Kern and Leah looked at each other Leah “uh…yes. Yep that should do it”
When she had left Kern turned to Leah “I was just about to suggest that.”
The mass hall was packed with crewmembers off duty, most crewmembers were huddled together round tables filling each other in on the latest rumours and gossip, trying to guess the details of the mission. Drew walked up to the counter where he was presented with bowls of food “Ah, Captain” the Chef called out from his kitchen “Try the Bolian soup it is delicious” he walked out from his little domain and headed a blow to Drew “I got the recipe from Ensign Blok”, “I am sure it will be another one of your success Chef” Drew told the bubbly man, he looked round to see the crew enjoying there selves, here was a please where you could leave your troubles at the door and relax “Your tea, Captain” the Chef said handing Drew a cup of steaming hot tea, Drew wondered briefly why he would need a liquid drink with soup, but decided not to ask, for the sake of his stomach.
Taking a seat near one of the view ports Drew stared wishfully at the stars, the Feta system star shone brightly against the darkness of space, reminding Drew briefly of the Sol Star he felt a slight homesickness as he thought of what his family would be doing at this moment, his thoughts were interrupted as he noticed a region of space close to the ship disorientate, and the shape of a ship begin to form “What the..?” Drew said in shock raising from his table crewmembers around him followed suit, his heart froze as Drew recognised the shape of the ship “Battle Stations” he called to the crew around him “Get to battle stations!!” as the crew hurried towards the exit the room shock as the spare shaped ship fired weapons the lights dimmed out across the room and for a moment Drew thought this was the end, the bridge had not gotten the shields up in time and now the Fang could be a sitting duck for all he knew, he wished he was on the bridge, controlling the situation.
Then as quickly as it appeared the ship phased back into darkness and the firing stopped Drew hit his comm badge “Bridge, how the hell did the Borg get a cloaking device?” Anna’s voice replied “They took us by surprise sir, we have damage reports coming in now” “I want the senior staff in the conference room in 15 minutes Commander” Drew ordered heading for the door.
The senior staff assembled into the conference. They all took their usual seats. Drew stood up. "Damage report." he said with a slight hint of concern in his voice. He looked at Graeme. Graeme began a report. "Shields are operating at 82%, hull integrity is at 97% and all decks report no damage. Casualties were minimal and we have survived." "Thank you Lt.Cmdr." Drew said. "Was the sphere definitely armed with a cloaking device?" asked Drew still disbelieving what he had witnessed from the mess hall. "It was sir." Leah reported. "Damn." said Graeme. "This now means that the Borg have an even higher chance of success." he sighed. Drew looked around the conference room. Then turning to Kern “Commander would you please” he said indicating to the viewscreen Kern stood up and approached the view screen. "We took a bit of a pounding during the attack, but the sensors were able to record this" Entering a couple of commands on the view screen the Borg sphere appeared. It showed the cube fire on the Fang and phase out of view.
Kern =^= Computer overlay sensor data at simultaneous time index.=^=
The data logs from the sensors appeared along side the image. The viewed the clip again, but as the sphere ended it’s attack the he paused the playback.
Kern “Here, he magnified the readings so the rest of the senior staff could read them”
Anna “A low level neutrino field?”
Leah joined Kern at the screen “Yes, it surrounded the ship just before it began to cloak. And there’s only species we know of that employ this modification into their cloaking systems”
Ragin “The Romulans”
Drew =^=Computer replay the sequence at time index 34.6=^=
The screen played the clip from the point at which the sphere began it’s cloak to the point at which the logs stopped recording information when the ship dropped off sensors.
Drew “It’s too quick”
Kern nodded “Well observed Captain. The entire cloaking process took just under 2 seconds”
Leah “1.84 to be exact”
Graeme “But the Romulans and Klingons were never able to get it under 3.”
Kern “That’s true, which means the Borg must have assimilated it and improved upon it”
Graeme “Starfleet intelligence hasn’t reported anything about ships missing or anything related to Borg activity with the Romulan Empire.”
Drew “Who says it was assimilated by force?” Everyone looked at him curiously
Archer “Captain?”
“It would not be the first time the Romulans had allied their selves with enemies of the Federation” Drew answered Archer, watching as the wild card he had sent out started to form ideas in his crew’s minds. Ragin was the first to speak, “But the Borg have never been known to ally with any other species, why ally with a race when you can just stick your claws into there necks and share everything?” some of the crew nodded there heads in agreement until Leah spoke up “Actually Chief that is not completely true, the Borg DID ally with at least one species” now Drew nodded his head “The USS Voyager” “That was different” Graeme protested “The Voyager crew had something the Borg needed, after all the Borg were losing a war they would have done anything”.
“Whose to say that is not what is happening here?” Leah asked “Think about it, the Romulans are renowned for there stifle technology, something the Borg could greatly appreciate” following Leah’s line of thinking Ragin changed the sides in the argument “It would make it that much easy to surprise species they wanted to assimilate – look how close they got to us without us realising” a dark thought filled the room as everyone came to the same conclusion “With cloaking technology the Federation would not be able to detect an invasion force, they could warp straight into the Sol system without anyone noticing until it was too late” Drew spoke the feeling they all had “Which would mean the assimilation of Earth”
“But why would the Romulans ally with the Borg?” Archer asked “Maybe they believe the Borg will destroy the Federation and they can have the leftovers” Ragin suggested “The Romulans have no honour” Kern spat out “The Klingon Empire should have destroyed them long ago”. “This is not a Klingon ship” Drew reminded Kern “Leah did you find anything in your analysis of the probe to suggest further Romulan involvement? Or anything that can give us any further clues?
"Actually things are now slowly starting to make sense" Leah replied. "I hadn't been sure what the database's leftovers meant, but a Borg involvement with the romulans could explain a few things."
"How do you mean Commander" Drew asked curiously. Leah stood up and walked up to the view screen. After hitting a few buttons the computer produced a scheme of some database fragments. Except Kern noone really understood what they were seeing and everyone was waiting for Leah to explain what she meant.
"As I mentioned earlier there was something that prevented the Borg from being successful in assimilating the probe. I hadn't been able to figure out what it was, until now. You see the fragmentation here that runs through the whole database almost regularly and made it almost impossible for us to get much data back. If the destruction had been caused by a normal overload the fragmentation would have been a lot more sporadical and we could have reconstructed more. Unfortunately not even the compression algorithm helped to reconstruct the data, but on the other hand this was exactly what brought me on the right track" Leah explained pointing around on the screen.
"And what would that be?" Drew asked getting a bit impatient, although he appreciated a clear explanation he also liked to hear the conclusion quickly. It was only a matter of time until the Borg would show up again.
"I'm just getting there Commodore" Leah replied smiling, sensing his tension. "The destruction of the database was a self-defence mechanism. It reacted to the Romulan code in the Borg algorithm. All probe databases with delicate data are protected to rather destroy it than have an enemy computer access it. Now with the Borg it's different, they are able to assimilate even federation databases because they are able to adapt to our system."
"So why did they fail now?" Ensign Archer asked.
"That's what I hadn't been able to figure out. But now it makes perfect sense. It is because of the Romulan technology. It wasn't just assimilated, but specially built into the system to optimise the cloaking technology. They had to adapt their computer system, and although the cloaking device makes them more superior this is a weakness they had to pay for. The database could now protect itself. Although we couldn't get any data we can say with a high probability that the romulans willingly gave the cloaking technology to the Borg, whatever they got in return. But Commodore Drew was right, it wasn't assimilated by force, the romulans sure agreed to this."
After Leah had stopped speaking for a moment it was silent
"Drew, we now have a few more problems." started the chief
"if the Borg can cloak and attack I think we need to re-think our tactics"
"we can't see them and we can't beat them in a fair fight"
"we'll I can see your not going to be made councillor" said kern the Klingon not liking the idea of the borg/romulan alliance
the chief held his tongue.
"as I was saying, we can't beat them in a fair fight, so we need an advantage, if the Borg had assimilated the technology, we'd be best just heading back to earth and getting ready, but seeing as they had to build it in we have a chance"
"the Borg are still probably running through tests. that attack was probably only a dry run. testing weapons and systems integration that sort of thing
when *we* do that we have a base that we can bring the ship back to. and the testing area is only 50-100 light years in radius, just incase something goes wrong."
Drew’s interest peaked
"so chief, what your saying is..."
"if we find the base we could catch the Borg with their pants down, or at the least raid the base for details of the procedure, it could be useful"
kern spoke " that’s not going to be easy"
Ragin' felt it was time for payback for the earlier comment "what’s the matter kern, scared?"
the Klingon glowered.
Leah broke the tension.
"we still have to find it"
"50 to 100 light years from this point. I reckon" repeated the chief.
the room fell silent again as everyone though over the chief suggestion
Drew thought over Ragin’s words and made his decision “Kern begin scanning the area for the possible location of the base” the Klingon nodded his head “Ragin, you and Graeme double the defence efforts I don’t want us to be caught with our pants down again, concentrate on the shields” Ragin looked over to Graeme who had a battle glair in his ears noting it Ragin turned back to Drew “We can but try”.
“Anna keep the ship at yellow alert and be ready for anything, you will command the bridge will I pour over the logs of our encounter” “Understood” Anna replied picking up her PADD recording Drew’s orders “Leah try and find a way to expand the range of the sensors, hopefully we should be able to scan the Borg base without having to get an away team inside” “Sir” Leah said “Our sensors will barely stretch there hull plates” “Then you better get to work then” Drew said with an hint of an order in his tone, satisfied they all knew what to do he stood up “Dismissed”
The senior staff left the conference room. Ragin and Graeme walked towards each other to get started. "Where shall we begin?" Ragin asked. "The mess hall." Graeme said quickly. "Okay but I didn't mean it like that." Ragin replied. "I know." Graeme said back. The two senior officers got into the turbo lift. The turbo lift zoomed down a few decks and stopped a little bit from the mess hall. The officers left the turbo lift thinking of ways to get the shields to above maximum efficiency. "We could try random deflector pulses charged to boost power to the shield generators" Graeme suggested. "That could overload the deflector or the shields." Ragin pointed out. "Hot coffee, with sugar and milk, black." Graeme commanded to a replicater. "The same." Ragin commanded with a slight hint of a smile on his face. The two officers sat down with a padd. "These Borg scum, that tear through the galaxy destroying peoples families are going to wish they were never assimilated. Ohhh. I hate the Borg and I can’t wait to wipe that smug look off their faces." Graeme said to Ragin. "Graeme you should put your feelings aside for the time being, and concentrate on what’s important. We all hate the Borg for something but we have to act properly despite how bad they have hurt us." Ragin said wisely. "Are you a counsellor or an engineer" Graeme joked. Ragin smiled and then they started discussing more ideas. After several possible ideas they finally both had the same idea that might just work......s
Leah and Kern went to the astrometics lab intending to find a way to enlarge the sensor range. Considering that the sensors were already running on a 100% level it would not be an easy task.
"Alright what are we looking for?" Leah asked rhetorically. "A cloaked Borg base? You'd think they invent those new things only to make us work to death by improving sensors that are already better than anything we've ever had."
"If they didn't where would the fun in life be?" Kern asked back and Leah almost dropped her cup of coffee when she heard the Klingon say that. A Klingon calling improving sensors fun, something had definitely gone wrong in the universe. When she saw him grinning at her she realized that he had only tried to shock her and he had definitely succeeded.
"Alright lets get to our fun work then" she said grinning back at him. Working with a Klingon scientist would definitely never be boring.
"How much range do we have at the moment?" she asked Kern.
The Klingon tapped a few buttons. "Well I could almost count the atoms in that nebula 5 light years away. Up to 30 I would find a planet, and up to 100 a star. That would about be it."
"And we should find a star base about 100 light years away...right. If I remember it right they are slightly smaller than a star, except the Borg have decided to start building in even bigger dimensions" Leah said. "I think we have to reinvent the telescope."
"Now don't be so pessimistic" Kern said. "Remember Starfleet officers always get done what they need to do. This unwritten rule might come in handy now. Let me work on finding the base, while you work on getting through a Borg hull... just in case I should really manage to find it" he added grinning.
"I suppose" Leah said smiling back, and then became serious finally. She loaded the schematics of Borg hulls on her screen and started to reconfigure the sensors to penetrate the specific elements of a Borg hull. That the Borg base might even be cloaked, well that would be something she'd think about later on.
Graeme and the chief look again at the latest plan they had come up with.
"d'ya think it'll work?" asked Graeme.
"well its never been done before, which, of course, means nothing" said Ragin' more musing out loud then replying to Graeme
" ok so let me get this straight, we fire up the back-up generators...." began Graeme
"and use the power from them to strengthen the shields" continued the chief
"and possibly blow every relay on the ship" pointed out Graeme
"possibly" said the chief.
they thought for a moment more.
"its not like its a 100% new idea, I mean the enterprise D put its warp matrix through the shields to strengthen them." comment Graeme....
"yeah but they didn't have two sets of generators trying to pump power through relays only meant for one generator"
"bad idea?" asked Graeme
"probably" said the chief and they went back to the drawing board
***
a while later
***
"I’ve got it" cried the chief
"what? " mumbled Graeme
"the second generator, we don't need to try and force that much energy through relays already begin used. what we need is to build a direct path only for the second generator and strengthening the shields"
"y'think it'd work" ask Graeme
"yeah, granted if the relays blow there will be no back-ups, but given our present situation... sounds like a plan"
Graeme perked up "lets go chief..."
the chief almost ran from the mess hall, and started dashing towards engineering
Graeme kept up with him
the two arrived in engineering just as a shift change was talking place
"ok kids, sit tight, you ain't going anywhere" called the chief as he entered.
there was general grumbling from everyone
"now now, lets be nice, we've got a guest" replied the chief, indicating to Graeme.
"now here what’s to be done" started the chief as he began to marshal the engineering crews
Drew sat solemnly in his Ready Room going over past encounters with the Borg, the Fang had actually been the last Starfleet ship to have contact with the Borg almost a year ago, it was the success of that mission where a Borg cube was captured that had led Starfleet to assign the Fang on the mission. Pouring over the logs made by Captain’s Sherlock and Fett and himself as acting CO Drew tried to find some weakness that was detected, anything that could help them now, he was disappointed.
Calling up current ship status reports from the computer Drew noticed increased power from the generators, just as he was about to comm Ragin the engineer’s voice beat him to it “Cajun to Drew” “Go ahead Chief” Drew replied hoping for good news “I think we may have just found the answers to your prays” the engineer told him hope filled through the Captain “Oh?” he asked “I will spare you the details but just take my word for it when I say the shields will be a lot stronger now, we should be able to take a good few hits from the Borg before our shields collapse” “Well done Chief – Drew out” he said cutting the channel as he was about to head for the bridge his comm badge chirped again.
“Lamont and Kern to Drew” “More good news for me?” Drew answered “Maybe not” Leah replied “With the new sensors modifications we have managed to expend our sensor range” not for the first time this mission Drew sensed a very big but coming, his gut did not let him down “We have detected a ship in a nearby nebula, we can’t get a clear reading because of the nebula’s sensor blind but it could be Borg” “Define “nearby” Drew ordered “3.5 light years” Leah replied getting straight to the point that was all Drew needed to hear “Red Alert, senior staff report to the bridge”
25 minutes later
The Fang dropped out of warp and entered the misty area of the nebula
On the bridge
“Begin scanning the area” Drew ordered Kern from the centre of the bridge the Klingon begin moving his hands across his console at an impressive speed “I have the ship on sensors, this is strange Commodore it’s a Starfleet ship” Drew hid his shock at that statement “On screen” he ordered.
A familiar shape appeared on screen as one of the Fang’s sister ships faced her “USS Newton, Nova Class” Leah reported “What the hell is a Nova class ship doing in a area reported to have Borg activity” Anna said out loud “Good question, Leah open a channel” Drew ordered “We are already being hailed, Sir its Admiral Gene” now Drew could not hid his shock “The most senior officer in three sectors on a Nova Class ship? “Sir should I accept the hail?” Leah asked Drew nodded his head composing himself bracing himself to face the Admiral.
A middle aged man appeared on the screen in a Starfleet flag officer uniform speaking clearly the man identified himself “This is Section Admiral Gene to the USS Fang” Drew stood from his chair “Fang here Sir” the Admiral allowed himself a smile as he seen Drew greet him “Paul its good to see you again” “Sir, not to sound rude but the Borg are crawling over this area you should not be here” “The Borg?” Gene asked slightly shocked “We have been out of contact with command since we entered the nebula, my wife is onboard and wanted to investigate the nebula” Drew stood straight preparing himself for what he had to say next “Sir I must insist you return to Starbase 47 at once” before Gene could answer an alarm sounded on the Fang “Sir” Graeme called out “A Borg sphere is entering the nebula”.
Now Drew took his eyes of from the Admiral in front of him and turned to his Tactical officer “Raise shields and prepare to fire all weapons” taking his chair he turned back to Gene “We can carry this on later” he told the Admiral “Agreed – the Newton is not a tactical ship Commodore we can’t take on a Borg ship” “Understood we will cover you” Drew said cutting the channel.
“Sir the Borg are targeting the Newton” Graeme called out “Her shields are gone” now Drew could almost swear what else could go wrong? Thinking fast he made his decision “Drop shields and beam the entire crew of the Newton to the Fang” “Sir?” Graeme asked in shock “That is the commander of Section 47 I am not about to let him be assimilated on my watch now DROP THE SHIELDS” the tone of Drew’s voice told Graeme that this was an order not to disobey “Dropping shields” Graeme said reluctantly.
“We have them” Leah reported “Good” Drew said standing up “Graeme get shields back up no….. Drew was cut off as a green energy caught hold of him the bridge crew looked in shock as there Captain was beamed of the bridge” “What the hell” Anna called out “A Romulan war bird just decloaked and beamed the Captain onboard “Get him back” she ordered “The ship has cloaked again” Graeme reported Anna looked worryingly to the viewscreen “Then may god help us”
Drew sat solemnly in his Ready Room going over past encounters with the Borg, the Fang had actually been the last Starfleet ship to have contact with the Borg almost a year ago, it was the success of that mission where a Borg cube was captured that had led Starfleet to assign the Fang on the mission. Pouring over the logs made by Captain’s Sherlock and Fett and himself as acting CO Drew tried to find some weakness that was detected, anything that could help them now, he was disappointed.
Calling up current ship status reports from the computer Drew noticed increased power from the generators, just as he was about to comm Ragin the engineer’s voice beat him to it “Cajun to Drew” “Go ahead Chief” Drew replied hoping for good news “I think we may have just found the answers to your prays” the engineer told him hope filled through the Captain “Oh?” he asked “I will spare you the details but just take my word for it when I say the shields will be a lot stronger now, we should be able to take a good few hits from the Borg before our shields collapse” “Well done Chief – Drew out” he said cutting the channel as he was about to head for the bridge his comm badge chirped again.
“Lamont and Kern to Drew” “More good news for me?” Drew answered “Maybe not” Leah replied “With the new sensors modifications we have managed to expend our sensor range” not for the first time this mission Drew sensed a very big but coming, his gut did not let him down “We have detected a ship in a nearby nebula, we can’t get a clear reading because of the nebula’s sensor blind but it could be Borg” “Define “nearby” Drew ordered “3.5 light years” Leah replied getting straight to the point that was all Drew needed to hear “Red Alert, senior staff report to the bridge”
25 minutes later
The Fang dropped out of warp and entered the misty area of the nebula
On the bridge
“Begin scanning the area” Drew ordered Kern from the centre of the bridge the Klingon begin moving his hands across his console at an impressive speed “I have the ship on sensors, this is strange Commodore it’s a Starfleet ship” Drew hid his shock at that statement “On screen” he ordered.
A familiar shape appeared on screen as one of the Fang’s sister ships faced her “USS Newton, Nova Class” Leah reported “What the hell is a Nova class ship doing in a area reported to have Borg activity” Anna said out loud “Good question, Leah open a channel” Drew ordered “We are already being hailed, Sir its Admiral Gene” now Drew could not hid his shock “The most senior officer in three sectors on a Nova Class ship? “Sir should I accept the hail?” Leah asked Drew nodded his head composing himself bracing himself to face the Admiral.
A middle aged man appeared on the screen in a Starfleet flag officer uniform speaking clearly the man identified himself “This is Section Admiral Gene to the USS Fang” Drew stood from his chair “Fang here Sir” the Admiral allowed himself a smile as he seen Drew greet him “Paul its good to see you again” “Sir, not to sound rude but the Borg are crawling over this area you should not be here” “The Borg?” Gene asked slightly shocked “We have been out of contact with command since we entered the nebula, my wife is onboard and wanted to investigate the nebula” Drew stood straight preparing himself for what he had to say next “Sir I must insist you return to Starbase 47 at once” before Gene could answer an alarm sounded on the Fang “Sir” Graeme called out “A Borg sphere is entering the nebula”.
Now Drew took his eyes of from the Admiral in front of him and turned to his Tactical officer “Raise shields and prepare to fire all weapons” taking his chair he turned back to Gene “We can carry this on later” he told the Admiral “Agreed – the Newton is not a tactical ship Commodore we can’t take on a Borg ship” “Understood we will cover you” Drew said cutting the channel.
“Sir the Borg are targeting the Newton” Graeme called out “Her shields are gone” now Drew could almost swear what else could go wrong? Thinking fast he made his decision “Drop shields and beam the entire crew of the Newton to the Fang” “Sir?” Graeme asked in shock “That is the commander of Section 47 I am not about to let him be assimilated on my watch now DROP THE SHIELDS” the tone of Drew’s voice told Graeme that this was an order not to disobey “Dropping shields” Graeme said reluctantly.
“We have them” Leah reported “Good” Drew said standing up “Graeme get shields back up no….. Drew was cut off as a green energy caught hold of him the bridge crew looked in shock as there Captain was beamed of the bridge” “What the hell” Anna called out “A Romulan warbird just decloaked and beamed the Captain onboard “Get him back” she ordered “The ship has cloaked again” Graeme reported Anna looked worryingly to the viewscreen “Then may god help us”
Anna stared intently at the viewscreen for a minute while the crew waited for her to speak. "Lock onto what's left of the Newton with a tractor beam. I'll be with our visitors in the cargo bay. Inform me if you detect the warbird again." She turned to leave. "Leah, you have the bridge."
Once in the turbo lift Anna sighed deeply. She hoped Drew was okay. She could feel the doctor in her begin to worry increasingly. The lift stopped and Anna stepped out on her way to the cargo bay. Thank God one of our visitors just happens to be Section Admiral Gene.
--------In the Cargo Bay---------
The Cargo Bay doors opened and Anna stepped in ready to salute to the section admiral.
"Commander Anna Shipley, first officer. It's a pleasure to finally meet you sir."
"The pleasure is mine commander. May I inquire as to where Paul is? I was looking forward to seeing him even if it is under such unfortunate circumstances." Gene said.
"So you haven't heard." Anna stated.
"Haven't heard what?" he asked, his wife stepping up behind him.
Then, "Lamont to Shipley: You're needed on the Bridge commander."
"Admiral, will you accompany me?" Anna asked
"Of course commander." Gene answered
"On our way Leah. Shipley out. I'll explain everything on the way sir. In the meantime I'll have a security team come and assist your crew.
--------Back on the bridge--------
Leah left the captain's chair as Anna and Gene stood in the middle of the bridge. Anna spoke "Since I don't have the experience needed to command a mission such as this, Section Admiral Gene has agreed to take command of the Fang until we find the captain. I have caught him up on everything we know so far." Anna said as Gene took the captain's chair and she the one beside it...
**Before reaching the Bridge**
Guinevere turned to her husband: "Gene," she said. He turned around to face her as she continued: "my team all seem accounted for, I will accompany them for now as we get settled down on the Fang and see what their needs are and what we have been able to save in the way of our research and all."
Gene looked at his wife and gave her a smile as he nodded. He was officially on leave, joining his family on a science project studying nebulae in this sector and he didn't want to leave her alone at this time but he had a duty to respond to Shipley's request.
"I will join you as soon as I can Guinevere", he said in a soft voice, reaching out to take her hand for a brief moment.
"Admiral..." Shipley spoke forcefully, urging him to hurry along.
Gene turned to the FO and nodded and they both went on their way to the bridge. "Arrange quarters for the admiral and his family and for the science team and Newton crew," Anna said to the nearest officer, a Bolian Lt. jg. on duty in the Cargo Bay, as she walked past him.
Guinevere attended to her team while Gene joined the FO.
**On the Bridge**
Admiral Gene van Hoek walked up to the captain's chair and paused for a moment, Commander Shipley stood in front of the FO's seat and looked at the admiral as he turned and took the centre seat, carefully treating it as if it was a precious stone. After he finally sat down he took a moment to take in the scene.... the bridge of a starship... how long it has been since he was there, in the place he most loved to be, the big chair.
He didn't have too long to savour the moment though as the atmosphere on the bridge became ever more tense.
"Computer, recognize Van Hoek, Gene, Section Admiral Section 47," he commanded, "and transfer all command codes to me, authority Van Hoek pi delta 4. Note the time in the official ship's log"
The computer took a moment and then a metallic female voice sounded: "Command codes transferred, USS Fang now under command of Van Hoek, Gene."
With this he took a deep breath and turned to Commander Shipley: "get us to a safe distance where we will weigh our options, I want a full senior staff meeting in one hour. I'll be in the ready room."
Shipley looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. She realised that they needed to approach this new situation carefully and not risk anything. They wouldn't be able to get Drew back now and taking on the Borg sphere and possibly more Romulans would be unwise in the present confusion and a short retreat was the better option at the moment. The Borg sphere hit the Fang with a volley or two but the shields seemed to be holding for the moment.
Gene got up and walked to the ready room while Anna issued the appropriate commands to get the ship away from the sphere.
"Helm set a course away from the nebula, but stay within sensor range, we need to know what they are doing" Shipley ordered the young helm officer Lt Archer "Yes Commander" she responded efficiently putting the appropriate commands into her station, her thought whirling around inside her mind. The Captain was gone, and they were moving away from the area, Nikki understood the reasons, but it still didn't feel quite right to her. Nikki could feel the tension on the bridge, on the entire ship, it felt, wrong somehow, without Commodore Drew on board the ship felt different. It was silly of course, probably nothing more than her imagination but this whole thing disturbed her greatly, of course the Borg disturbed everyone greatly, and it was her first time coming up against them so the uneasy feeling was to be expected. The Admiral had an excellent reputation though, so she was glad about that, although with the Borg's new technology, she wasn't sure even the Fang could come out the other end in one piece, regardless of who was in command.
as the Chief headed towards engineering he couldn't help mumbling to himself
"that’s got to be, how many times? 6 at least, we have to start chaining drew down, he gets kidnapped far too often"
as he entered engineering there was a general air of discomfort
"ok people, listen up."
the chatter ceased
"As you all know the Borg are around, attempting to make life miserable
they can now cloak their ships and it looks like we have romulans to deal with as well"
"we need to go over all the data we have, and I’m prove our systems. we will only get one shot at the Borg, if we are lucky"
the chief glanced around
some of the younger staff were scared.
"poor kids" he thought to himself.
"ok lets brew some coffee, its going to be a long one"
engineering burst into life again as people went about their tasks
the chief tapped his comm badge
Ragin' to Graeme
"yes chief" replied Graeme
"we're starting to analyse the data and work on ways to improve our systems, we could defiantly use a hand here if you not too busy"
Section Admiral Gene van Hoek entered the conference room just before the meeting was about to start, finding the counsellor already there. After a brief introduction Gene walked over to the head of the conference table and sat down, turning his chair away, facing towards the screen behind and to the right of him. He seemed to study it intensely but for the fact that it was completely dark at the moment. this fact escaped him though as he drifted away in thoughts.
The doors whooshed open twice in quick succession and into the room came a Klingon, what would later turn out to be the science officer and behind him came the First officer. She took the seat at Gene's right hand side as the other officers found their own places. At the same moment Leah Lamont, the operations officer walked in and nodded towards the admiral.
The atmosphere in the room was tense, the crew seemed on edge and whether it was because of the fact that Commodore Drew had been kidnapped or because of the fact that an admiral of all people was now in command was irrelevant. Gene knew full well that the crew would have to adjust to his presence, after all on the Hepta his being there was effecting people and he had no formal role on that ship at all. The room began to fill itself with the murmur of the officers talking among themselves and Gene had more difficulty concentrating because of it. Nikki Archer arrived and there were two more officers due. It was 4 minutes beyond the time set for this meeting and Gene straightened his chair to face the table.
He noticed several officers looking at him in expectation and the murmur died down instantly: "People," he began making eye contact with all officers, "firstly I want to thank...," he was interrupted by the doors whooshing open again as Graeme and Ragin hurried in, nodded and excused themselves and took a chair near the end of the table.
The admiral composed himself and continued: "as I was saying, I would like to thank the crew for their coming to our aid and I have noted Commodore Drew's actions in the official logs, his sacrifice will not be forgotten.
Leah spoke up: "With all due respect admiral," she said almost apologetically for interrupting him, "have we given up on Drew, because that is what this sounds like?"
Gene looked in her direction as did everyone else except for the FO who looked down towards the table as she had done since the meeting started.
"Commander... Lamont is it?" Gene said with a pitch at the end to indicate it was an inquiry. He still had to get to know the crew, especially the senior crew". She nodded yes. "ok... commander Lamont, I have not given up on rescuing captain Drew or recover him in any way but we must be realistic and accept the fact that he will probably not be retrieved alive. and if the Romulans and the Borg do work together he will most likely be turned over for assimilation so the Borg can access his knowledge of the Fang and our systems.
The room fell silent as no one dared speak up until Kern spoke forcefully: "We must try." he spoke like a real Klingon as he got a reaction from the other officers as a show of support.
Gene understood the crew’s reaction and he would let it be for now. Once the emotions had settled down he thought to himself they would be more inclined to accept his authority.
Kern sat down after he spoke, the other officers awaiting the admiral’s response. It didn't come though and Gene calmly went on: "I have called this meeting to determine our next course of action and to asses the status of this ship. Who would like to start off, I want all things and all opinions on the table."
The CTSO, Graeme, was the first to speak up as Gene listened to everyone, hoping to wrap this part up quickly so he could return to his quarters and be with Guinevere and his children, there were his thoughts, more than with the current crisis as he wondered how they were doing during this difficult time and more than anything he wanted to be by her side right now.
The meeting had been going on for some time. Ideas were being suggested and rejected from all. As was inevitable tensions began to mount. Kern and Ragin had ended up in a corner and were milling over an idea. Gene asked for any new suggestions. The two began to argue over something.
Gene “Commanders?”
They both looked up startled “Sir”
Gene “Have you anything you’d like to add to the briefing?”
Kern “Yes, sir. Ragin has something he’d like to suggest”, he sat down a looked up at the Chief with the hint of a grin, glad he wasn’t the one who had to tell the Admiral.
Ragin “Uh, yes Admiral, well WE think we may an idea, it’s risky though”
Gene “Proceed”
His audience settled down and he began
“Well we figure the attack of your ship was simply a rues to get the Fang to come to your rescue. It is reasonable to suggest that the Captain was their original target. Possessing vital strategic information. Well if our objections are to find out what the Borg are up to and rescue the Captain, we need to be able to find them. With their cloaking technology this is likely to be difficult. So what we need them to come to us.”
Leah “But why would they come back? They have what they want, and if they’ve assimilated the Captain they now know what we know. What could they need?”
Ragin and Kern looked at each other, Kern looked up to speak but was beaten to it by Gene
“Me”
There was a silence, broken finally by Kern
“The way we see it, the fact that they haven’t already come after the Fang again is a good sign. It suggests that the Captain hasn’t been assimilated yet. Or they would have known that the Admiral was on board. If they thought they could get their hands on the him, they’d jump at the chance. And the fact that the Romulans took him suggests he’ll merely be interrogated for information.”
Anna “Merely interrogated Commander? You know better than anyone at this table how the Romulans treat their prisoners during an interrogation”
Kern sighed “I know Commander, but the Captain is as strong in body as he is in mind, he will survive”
Gene “So what is it you propose Commander? How exactly are you going to “bait” me?”
Kern “Well…that’s as far as we’d gotten when you asked for the report.”
Gene “I see.” He looked around the table “Well, what do you think?”
The room was silent for a minute before Anna finally looked up, her face expressing the worry and anxiety she felt, more obviously than she cared for.
"What if we bait the Fang." she said
"How do you mean?" Gene asked
"Well, the Romulans and the Borg will naturally be watching our ever move, fully expecting a rescue plan for the Captain as our top priority right? So, let's be unpredictable and draw some serious attention to us. They'll get curious of course, and immediately find out who's behind it, leading them to the Admiral. Now we both know neither of them will willingly give up the captain no matter what kind of 'bribery' if you will, we attempt. And I have no intention of gambling with the Admirals life, but at least it will give us a start." Anna hoped she was making some kind of sense and not just rambling on.
"How do you suggest we go about this?" Kern asked.
"I haven't thought that far yet, which was why I was hoping I could get some suggestions from the rest of you. We need something uncharacteristic and unusual, but will also spark an interest from either one of them, allowing us the chance to investigate their motives and next course of action."
She paused. "So...any ideas?"
A few seconds the briefing room was quiet, everyone was searching for an answer to Anna's question but noone seemed to have a sudden inspiration. Finally Leah decided to speak.
"I think we are all forgetting something here" she said and everyone was looking at her puzzled.
"What do you mean Commander?" the section admiral asked her.
"We don't know if Commodore Drew was assimilated by the Borg or not, but it is a possibility that we have to consider." Her face showed a painful expression, the thought of her captain now being a machine without an own will disturbed her. But still it was something they had to consider.
"It was the romulans who got him though" Graeme said, being hopeful Leah was wrong. "Why should they turn him over to the Borg."
"We don't know the terms of the alliance" Leah replied. "But if the Captain should have been assimilated the Borg know that we will do everything to save him. Most of us have served with him for years and he knows we would never give up on him. Even if we bait the Fang, they would know immediately it's just a trap. And don't forget, they know all about the Fang now, the improvements in our shields and even the command codes. We need to change all this, it is possible that they have already adapted to it and we would be without a chance against them."
"But we can't just give Commodore Drew up" Anna said desperately. Of all of the crew she had known him for the longest time.
"No we can't" Leah replied. "But that is just what the Borg and romulans will make use of to destroy the federation. Just like you I would be the last one to give him up, and that is just what Drew and therefore our enemies know. They can foresee our ideas, only the admiral might not be predictable for them."
"I am sorry to say but that's not completely true" Gene van Hoek replied. "Paul Drew has served with me also, and he knows my command style." Remembering the young lieutenant Drew had been then made Gene smile briefly.
"But what if he wasn't assimilated?" Kern objected. "Then it would be the time to act now and get him out of there immediately. If we decide to do something else and leave Drew then it will too late for him. We can't take a chance on that."
"We can't forget the Borg Starbase" Admiral van Hoek said finally. "Although we must try to get Commodore Drew back, we must also remember that our main mission here was to get rid of the borg/romulan threat. If we don't, then saving Drew won't matter anymore anyway."
The words were hard, but they all knew it was true. There had to be a way to achieve both somehow. If Drew wasn't assimilated yet, they'd have to rescue him as fast as possible. If he was, the Borg would foresee any rescue operation anyway and the Fang would be without chance. And at the same time they had to find a way to destroy the borg/romulan alliance, always considering that the Borg might know all they knew. There couldn't be an easy way out of it. It would have to be a way that noone would expect. But if noone would expect it, how were they supposed to find that way?
The stark reality dawned on admiral van Hoek, for the moment Drew was to be considered missing and presumably killed in action. The threat of the Borg/Romulan alliance and the base was of immediate concern and that would have to be dealt with first and foremost. If... if Drew was alive and he could be rescued than they would do anything possible to achieve that but it was a very big if at the moment. Apart from that Gene agreed that the Borg at all cost should not capture him himself. This was not a selfish thought by any means, Gene would sacrifice himself to save the ship if need be like any Starfleet officer would but assimilation by the Borg would be disastrous with the knowledge he possessed on Federation deployments, defences, politics etc. With this in mind his thought again wandered to his family. As the meeting progressed Gene took in all that was said albeit sometimes with difficulty.
"Any more suggestions?" he asked suddenly, silencing the chatter that had flared up again amongst the officers.
Gene looked around the room but no one said a word. "Alright," he exclaimed, "Mr. Janeway and ehh... you work with the CEO," he pointed to Ragin and hoped no one would notice his improvisation as he couldn't remember his name, "and get the ship's defences up to par. We need all the Borg gadgets you still use after your previous encounter with them working 110% and then upgrade them some more."
Ragin was about to speak but the admiral didn't give him the chance.
"Kern, pull any crew you need from less important projects and prepare sensors, the works."
"Yes sir!" his voice resonated through the room.
"Lt. Archer," he went on without pause, "coordinate with Ms. Lamont and get me as complete a picture of this sector of space as you can. Leah, you're overall supervision is required. Counsellor, I want your assessment of crew performance on my desk at 08.00 in the morning. Dism..."
At this point the FO interrupted him: "Sir," she looked at him before continuing, "what is it exactly that we are preparing for?"
"Our primary mission, eliminating the Borg/Romulan threat." he said.
"And Drew?" she asked, not knowing what he had thought out in his mind.
"If there's evidence he's alive we'll try to rescue him," he echoed his words from earlier in the meeting, "dismissed!" The admiral was the first one out of his chair as he led the procession out of the room and onto the bridge.
All the relief officers made way for the senior officers and some of them left the bridge to perform their assigned tasks elsewhere. Gene stood for a moment before heading for the turbo lift himself: "Commander, you have the bridge." he didn't wait for Anna's acknowledgement as he made his way to the quarters that were assigned to his family to be with his Guinevere at long last. He contacted Ms. Shipley via his commbadge to let her know he was not to be disturbed until 07.45 in the morning.
Gene returned to empty quarters. He assumed his wife was about her duties and most likely trying to salvage what data they'd gathered thus far on stellar phenomena in the region. There was also a large amount of raw data to sift through as they'd been searching for micro-wormholes at the time the USS Newton had been diverted to rendezvous with the USS Hepta. The memories of that mission came flooding back to Gene. The Romulans were certainly busy enough these days. He was beginning to think Romulan assassins would shadow his days. He feared greatly for his wife and children. He did not wish to have them assimilated by the Borg. This fear made him more determined than ever to destroy this threat to the Federation. He removed his uniform and changed to some comfortable loungewear. He ordered himself a cup of tea and sat down by the starboard ports, simply looking into space. His thoughts once again returned to the last night he spent aboard the Hepta. Commodore, or rather Rear Admiral Loujen's staff had prepared a beautifully appetizing dinner in his honour. Present were officers from both the USS Olympia, as well as the USS El Salvador-B. The Hepta's crew was interspersed throughout the guests giving the officers of each ship the chance to get to know one another better. The mood had been jovial for they had managed to foil the Romulans, this time. Most of the major repairs were being taken care of on both ships. The El Sal was to escort the Olympia back to base. The Squadron Leader, Mathew Sheldon, had called an investigation into the occurrences on the Olympia. It was expected that the proof of artificial mind control devices would be accepted as the cause rather than defection or mutiny of good Starfleet officers. Both Burke and Westmore would be cared for in the medical facilities that a starship simply couldn't offer and have the devices removed. Both the Hepta and the Olympia had sent in their final reports and recommendations and the Admiral had approved them all. This was more of a formality but a necessary one. Meanwhile he'd been seated beside his lovely wife who didn't look a day over 30. It had been some months since they'd last seen one another. Between her work in the field of Astrometrics and his busy schedule they'd simply been unable to connect sooner. It was inevitable. He'd been so looking forward to seeing her and the children. They'd all had a tour of the Hepta, S47's newest and finest addition to the Academy fleet. Stephen had been properly respectful even if he did ask a lot of questions, they'd been well thought out. He enjoyed mechanical things and had a grasp of engineering that was far above his father's level. Nerys had remained quiet and reticent especially in the presence of Commodore Loujen. She was always slow to warm up to people. Guinevere had distracted her somewhat by asking for a tour of the Astrometrics lab. Another lower-ranked officer led them on a separate tour. Gene had accompanied the tour more to spend time with his son than out of interest as he'd seen it before.
That evening was firmly etched in his mind. The children had preferred not to attend the meal as they knew it would be a long drawn out formal affair. So it had only been he and Guinevere who would be attending. She looked beautiful in her long richly made royal blue velvet evening gown with a matching shawl wrapped loosely around her bare shoulders. Her eyes took on the shade of the dress causing him to catch his breath each time she looked at him. Even after all this time he still thought of himself as incredibly lucky to have gained the love of this wonderful woman.
She and Loujen meeting for the first time had been interesting. Loujen had been all strict Vulcan formality while his wife far more expressive.
He'd looked forward to the dancing after the meal for he loved to dance with her and they made good partners.
He'd had his own surprise up his sleeve and had waited until the meal was completed and after dinner drinks were served. He'd been apprised of the motion before the Command staff and had added his vote of approval. He knew he'd catch her unawares. Sure enough when it came time He stood up tall and proud to inform the commodore of her new promotion effective immediately. He'd even pinned her new pips on her collar tab. The crew and cadets of the Hepta cheered the loudest being proud of their commanding officer's achievement. The look on her face when he'd told her was priceless. He'd never thought to catch her this unprepared but it was worth the wait. He laughed to himself as he thought back to the scene, the picture painted on his mind's eye. Other commendations to both the cadets and officers had also been announced that evening. What a wonderful evening that had been he thought to himself once again. He remembered the feel of Guinevere dancing with him and it sent shivers down his back. Come to think of it, he looked at the time...she must be deep into her work. His mind suddenly came up with an idea. He contacted Jeremy one of his wife's top stellar cartographers. They'd known one another for years and had often been guests in each other's homes. Both Jeremy and Stephen were addicted to old style video games they called them. He himself had no interest in them whatsoever. Often Jeremy and his wife Lianna another scientist on the team would watch the children for them. Nerys enjoyed going over since Lianna was more like an aunt to her. He arranged to have the children spend the evening with them.
Gene knew he wanted time with his beloved, alone, as man and wife, without fear of the children hearing which always made them somewhat inhibited. He got up and began to prepare the table with roses and a fine china-look setting. He dimmed the lights, and lit some candles throughout the room. He'd changed his attire somewhat adding a cravat to his ensemble. His timing was impeccable. She walked in and stood in the doorway taking in the scene. A smile of delight appeared on her face and lit her eyes mischievously. "The children?" She inquired on a questioning note.
"They're with Jeremy and Lianna for the night." he replied mendaciously. He led her to the bath and proceeded to give her a luxurious wash. She enjoyed the sensations of his hands upon her knowing what was sure to follow. He towelled her off and had her in a thick warm, terry cloth robe. They sat at the table and ate a slow dinner. He'd chosen an old style meal that they often found enjoyable when they had the time at hand and had prepared both a cheese and oil fondue. There was also a chocolate one for desert. They were both playfully teasing one another and thoroughly enjoying the intimacy. If Guinevere suspected anything about the meeting earlier, she didn't let on, allowing herself to simply enjoy the ministrations of her husband. By mutual consent they began to snuff the candles out. They spent a long night in each other’s arms rediscovering one another after their long stint apart. Finally sleep overtook them both as their bodies and minds were sated. It had been a far more relaxing time than they'd previously been able to arrange, but well worth the wait. This was what he'd needed Gene thought to himself as felt himself dropping off with Guinevere's soft skin nest to his, holding her close to his body.
Gene woke up after a while, his beloved Guinevere still in his arms, peacefully asleep. He thought about the evening, the way they had both found love and comfort in each other. He looked at her and knew he was indeed a lucky man. His thoughts went back through time to the days when they had just met and he courted her. They were just as in love as they were now, 17 years later. He remembered the way she had caught his eye very early on. He was just in Starfleet and she was a scientist and their first encounter definitely went awry when he had to warn a civilian about doing something she wasn't supposed to do in a place she wasn't supposed to be. She didn't understand the fuss as she was contracting for Starfleet and did have authority to be there but the young Gene van Hoek didn't know that. They went their separate ways but encountered each other just a few days later in another part of the station. She didn't have her universal translator with her so she spoke Federation standard as best she could as they greeted each other. Her beauty as well as her personality quickly struck Gene and decided to look her up, find out whom she really was.
A few days went by when they again encountered each other, this time in a bar, Quark's or something like that, run by a Ferengi on DS9. Gene made some silly excuse and joined her at her table and they shared a cup of coffee. It ended in an all night talk about every conceivable topic. A few days and a few dates later she went on a excursion and he wouldn't see her for a couple of weeks.
They stayed in contact as long as she was in comm range and promised to reunite as soon as she came back. Gene knew already Guinevere was the woman of his dreams and he took the bold step of telling her when she returned. It turned out that she felt strongly about the young officer too but wasn't sure how far it would go. She doubted not so much him, but more herself and whether she would be happy being the wife of a Starfleet officer. People had often not understood her so why should this young lieutenant know what she wanted and needed? Gene didn't give up though. During those days he wasn't the flashiest young officer and didn't stand out in a crowd but he knew he would do anything to pursue this woman he had grown to love so much in such a short time.
Because of both their duties they weren't always together and he missed her greatly when they were apart. Then, in early 2371 he decided to tell her his true feelings at long last. He hadn't dared do that before out of fear of loosing her friendship and companionship, and he lacked the confidence to do otherwise but his love for this Bajoran/Human woman was too powerful and too real to be ignored.
Finally he decided to prepare her a dinner in his own quarters and after they had enjoyed a perfect meal, Hasperat, which she always enjoyed, only the candles were left on the table. She sat opposite of him, looking beautiful in the soft light of the candles when the young lt ordered the computer to play some Bajoran music. He got up and walked over to Guinevere and sat beside her as he took her hand in his. He took a little black velvet box out of his pocket and revealed a glittering ring. Telling her in a soft voice just how lucky he felt and how much he truly loved her he proposed to her, saying: "Neera Spencer Guinevere, will you marry me?" his voice getting shakier by the minute.
Just at that moment Guinevere, waking up herself, brought Admiral van Hoek out of his thoughts as he returned to the here and now, aboard the Fang, 17 years and a happy life later. He was just as in love with her now than he was back then and he knew in his heart that she was too.
He smiled at this thought and as they shared a tender kiss both cuddled even closer to each other. Guinevere was waking up and hungry. She asked if he wanted anything and he said no, so she got up and walked over to the replicater. He watched her silhouette as she came back and stood in the doorway. His breath caught in his throat as he once again thought of how beautiful she was. She was slim, well toned and had good bones. She crawled up the bed towards him bearing some seedless grapes, which she fed him slowly, teasingly. She kept drawing them closer and closer to her. She held the last one in her teeth tempting him yet once again. His hands on her body began a sensuous massage running up her back and lower down. His desire for her grew as his hands explored further rediscovering her hidden treasures. Her body arched towards him. He could no longer resist this magnificent vision and lost himself in the pleasure as he heard her call out his name, clinging to him her body shivering in delight. His cry echoed hers as once again their love culminated to a peak. She snuggled into his arms breathing heavily. He kissed her tenderly before sleep once again claimed them both.
Guinevere watched as her husband was hustled off to the bridge. She shook her head over the circumstances they now found themselves in, after all this was not what they'd originally had in mind. They'd planned to spend some time together combining some play with work. It would have given Gene more time to spend with the children. She sighed knowing he was dedicated to Starfleet and would never change. Of course that was one of the things she loved best about him. Just one of many she thought whimsically. She looked around her and began issuing orders to her staff. They along with the Fang's crew stored the items they managed to salvage. Next all were assigned quarters and Guinevere saw to it that all were comfortable. She kept her eyes on Stephen, her son. He'd already been in a few situations, which caused her to doubt his common sense. Not that sixteen-year-old boys had much of that. He was headstrong just like his father and liked to take matters into his own hands. Nerys on the other hand was being very helpful. She'd stopped by and given her daughter a quick hug to make sure she was alright. Both of them looked a little off. They'd never been in a real battle situation before. Her energy levels were going down, most everyone had left to go to their quarters to rest and freshen up. She decided that she'd had enough herself and that some sleep was in order. She was concerned by how long her husband was away but knew that he would join her when he was able to. She rounded up her children and they were led to their temporary quarters. Nerys gasped when she saw the size of the stateroom. This was almost sinfully luxurious. The best thing of all, there was two bathrooms. Both she and Nerys each claimed one. Opting for a water bath, Guinevere, used the fragrances she preferred letting the odour of sandalwood waft around her. She could hear Stephen ordering something to eat. He was constantly hungry, no wonder he was so tall, just like his dad. She soaked for and hour enjoying the peacefulness of her bath. She dried herself off and slipped on bathrobe. She towelled dried of her short hair, fluffing it up a bit to air dry. When she got out of the room, she heard snoring. Stephen lay on one of the lounges already asleep. She gently shook his shoulder and suggested that a bed would be more comfortable as she indicated one of the rooms. He stumbled off down the hall almost careening into the wall. Nerys sat at the table finishing up a snack. She too was yawning. She got up and placed an order in the replicater. She set a plate of fruit, cheese and crackers in front of her mother and received a grateful smile.
"Would you like some tea, or something mom?" Nerys asked.
"Yes please dearest." Guinevere replied.
"Bajoran tea, warm, with 5ml of sweetener and milk." the young girl said as she faced the replicater. She brought it to the table balancing the hot cup gingerly. They ate compatibly talking about all sorts of things, except the battle that had just occurred. That was too soon and too close for their tired minds to deal with. Together they tidied up and both hugged each other tight as they went in opposite directions towards their respective bedrooms. Guinevere, lay down and tried to stay awake hoping to hear from her husband but her eyes closed of their own volition as fatigue overtook her.
The Section Admiral found his way through the ship, using the computer to guide him along. These Prometheus class ships had a layout unique to them and it would take a day or two for the admiral to blindly find his way around. It wasn't too long though before Gene found himself at their quarters.
When he entered he found the place to be quiet and darkened, it had been a trying day for all of them. Gene was exhausted himself, the staff meeting was essential but his thoughts weren't all there and he often drifted away in thoughts to his family. He'll have to analyse things more clearly by the time he was due back on the bridge but now he had quite a few hours in which he was not needed. Finally he had the time to devote to his dearest Guinevere and his children.
He took off his uniform jacket and casually threw it onto a chair, he'd worry about that later. Preferring the soft lighting he took a quick look around and headed to the aft section. The first room he came to was almost dark. He took a quick peek and saw his daughter Nerys sleeping lightly. He knew she would probably be most affected and he wanted to make sure she was safe and to tell her so. She was half awakened and Gene went to her to give her a quick hug. She fell asleep again almost before he had time to turn around. An assortment of noises indicated his son's room, he was tossing and turning and obviously dreaming, "no doubt about the battle," Gene thought to himself with a smile on his face. Stephen will have been thrilled to be in a battle, such was his nature that he loved that sort of thing at his age.
Freshening up quickly in one of the bathrooms he went to the other side of their quarters and found Guinevere lying on the bed, sleeping. He smiled to himself, now he knew everything was going to be all right. He sat on the bed next to her, lightly stroking his hand through her hair as he looked at her. A smile appeared on her face as she opened her eyes and quickly sat up as they fell into each other's arms in a long embrace, so glad to be together at last.
"Guinevere," he called her name in a soft voice, "I ..."
She knew what he was going to say but the words weren't necessary. "It's okay my dear, we're all right, Stephen and Nerys are okay too," she almost whispered.
Neither wanted to let go of the other as both felt love and comfort in each other.
As they held each other tears began to flow down Guinevere's cheeks. She'd be so strong up to this point but couldn't hold them back. She cried softly into the shoulder of her beloved as he stroked her hair, murmuring sweet nothings in her ears, all the while reassuring her. She could feel his love and that is what made all of it worthwhile. As her tears lessened, he wiped off her face with a damp cloth. Gene looked deeply into her eyes and once again she couldn't help but be pulled in by the love that was plain as the nose on her face. He just held her tightly, as if he never wanted to let go. She always felt silly when emotions overtook her but she was not Vulcan by any stretch of the imagination and had always been a passionate woman. Gene knew exactly what she needed and this he gave to her freely and without stint. She began to return his caresses and both found relief in one another's arms as they finally slipped into slumber their bodies, minds and hearts completely sated.
A chirp from his commbadge requesting his presence on the bridge within 20 minutes woke Gene up, his beloved Guinevere still in his arms as she rested on his shoulder. He tried to get up without waking her too but the smile on her face as she did just that replaced his concern with a smile of his own. He would cherish the moments they would share before he was due on the bridge for no one knew what the coming day would bring.
"Good morning my dearest," he said as he gave her a quick peck on her cheek.
She replied with a simple "morning," as she returned the favour to him.
They both still felt the fatigue that had overcome them and wished this day would be different from what it promised to be and that they could spend the day together.
Gene quickly slipped into his uniform and went to the living quarters followed not a minute later by Guinevere. He ordered Guinevere's favourite flavour of Bajoran coffee and an old Earth delicacy she had grown fond of known as a muffin as well as a tea for himself. He would grab a snack from the replicater in his ready room later on he thought to himself.
They sat across from each other, talking about the day past, their radically changed plans and most of all their gratefulness for being safely together after what had happened. Time flew by and Gene was again called to the bridge. they hugged and as he made his way out, grabbing his still casually dangling jacket from the chair where he'd left it yesterday Guinevere followed and caught up with him and they shared a tight embrace. Because he didn't want to wake them he asked her to make sure she let the children know he loved them also and as he put his hand on her cheek he turned and left their quarters.
After a moment of standing there Guinevere turned round to prepare herself for her own tasks ahead as she had scientific work to do and confer with her team. She noticed Stephen and Nerys come into the room not a moments apart and visibly tired. Nerys of course was going to help her with anything possible and Stephen, well, she hoped he would too but he was more likely to try out the holodecks or check out the young women ensigns that were on the ship.
the chief came back to engineering after the staff meeting, and found most of his crews still hard at work.
after a few moments Graeme joined him
the two took a moment to look over the progress that had been made
"shields are pretty much pushed as far as they'll go." said the chief, "and we've got a crude protection system, it should give us a bit extra out of the new system, without burning out every relay in the ship"
after a while Graeme spoke " looks like the shields and the weapons are as far as they'll go"
"I did try and tell that to him.." began the chief
"maybe we can construct internal measures, incase we every get boarded" suggested Graeme
"not a bad plan" the chief moved to another console and pulled up an overview of the fang
"this is where the major systems are located" said Graeme , pointing to engineering, the bridge, and the ships computer core
"so how do we protect them more than they already are?"
asked the chief
from personnel experience he knew how hard engineering was to take control of.
the two sat for some time in deep thought
"got it!" cried Graeme
"we use the internal force fields and internal blast-doors to herd the invaders into ambushes"
Graeme quickly pointed to several junctions that could be used for ambushes
"we won't have enough men to man all of those, and given the amount of people that could be boarding our ship, falling back isn't going to be an option"
pointed out the chief
"we use automated sentinels. we can just beam them in, or send them through the Jeffries tubes.." said Graeme
"erm.. we don't *HAVE* automated sentinels" grumbled the chief
"your an engineer, build some" retorted Graeme
the chief glowered
"well your the Chief security officer, tell me what you want them to do" said the chief, as he tapped away at the console, looking for any federation records that would help them build Graemes sentinels
His eyes hurt as a bright light shone into them, raising his hand to block the light he felt a slight burning pain run down his arm.
“Ah, I see you are awake I will inform the Commander” a male voice said in the distance Drew tried to look round to see where the voice originated, but his head hurt too much instead he trying speaking “Sickbay?” he asked with a croaky voice “Yes, but not the one you are thinking off” the voice answered, the speaker’s face still not visible to Drew, wanting to ask further questions the voice interrupted “Save your energy Commodore, the Commander will answer all your questions”. Deciding he would get nothing further from whoever this person was Drew resolved to wait for this “Commander”, maybe he could explain what was happening.
“Commodore Drew, can you hear me?” Drew opened his eyes to see a figure standing in the corner of the room “Where I am?” Drew answered the figured stepped forward and Drew gasped as he saw the shape of the ears “Romulan” he whispered “That is correct I am Commander T’vek of the Romulan Ship Bloody Terror, we were part of the defence fleet against the Borg in invas….” “The Borg” Drew cut him off memories returning to him “The Feta system, the Fang had to stop the Borg”. The Commander nodded his head as Drew spoke “The Fang was one of the front line ships” he said sadly fear filled through Drew now “Why I am here?” the Commander sat on a nearby chair “Commodore what can you remember?”.
Drew thought for a moment his memories were like a dream he was not sure what he remembered, “There was Borg activity in the sector we were sent to investigate” again T’vek nodded his head “Commodore, this will shock you but that was three weeks ago” “Three weeks?” Drew said more to himself “The Borg were indeed planning an invasion, the Federation gathered a Fleet along the neutral zone composed of every major empire in the Alpha Quadrant, Klingons, Cardassians” he paused for a moment as if remembering a painful memory “As you can see Romulan, but it was not enough the Borg cut through our lines, Commodore I am sorry but at this moment the mighty Federation is laying in flames, Earth, Vulcan all assimilated”.
Drew stared at the Commander in shock, refusing to believe this he tried to speak “No” was all he could master “I am afraid more bad news Commodore, the Fang was destroyed in the battle all of your crew is dead” the Commander said rather coolly. Drew couldn’t breath gasping for air he tried to call out “No, no” someone rushed to Drew and injected him with a hypo spray slowly Drew was able to breath again, this couldn’t be true, not the Fang.
As if sensing Drew’s thoughts the Commander continued his “briefing” and pressed a small control on his belt “These are the sensor logs” at once an image of Section Admiral Gene appeared on a screen the image was fuzzy and the scene behind him was dark, covered with flames and alarms in the background “We are suffering heavy losses Commodore we need to pull back”. The image switched to that of a Nova Class ship blowing up in a flame of glory, something about the scene seemed familiar Drew, he had seen this before or something like it, next the voice of Graeme sounded over the background of alarms “Sir shields have gone” again the image switched to that of a ship exploding, expect this time it was a ship Drew knew like the back of his hand. Grief flooded through him it was true, the Fang, the Federation all destroyed.
“Commodore we need to stop the Borg before they do more damage I am sure you agree” Drew nodded his head as T’vek spoke unable to process his thoughts “Commodore I need you to tell me all tactical data Starfleet had on the Borg, everything you know”…
Drew stared at T’vek blankly at his raise in tone, the Commander seemed to realise he was pressing too much and smiled at Drew “I am sorry Commodore, I may sound harsh but at the moment the Borg are destroying everything, the Alpha Quadrant can only survive a few more weeks”. Through Drew’s grief at the death of his crew questions became to surface, as his Starfleet training attempted to kick in, “If the Borg have assimilated the Federation they know all of Starfleet’s defences, they would have adapted”, a voice in the back of Drew’s mind told him not to trust the Commander any further as he seen the angry glair in his eyes “Fool, the death of the Alpha Quadrant is in your hands” with that the Romulan angrily stormed out of the medical bay, the Romulan Doctor again walked over to Drew and pressed an hypo spray against his neck “What’s that f…” Drew never finished his sentence as he drafted into sleep.
“Lower Shields NOW” Drew order standing on the Fang’s bridge, “Sir?” Janeway questioned………. “Admiral I must insist you return to federation space”…………… “Reprot”………….. “The Newton shields are failing”…………. “Commodore we are not a tactical vessel…………… “Commodore!” Drew’s eyes shot open sweat pouring down his face he tried to sit up but found his body would not comply. The dream had seemed so real, more real then the sensor logs T’vek had shown him, had that been what had happened? Confusion fail over Drew has he got not remember actual events from dreams what was real and what was false? one thing became clear to him ,until he knew he could trust no one, not even himself.
A few days later
The quarters T’vek had provided for Drew were huge, much bigger then what his quarters were on the Fang, this was more like the Admiral quarters where guests would stay. Now he had recovered from whatever injuries he had suffered in the battle he found he was able to control his body again, although he still needed the aid of a staff to walk. He looked down at the Romulan clothes he had been given to wear, his Starfleet Uniform had been ruined apparently when he was recovered. Although T’vek insisted Drew was not a prisoner a guard had been posted at his door, Drew suspected he had orders not to let him leave his quarters, least not alone. Slowly walking to the small desk in the middle of the room Drew activated the small monitor he had been provided with an engineer had translated the controls into Federation standard for Drew a few hours ago, he felt good to see a console display he recognised and for a moment Drew could convince himself he was in his ready room.
Searching for answers Drew tried to access the centurial Starfleet database, with the Borg having assimilated everything he doubted it would still be operational, to his surprise he found it was, the non-classified standard reports gave no detail of the Federation following or even a battle taking place which surprised Drew, usually a battle to the degree T’vek had described would be public knowledge, deciding to search the classified reports Drew attempted to input his command codes, “Access Denied” the computer replied.
Romulan Bridge
“Commander, he is trying to access Starfleet’s database” the operations officer called to T’vek “Excellent” the Commander replied leaning back in his chair “He can led us right to the defence plans”
Back in Drew’s quarters, the Commodore was staring at the screen in mid-shock for his command codes to be denied could mean only one thing – he was missing, believed dead, fear filled through Drew, T’vek had said that he had been recovered in a battle, but if the Romulans were on the Federations side surely they would have informed command. Looking towards the door where Drew knew a guard stood on the other side he remembered T’vek’s words “You are not a prisoner” every instinct in Drew’s body told him otherwise…..
Admiral Gene walked around his bridge, noting the officers working at their respective consoles. The crew hadn't gotten used to him being in command yet but the initial tension seemed to be dropping as everyone got on with his or her jobs. With that thought he went into his ready room.
"Come in," he said plainly, a few seconds after the chime had gone off. Leah Lamont and Nikki Archer walked in.
"Admiral," the COO began, "we have completed our initial scans of this region." She glanced over at the young lieutenant as she made her way to the computer screen on the wall to the right of the main desk. "Lieutenant Archer?" the high pitch at the end indicated to the CNO that it was her turn to speak as Gene switched his attention to where she was standing.
A few taps on the console under the screen brought up a map of this region of space.
"Well," the young woman began cautiously, "during the past hours the Fang has scanned this region," she indicated an area on the screen, around which she had been piloting the ship."
At that point the half Andorian Ops officer took over: "Long range sensor logs show something here," she indicated a spot on the map.
"Something?" Gene quizzed her.
"Well sir, we're not sure what it is yet but it spans 1.5 million kilometres by 200.000 kilometres and it is definitely not natural. We believe it could be a Borg construction."
"Has it not been confirmed?"
"No sir, sensors can't make anything more of it from this range.
Gene looked straight ahead, at nothing in particular as he let this info sink in.
He tapped his commbadge just when the door chime sounded. Inviting whoever it was in he saw Anna, the FO appears: "Just the person I wanted," he said as he tapped his commbadge again to close the channel. It wasn't needed but he did so out of habit.
Dismissing Archer back to the bridge he and Leah went over the findings with the FO. "Commander, I want you to draw up plans with the various departments and have several options ready by 16.00 hours today. I want to know if and how we can destroy it if it is indeed a Borg base. Do we assault, do we infiltrate with away teams... the works." He didn't pause and continued, "I want a plan of action forged from these options and worked out ready for implementation first thing in the morning, I want the entire crew rested before springing into action."
She nodded when Leah interrupted them: "One more thing Admiral..., commander, we detected several blips in our sensor logs that could indicate cloaked ships, either Romulan or Borg but we believe Romulan."
"None of them decloaked?" Gene inquired.
"No sir, but," she hesitated a second, "we must assume that the captain is still onboard one of the Romulan ships sir." Anna and Leah both looked at the SA.
"Noted," he said simply.
Nikki was sitting at her station still looking over the sensor readings they had collected, something about all this looked very wrong, and it wasn't just the Borg threat, it was the Romulans as well.
They may well have something to gain in the fact the Borg have agreed not to assimilate them, but that could only last so long, surely the Romulans knew that.
Looking back to the readings again, she kept being drawn to one spot but there wasn't any reason that she could see why, looking around to the other stations Nikki was considering what to do, there was a young Ensign at ops, not much younger than herself.
"Ensign Tranner, could you do me a favour and do another scan of these co-ordinates" she asked sending him the co-ordinates, a quick nod of his head assuring her that he was already doing as she'd asked.
Funnily she always asked someone t do something, even those in Ranks below her own, she wasn't quite comfortable giving orders yet, she was doubtful she ever really would be.
"Lieutenant" Ensign Tranners voice broke her train of thought, "Yes Ensign?" she asked him quickly ignoring the slight embarrassment at letting her attention wander. "The results from the scans" he said indicating he'd sent them to her station, "thank-you Ensign" she said turning to look over then once more.
What was it about this area that made her take extra notice of it, there had to be something but she couldn't think what it was, eyes focused on the screen but she couldn't see anything, she was a pilot not a scientist this wasn't something she was good at.
Suddenly without knowing why her eye focused dead on the centre of the scanned area, there she saw what she'd been missing, there was something there, something being.....well truthfully she had no idea, but she just knew there was something there. Quickly transferring her findings on to a pad she cornered the FO as soon as she came out of the Captains Ready Room, "Commander, I know your going to think I'm maybe a little crazy here, but I rechecked some of the scans and I think I found something we missed first time around" she told the older officer.
"Lieutenant?" the FO looked at her questioningly, "I don't know what it is exactly Commander, I'm a helm officer, not a scientist, but there is definitely something there" the young helm officer looked at her superior, this was the first time she'd really stood up and made someone take notice of what she was saying, up until now, she'd really only done what she was told and left everything else alone, but this time she had done something on her own gut feelings, she just hoped she was right, she would never be able to serve with these people if they didn't trust her judgement, and if she was wrong about her gut instinct then they'd have plenty of reason not to trust her judgement.
"I'll have Commander Lamont look over it" the Commander told her, and Nikki handed her the pad, "Yes Commander" she said grateful that the Commander hadn't thought she was crazy, there was nothing really physical, in the since of being able to see it at the co-ordinates, but there was something, that much she was sure off, and hopefully Commander Lamonts more trained eye would be able to see what it was.
Nikki gave Leah the coordinates of the strange sensor readings and the ops officer started looking them over. At first she did not notice anything special and she already thought the Helm officer had just mistakenly noticed a natural subspace fluctuation. But then there suddenly was a sensor peak, only for the fracture of a second then it vanished again. It was something the sensors would not have recorded if she hadn't actively scanned that region at that moment. Leah frowned and concentrated on the collected data.
A few minutes later Leah had gotten several of those sensor peaks, they seemed to appear in a regular interval. The base maybe, Leah thought briefly. But no, they had located the Borg base at a different place, and this, whatever it was did not have a Borg signature at all, and it did not look like something the Borg would construct. But it was not far away from the estimated coordinates of the Borg base. Why had the Borg or romulans not detected it then? It was close enough for weapons range. But then she noticed that the projected
Nikki gave Leah the coordinates of the strange sensor readings and the ops officer started looking them over. At first she did not notice anything special and she already thought the Helm officer had just mistakenly noticed a natural subspace fluctuation. But then there suddenly was a sensor peak, only for the fracture of a second then it vanished again. It was something the sensors would not have recorded if she hadn't actively scanned that region at that very moment. Leah frowned and concentrated on the collected data.
A few minutes later Leah had gotten several of those sensor peaks, they seemed to appear in a regular interval. The Borg base maybe, Leah thought briefly. But no, they had located the Borg base at a different place, and this, whatever it was did not have a Borg signature at all, and it did not look like something the Borg would construct. But it was not far away from the estimated coordinates of the Borg base. Why had the Borg or romulans not detected it then? It was close enough for weapons range.
Leah decided to wait a few more minutes to get more data, and really the peaks reappeared every 55 seconds. Something in the back of her brain reminded her of that time. Only what was it? Romulans... wasn't it the pulse interval of the Romulan quantum singularity in their core? But it couldn't be a Romulan ship. A Romulan base then? But why should the romulans have a base in weapons range to the Borg base that the Borg didn't seem to know of. They were allies...
As the admiral was shown the findings he frowned, not quite knowing what to make of it. It would be typically Romulan to ally themselves with someone but play their own little game, just like what happened in the Dominion War and thereafter. the Romulans must also know how the Borg operate and that there was a very real chance that when all was said and done and their goals achieved the Romulan Empire would be assimilated anyway, treaty or no treaty. If only they could get the Romulans to cooperate with them instead of with the Borg. The knowledge of what the COO and the CNO had just uncovered could be useful in that respect.
Ahead of that though there were more immediate concerns, the Borg base and Admiral van Hoek still planned of making a move in the morning provided that the crew would get all the preparations and planning finished in time.
He informed the COO that while on the Newton a tremendous amount of scans and such were made by Guinevere and her team, which have not been analysed. Given the purely scientific nature of the Newton the scans might reveal things the Fangs sensors weren't programmed to scan for and there might be information in the Newton's data that could be of use. He instructed her to take this up and issue the appropriate orders to the crew.
Kern made his way down to engineering. The Chief and he had orders from Leah to recalibrate the lateral sensor array, and to set up and appropriate database to go over the many terra-quads of information the Newton had collected.
Upon entry he requested a report. The Chief was moving with speed and efficiency, assigning duties to his staff, which were promptly executed.
Ragin “Were getting there”
Kern “Well could you be a little more specific? Leah wants to know-“
The Chief gave Kern a stare that made even he think twice
Kern “Ok, ok, I know the drill, you’ll be finished when you’re finished. What can I do?”
Chief “You can help me realign this EPS conduit to service the new data-base,” he said as he slid under the console, leaving only his lower torso and legs in view.
Kern stooped down next to the tool-kit and handed him the phase modulator (I’ve seen a repair job on Star-Trek done without one
)
The two began chatting about the situation.Kern “I don’t know, the Romulans are manipulative, and not to be trusted, but even so, I find it hard to believe that they would form an alliance with the Borg. They know as well as we do that the Borg are unlikely to keep any promises they make, and how could it have been done without our knowledge? We have spies everywhere.”
Ragin “Cochran re-sequencer”
Kern picked up the tool and placed it in the Chief’s outstretched arm.
“So what are you saying? You don’t think the Romulans have made an alliance?”
Kern “I’m not sure. There’s obviously some sort level of co-operation between the two, but maybe they have no choice, or maybe it’s a small group of Romulans, acting without the knowledge, or consent of the Romulan government. Either way I think we need to contact the Romulan Senate, see what they have to say.”#
Ragin “If they have formed an alliance they’re not likely to be too co-operative”
“True, but if they haven’t, we could use their help in stopping the Borg, and getting the Captain back. I’m sure the Admiral has a few friends ion the Romulan government. We were allies after all.”
Ragin “Done. The database is powered and active. It’ll take a couple of hours for the computer to analysis this much information.”
Kern “Very good, I’ll tell Leah.”
He turned towards the doors. As he was about to leave to Chief called after him.
“It might be a good idea to let Anna know what we were talking about. You never know.”
He nodded and headed for the bridge
When Kern entered the bridge Leah was talking to Anna. The Klingon officer approached them and the two women turned to him. "Ragin has finished the database" Kern said. "It will take a few hours but hopefully we will finally get results."
"Very good Commander" Anna replied. "I want you both to work with the Section Admiral's wife on this. She is a qualified scientist and will be a big help. She probably has more experience in astrometrics than any officer on board the Fang."
"Yes I've been looking forward to meeting her" Leah said. "So far duty hasn't allowed me yet to speak to her and I shall be happy to work with her."
Kern was not too happy about an outsider intruding his field of study but he reminded himself that they would need all the help they could get to find the captain and to prevent the Borg from a huge strike against the federation. "Why don't you go find her and I will be right with you in a few minutes" he finally said to Leah. The ops-officer nodded and entered the turbo lift.
"Computer localize Mrs. Neera Spencer Guinevere" she ordered the computer before giving command where to move.
=^= Mrs. Neera Spence Guinevere is in Astrometrics =^= the computer replied. 'Perfect' Leah thought and ordered the turbo lift to deck 7.
When she entered the astrometrics lab she found a deeply concentrated woman. The big screen showed schematics of a region of space unknown to Leah on first sight. She assumed it was where the Newton had been doing their scientific studies. The woman hadn't noticed Leah entering and kept moving her fingers quickly on the console changing the view on the screen almost faster than Leah's eyes could follow. She was almost ashamed she would have to tear the woman out of her concentration on the work she seemed to love. Leah also knew this feeling only too well. But now time urged, they had to work quickly if there should be any chance of succeeding in this mission.
"Excuse me" she said, trying to be calm to not startle the woman too much.
Still Guinevere started a bit and then quickly turned around. "Can I do anything for you?" she asked.
"Indeed" Leah replied. "I'm Cmdr. Leah Lamont, the Ops-officer" she introduced herself. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you Ma'am."
"Why don't you call me Guinevere" replied the woman smiling cheerfully and Leah immediately felt a deep liking for her. "Now what can I do for you Leah?"
"We are trying to analyse a certain area of space in this sector. We assume that there might be a Romulan base hidden, without the knowledge of the Borg. If this should be true maybe the romulans aren't as deeply involved with the Borg as we first thought and mistrust them enough that they might finally be a help to us. Our chief-engineer has set up a data-base for all the sensor data the Fang as well as the Newton collected and combining them hopefully we can clarify what exactly it is. Your experience in astrometrics might be very valuable to us."
"I see" Guinevere replied. "I fear my micro-wormholes will have to wait then" she sighed. "But they don't run away, do they, while the Borg and romulans will run us over. Let us not waste time then!" Her fingers made the beautiful view on the screen disappear and instead she accessed the first results that the computer had provided and now long lines of data were running across the screen. Quickly both women were deeply concentrated on this new work, not as appealing as normal astrometric work but at the moment unfortunately much more important.
The Bridge of the Bloody Terror
The operations station beeped happily as Starfleet’s database begin to crack “Sir” Vulon, the operations officer called “The prisoner has attempted to access classified files, his access codes were rejected” T’vek stood from his chair and walked to the station “Transmit the codes we obtained from the Borg, the Federation will be too busy checking Drew’s access to notice” within seconds the display on the operation panel changed to the Starfleet database “The codes are working, Commander, we have access to all levels of Starfleet security” now T’vek smiled “Discover all the defences Starfleet has against the Borg, download the specs and then send them to Engineering, we will make good use of them”. Just as T’vek was turning to his command chair his science officer looked up “Sir, I have been monitoring the Fang, judging by their current location and power levels I believe they could have found the location of Base S’Vek, T’vek took his chair “Intercept the Fang and destroy them” he ordered “Um sir, that may not be an excellent idea” Vulon reported, ~What now?~ T’vek thought to himself, the beginning of an head ache emerging “A Borg cube has just de-cloaked – the speaker is hailing us”
On the Borg Cube
Trail, speaker of the Collective to the Romulan Star Empire eyed Commander T’vek slowly before speaking in a deep voice “You have the Starfleet Officer known as Drew onboard your ship, explain” the Commander stared blankly at the screen for a moment or two, the collective spoke in Trail’s head “The Romulans cannot be trusted, we where not informed of this course of action, they must be assimilated”. Trail turned his attention back to T’vek has he spoke “We discovered the Commodore in an escape pod a few hours ago, we were of course going to inform the collective of this discovery” “Prepare to transport the Starfleet Officer to us, he knowledge will be of use to the collective” “You don’t understand” T’vek protested “Resistance is futile” Trail answered with the collective will of the Borg.
On the Fang
“Sir I am detecting weapons fire” Graeme reported from tactical “Source?” Anna asked, “In the neighbouring system, 9.6 light years away, it appears to be the Borg”
On the Bloody Terror
“Engage Cloaking device” T’vek ordered as his ship shook with Borg phaser fire “Cloak engaged, the modifications we made appear to be working the Borg cannot detect us” “Good lay in course for Base S’Vek” the Romulan ship entered warp escaping the collective or so they thought “Sir” Vulon spoke up from operations “During the cloaking process I detected a transport” “Where?” T’vek demanded expecting to hear Borg drones were invading his ship “The prisoners quarters, the Borg have Drew”…
As Drew sat absorbing this new information, the ship begin to shake, years of serving onboard starships told him that the ship was under attack, he could only hope it was Starfleet. Before he could think anything further a buzzing sound filled the room as everything began to dissolve before his eyes to form into…
A large metallic room, an electric zipping sound replacing the faint buzz, Drew looked around to see large green computer panels and dark black metal flooring, a cold shiver ran down his spine, he had seen this only once before, something he had hoped he would never see again, hearing footsteps approach in the distance, the Starfleet Commodore tried to stand to his feet, eager to find a way to escape, anything to avoid the fate that now awaited him.
As the footsteps came closer Drew’s heart rate begin to increase, each time the step got louder, so did his heart beat, the hairs on the back of his neck started to shoot up and his eyes became focused on the entrance to the room, after this he would swear he could hear voices in his mind.
The footsteps continued to approach until finally Drew sensed they were nearing his location, the large door started to slide open, backing into the corner of the room, he froze as the tall metal beings entered the room, there red beams scanning the sounding area, he prayed to the gods who watched over Starship Captains for survival as the beings stepped into the light.
Standing tall and proud in the centre of the room three beings looked to Drew, large metal plates covered most of there body, what parts of skin that could be seen were snowy white, the front being began to speak “We are the Borg resistance Unimatrix Zero, your help is needed, you will not be assimilated”
Drew stared in pure shock at the Borg Drones.
----On the Fang-----
"The Borg." Anna whispered to herself. "Lt. lay in a course for the Romulan base S'Vek." She ordered "Aye sir" she replied.
Later on...
"Sir, we're approaching the Romulan base." Archer reported. "On screen" Anna said.
Immediately a Romulan vessel decloaked on the viewscreen.
"They are powering up weapons commander."
"Open hailing frequency... Romulan ship, this is Commander Shipley of the USS Fang. Please power down your weapons." Anna said.
"Sir, they're answering, but they haven't powered down weapons." a lt. said and Anna nodded as a Romulan figure filled the viewscreen.
"Please power dow---"
"This is T'Vek. Why have you entered Romulan territory?" He asked forcefully.
"Yes" Anna replied "I believe we have a common goal and I'd like to discuss it further."
"Common goal commander?" He said.
"Yes, something to do with the Borg. I've made arrangements to beam you and whomever you wish to accompany you on the Fang so that we might discuss this matter in depth and possibly come to a joint solution." Anna offered
He stared at her sceptically "Yes commander, perhaps we can."
T'Vek clicked off the viewscreen. The FO tapped her comm badge.
"Shipley to van Hoek... Sir, I just spoke to the Romulan commander T'Vek, he has agreed to come aboard for negotiations."
"Good commander, I'm on my way. Notify all senior staff." He ordered.
"Aye sir, Shipley out." Anna tapped her badge again. "Shipley to all senior staff. Report to the conference room immediately. Security, have someone escort our guest from the transporters room. Shipley out."
---------In the Conference room------------
Everyone filed in accordingly. Graeme, Lamont, Archer and Shipley sat on one side of the long table while the new councillor and medical officer along with Ragin and Kern took seats on the other. Last to enter where the admiral who took his place at one head of the table then finally the Romulan commander and his crewmember.
The admiral stood up and nodded toward the Romulans. "Welcome commander T'Vek. Let's get started shall we?"
Gathering round the conference table, Admiral van Hoek begin the meeting, “Commander, I am Admiral Gene van Hoek, commander of this vessel”, T’vek gave the Admiral a false smile before introducing himself “Commander T’vek, Romulan Navy, Admiral this is clearly Romulan space, as recognised by the Treaty of Algeron…”
“We are not disputing that” Gene interrupted the Commander “We are merely investigating some Borg sensor readings in a nearby sector, there must be a malfunction in our navigation systems” T’vek looked the Admiral square in the eyes for a brief moment both knew the other was lying and both knew the other would not back down “Indeed” T’vek simply said “I must request that you leave our space at once” raising from his chair “Good day Admir…” he was interrupted by an comm. Channel
“Bridge to van Hoek” the watch officer’s voice sounded over the comm. “Go ahead Lieutenant” Gene replied, not being on the Fang long enough to learn the names of any crewmembers bar the senior staff “Sir a Borg cube has just dropped out of warp, it is targeting the Romulan ship”
The senior staff marched out onto the bridge, closely followed by T’vek “Report” Gene bellowed as the primary crew took their stations “The Borg ship has powered forward particle phase beams, firing” Graeme reported “Direct hit to the Romulan ship, her shields are down to 60%” Gene thought for a brief moment before making his decision “Ready phaser” he ordered “Bring us in between the ships and stand by to fire at the Borg on my command”
As the Fang swooped down between the two ships her shields phased as weapons fire hit them.
“Sir we have been hit, shields down to 90%” Graeme called from tactical “Fire” Gene ordered, “Wait, the Borg are hailing us” Leah reported “Lets hear it” Gene replied expecting the Borg’s usual message instead he stared in shock at the face filling the view screen, next to him Anna let out a gasp.
“Fang stand down” Commodore Paul Drew ordered
“Explain yourself Commodore” Gene returned
“No time sir, just trust me on this one”, with that Drew cut the channel, the bridge crew stared at Gene waiting for his response “Helm move us away one quarter impulse, Tactical stand down weapons” he ordered taking the command chair, still shocked. T’vek charged down to the centre of the bridge with anger “Admiral you cannot be serious, he has obviously been assimilated, you must destroy that ship” before Gene could reply Kern spoke up with an determined voice “Sir, I just scanned the Romulan ship” an faint growl escaped Kern’s mouth as he continued his report, “It’s the same one that kidnapped the Commodore”.
Now Gene gave the Romulan Commander a cold stare “How interesting” he said before turning to a security guard “Take him to the brig”, the officer moved down to the command area, holding his phaser to T’vek he spoke “Please come with me” “I will not be captured” T’vek retorted pulling an disrupter pistol from inside his jacket “Take him down” Gene ordered his guard, before T’vek could cause an damage his was lying on the floor stunned “Sickbay to Bridge” Anna called out over the comm. “We have an Romulan patient for you”
At that moment the Fang was hit by a faint shockwave, holding on to his station Graeme called out “The Borg ship as destroyed the War bird, no survivors”. Gene looked painfully at the screen before ordering “Get me Commodore Drew now”
As Drew’s face appeared on screen Gene did not even give him chance to explain “Commodore I am holding you responsible for the death of that crew” Drew did not appear affected by the Admirals words “Before you do that I suggest you hear what I have to say” much to the bridge crew’s surprise the Drew fall into a transporters beam and then reappeared on the Fang bridge.
Again his face showed no emotion at returning to his bridge instead he look Gene in the eye and simply gave his request “I think a meeting of the Senior Staff is in order” “Agreed” Gene said coolly
Conference Room
Drew began by informing the gathered officers of what happened to him on the Romulan ship, and his transportation to the Borg cube “Unimatrix Zero?” Gene repeated as Drew told of the Borg’s words to him “Yes sir, the resistance to the Borg collective that Captain Janeway reported in 2376 is still in operation, attempting to liberate as many of Borg drones as possible and bring an end to the Borg once and for all”
“And they wanted your help, I take it” Gene said indicating for the Commodore to continue, “Yes sir, the Romulans we have encountered are part of a rogue group, dedicated to conquering the Star Empire and the entire Alpha Quadrant, they believe that Borg technology will give them the ability to do this” Gene begin to ask a question but Drew carried on “Unimatrix Zero do not have enough resources to be able to defeat the collective, they believed use of the Romulan cloaking device would give them a greater advantage over the mainframe Borg, with some Borg adaptations the ship would be able to fire when cloaked”.
Gene seemed to understand now where Drew was going with this “When the Rogue group learned of the adaptations made to the cloak they wanted the technology for their selves, the Federation nor the Star Empire would be able to defend there selves against a target they could not see” “Correct” Drew nodded his head “The Romulans have implanted a virus into the Borg Drones, with the aim of killing all the drones they would be able to take control of the ships and use them against us”.
Gene looked out of the view port to the Borg ship “We would have had no way to stop them” he said more to himself then anyone “Sir there is more” Drew told him “The resistance want our help in defeating the Romulan fraction..” “Granted” Gene said cutting Drew off “Now add your but” he said with a smile, Drew returned the smile “Resistance intelligence has discovered that there is indeed an Borg space in the sector as we believed they report it is under the control of the collective, they want us to help capture it”. Drew finished his report waiting for the crew’s responses.
As the proceedings were drawing to a close the crew was dismissed and Drew and Admiral van Hoek went to the bridge together after a short private conversation. Once on the Bridge both men indicated to the crew to pay attention and Gene opened a comm channel to the entire ship so everyone could follow the short ceremony that was to follow.
The two men stood opposite of each other as Gene informed the crew that Paul Drew would once again become the Commanding officer of the USS Fang. "Computer, as per Stardate 88.0612 transfer all command codes to Commodore Drew, Paul, CO USS Fang." He spoke in a steady voice.
The computer returned an assortment of chirps before confirming. Gene shook Paul's hand and said: "She's all your again commodore." A smile appeared on both their faces.
"I relieve you admiral," Drew didn't know whether he could actually say that to an admiral but this was not an ordinary situation. "I stand relieved commodore," Gene retorted with a smile as Paul Drew went straight for the centre chair.
The tension on the bridge started to dissolve when the crew knew their CO being back in his chair again. Finally there seemed some new hope for the mission, a chance of succeeding against this very dangerous alliance the Romulan rogue group had formed.
The first order of Commodore Drew was to call a staff meeting, together with their new allies of Unimatrix Zero. Not everyone felt too happy about getting Borg on board, but Drew had assured them that they were not at all like real Borg, and that they shared the common goal of destroying the collective to get back their individuality. Drew, SA van Hoek, Cmdr. Shipley and Cmdr. Lamont went to meet the group in the transporters room. Right on time they materialized, a group of 4 Borg, and Leah's muscles tightened immediately. She had been lucky to never meet a Borg during all her carer in Starfleet, but she had heard enough stories. And now she was supposed to work with them. Not something she looked forward to, and only the trust in the COs judgement that they had to work together helped her put aside her uneasy feelings.
They guided the Borg into the conference room where the senior staff was already assembled. Leah also noticed Neera Spencer Guinevere among them, the SA's wife had proved a good help in the detection of the Romulan base and Leah was glad she was considered to belong to the team, although not officially part of the crew. She briefly smiled towards the older woman and felt that it was well possible a friendship would be formed between them when they kept on working together.
Finally everyone was seated, and to see the Borg in the Starfleet chairs seemed slightly ironic. Drew stood up, marking the beginning of the conference. "It is a historic day for the Federation to see Starfleet and the Unimatrix Zero movement working together again, more than a decade after the crew of the Voyager first learned about it. We have a lot of work to do, and together we can hopefully achieve our common goal. We still need to find the clear location of the Borg base, Leah, Kern, Mrs. Neera, that will be your job."
"Excuse me Sir" Leah said. "the cloaked base does not belong to Unimatrix Zero? Did you not say that it was them trading with the romulans? How did the collective get the cloaking technology?"
One of the Borg shifted in his seat and finally spoke up. "Unfortunately some information leaked. They don't have the whole information we got from the romulans, but enough that they could start working on a prototype, and that base is the result. And although we still have spies in the collective, the information on the base seems hidden, they are aware we are looking for It."
"We have detected Borg presence not far from the Romulan base. Is that not it?" Leah asked.
"I'm afraid what you have detected is only our cube. We have been sitting here observing the romulans. There is no collective activity here. The base must be somewhere in the neighbour sector. We will help you detect it" the Borg replied.
Drew nodded. "Two of the Borg will assist you on finding the base. I want the others to run holodecks simulations on how we capture it once we have found it. Graeme, Ragin, Nikki, you will work with Anna and the other two Borg on the simulation. Kai'Laria, you will supervise their reactions. We can't allow any mistakes to happen once we are there! Unless there are any questions, everyone get to work!"
Archer, Ragin, Graeme, Kai'laria, and the 2 Borg met Anna in holodecks 4 ready to work. Anna hoped the crew didn't notice, but she was keeping her distance from the Borg. She knew they were harmless, but something about them still made her nervous.
She glanced over at the counsellor with a PADD in her hand and an observant look on her face. Anna knew she hadn't had any experience with the Borg since she'd only been in star fleet a short time, but the hunger for information was noticeable on her face.
Cmdr. Shipley joined the group crowded around the computer. "Well where should we start?" Anna asked, waiting for a reply from someone.
In the holodeck
************************************************
"so, tell me what exactly are we looking at in terms of a Borg base?"
asked the chief
one of the drones walked over to the Holodeck controls and began to 'interface' with it.
Graeme visible tensed, obviously not everyone was willing to forget and forgive the Borg, even if these were the resistance
in the centre of the holodeck the Borg base appeared.
the chief gave a low whistle
"that’s.. one big Borg cube"
one of the drones turned to look at the chief
"yes, the Borg aren't known for their aesthetics"
the chief cracked a small smile
"computer.. run a simulation the fang Vs the Borg base, fang status tri-vector assault" called Graeme.
the holographic fang lasted a little over 5 minutes before it was blasted out of the sky
"ok... that’s not very helpful" commented Nikki.
"what’s it weapons capabilities" as Graeme?
one of the drones tapped at the console and areas of the base lit up
"each one is MK V Borg cannon, all powered by the core located here"
the centre of the base glowed.
"of course we don't know how operational the base is, it’s relatively new" added another drone
the chief sighed and look at Graeme.
"and to think I though the height of our problems would be a Borg cube"
the five Starfleet officers and the two drones began to work on different tactics to bypass the Borg base's defence systems
[ half an hour later ]
"well..." began the chief as the fang exploded, yet again, in another simulation "I think were fast running out of ideas.... maybe we're looking at this wrong"
Anna raised an eyebrow " what do you mean"
"the fang is going to stick out like a sore thumb on any sort of approach, but we have a Borg ship off our starboard bow.. we could use that to get in close"
"like a Trojan horse" remarked one of the drones
the five Starfleet officers turned to look at the drone
"a what...?" asked the chief, doubting what he had just heard
"a Trojan horse, using an apparently friendly object to house an attack force and allow them to slip by the outer defences of an enemy strong hold.
first employed...."
"its ok, we get it" said Nikki, eager to stop the Borg drone on reciting the history of the Trojan horse manoeuvre.
"well, can we make this work?" asked the chief
As the crew began training and preparing for the next leg of their mission, Drew sat patiently in his command chair, with all his senior staff in holodecks and science labs, his bridge was again crewed by junior officers, he remembered how well this bridge shift had preformed when the senior staff had been kidnapped some months ago, he settled more comfortably in his chair, having full confidence in the bridge crew’s ability.
Listening to the soft humming on the ships engines, Drew moved his hands to cover the tips of his chair arms and felt the small vibrations on the ship, feeling the soft movements of the ship often relaxed Drew, and when ever he faced difficult situations it helped him plan his tactics.
It was now that he was planning his tactics for battling the Borg base, of course before the Fang could move onto capture the Borg base, they first had to deal with the small Romulan Outpost on the edge of the system, Drew was tempted to capture it as well, but after being in subspace contact with Starfleet and the Romulan Government it had been confirmed that T’vek was an rebel, as such a Romulan Naval vessel was going to rendezvous with the Fang within the next few hours for an prison exchange, T’vek would be taken back to the empire for treason and his ships and bases seized.
Drew’s thoughts were interrupted by the turbo lift doors opening, Drew looked up to see the Admiral walk onto the bridge, he wore an expression that Drew imagined he himself had when ever his senior crew were on an away mission and he had to stay behind, the Admiral was bored.
Drew remembered that the Admiral’s wife was currently assisting Kern and Leah into trying to locate the Borg base, more then likely his two teenage children were in one of the holodecks, not wanting to spend all day with their father.
“Admiral would you care to join me in my ready room” Drew said standing from his chair “We can discuss tactics for battling the Borg over a meal”
Admiral van Hoek looked around the bridge and nodded to the rising CO.
"Follow me please," Drew said as he headed over to the appropriate door.
"I think I know the way," Gene smiled. Smiling back at him both men entered the ready room.
"Can I get you anything Admiral?" Drew inquired as he positioned himself in front of the replicater.
Ordering a Darjeeling tea and a light snack, Gene made himself comfortable, joined moments later by Drew with a few items for himself as well as the tea and snack for the Admiral.
What followed was an interesting discussion ranging from command styles to the latest entry into the Federation of a humanoid species in a system not too far from Mintaka. Before long however the conversation headed to more pressing matters.
"But do you think they will?" Drew questioned the Admiral.
"I believe they have little choice, once they have dealt with the rebels I will propose to the Romulans a pact to attack the Borg base and assist the Borg resistance. They will no doubt understand that it is ultimately in their own interest as well."
Drew began seeing Gene's point: "I am sure you're right. With the combined efforts of the Fang and it's Borg components, a Borg cube controlled by the resistance and a Warbird or two we might just pull it off."
"We have to Paul," Gene's face turned more serious, "a lot may depend on this operation."
"I know," Drew's face took on an equally bleak look as he contemplated the fallout should they fail.
"I assure you that my crew will be ready," Drew finally said with a touch of pride in his voice.
Gene knew he was right about that at least, he had briefly commanded them and it was a fine and close-knit crew indeed.
Drew returned to the issue at hand, detailing his plan of attack...
“The team have been in the holodeck for a few hours now” Drew commented explaining his battle plans to Gene “Hopefully they will have some further information”, the Admiral nodded his head in agreement as Drew tapped his comm. Badge “Drew to Holodeck four” “Shipley here” Anna replied “Any process Commander?” Drew asked.
Anna hesitated a bit before replying, “We think we could have developed a way but it’s risky, our simulations have shown only a 60% success rate” “Lets hear it” Drew said tacking a slip of his tea and placing in back on the table “We use the Borg Cube to approach the Borg base, they will not be expecting an attack from one of their own ships” Drew and Gene exchanged a glace impressed with the idea “We can take the Fang instead the Borg Cube, like a Trojan horse and then attack the base with the full force of the Fang and the Cube” “Once we took the Fang out of the cube we would become a prime target” Drew stated matter of factly “Yes sir, simulations predicate that the Fang will have a 60% survival rate, with the help of the Borg cube” remembering Gene’s idea Drew posed a question “How about if we had a few Cloaked Romulan Warbird to help out?” Anna paused for a few moments running the calculations in the computer “80%” Drew nodded his head accepting the odds “Good work Commander, – Drew out”.
“Lets hope the Romulans go for your idea Admiral” he said with a small smile “Indeed” Gene replied.
30 minutes later
“Bridge to Commodore Drew the Romulans have arrived” the watch officers voice reported over the comm. “On my way” Drew replied indicating to Gene to follow him, arriving on the bridge Drew saw the face of a Romulan Commander on screen “I am Commodore Drew” indicating towards Gene “This is Section Admiral von Hoek” “Commander Tek” the Romulan replied “We are hear to collect your prisoner” “Yes, we are ready for the transfer but first would you mind beaming onboard the Fang, there is a matter the Admiral and I need to discuss with you” Tek looked off screen a movement clearly not comfortable with beaming onto the Fang, but his duty seem to convince him “My First Officer and I will beam onboard in 10 minutes”.
When Tek and his First Officer were onboard Drew led them into the Ready Room to discuss the idea that he and Gene had came up with……….
After the meeting Leah, Guinevere and Kern found themselves once more in the astrometrics lab. The only difference this time was the presence of the two Unimatrix zero Borg. After a first few uncomfortable moments finally they managed to find a good way of teamwork, and after one or two hours of work Leah actually got to like the two Borg somehow. It was clear that they had gotten back their sense of individuality, and although they still believed in the efficiency of Borg work, they actually got them to talk a bit about themselves and had a few interesting conversations, getting to know their two unexpected new friends. In a way they even had a slight sense of humour. The mix of two Borg, a Klingon, a human and a half-Bajoran was definitely interesting.
Despite the skills of the three federation scientists and the help of the two Borg the localizing of the Borg base proved to be hard. They had managed to isolate a space of about a light-hour diameter in the neighbour sector where subspace anomalies were more frequent than usual, a good hint that something was there, although they could not determine the exact location. But they all agreed that it was where they had to concentrate on that area, the little information the Borg still had from the hive-mind also encouraged that. But now the fine-tuning was needed.
"It will take days to do a fine-tuned long-range scan search of that whole area" Leah sighed. "There has to be a better method to determine that exact location of that base..."
"We know that it is adapted Romulan cloaking technology" Kern thought loudly. "Does that give us a possible advantage?"
"Starfleet ships have once used tachyon pulses to make cloaked Romulan ships visible" Guinevere said. "But that pulse has to be concentrated, they made a whole web with several ships, we can't scan big areas with only one ship."
"Maybe we can" one of the Borg said. "If we use a tachyon wave instead of a tachyon pulse."
"But Starfleet ships can't generate that" Leah said.
"If we combine technology from the cube with your deflector array we should be able to."
"Wonder if Ragin will like to have his ship turned Borg" Kern said grinning.
"I fear he won't have much choice" Leah replied. "Either that or the Borg will turn this ship Borg in a way he will like a lot less..."
"Well lets look into what we have to do then" Guinevere said finally.
Leah:*taps comm badge* "chief could you join us in astrometrics*
Ragin: " Sure I’ll be there in a few minutes
****[ a few minutes later]****
Ragin: so, what’s up?
Leah and kern quickly explained the plan to 'modify' the fang using Borg technology
the Chief was visibly unhappy
"you have to be joking"
Leah rolled her eyes for a second, the chief could be quite stubborn at times
"no, imp not, we need to find this cloaked base, and this is the best way to do it"
"then give me a while and I’ll come up with a way to do it with our existing technology"
"that’s is impossible and inefficient" commented one of the drones
the chief turned to face the drone, looking like he was attempting to make the drone explode by staring at him intently
"impossible is a word I find the Borg use far too often"
replied the chief.
"it would be quicker to adapt some Borg technology to create the tachyon wave, you would have to rebuilt your deflector dish from scratch in order to do it with out our help"
the chief sighed, he knew the drone was right, but the idea of Borg technology integrated with the ships systems unsettled him
Leah spoke: " chief, don't make me pull rank"
Ragin turned to look at Leah
"ok, ok, fair enough. one drone and I will make the modifications, but if the Borg tech starts acting funny I’m ripping it out and using to beat the drone to death"
the two drones exchanged a glance and one of them followed the chief as he left the cargo bay
Leah turned to the remaining drone.
"I'm sorry about that, the chief is... um... passionate.. about his work, and he's not exactly the burgs biggest fan"
"its ok, a lot of people have problems with the Borg, and I understand where he's coming from. before my assimilation I wouldn't let anyone near the system on my ship. its an engineer thing" replied the drone
***[ in engineering]***
the sickly green glow of the Borg transporter beam faded from engineering as the Borg parts materialised inform of the chief and the Borg drone
"so how long will this take"
"if it were a Borg operation, about 20 minutes, but it could take about an hour to do here"
"ohh well I’m sorry I’ll just go ask the Borg queen to assimilate me and then we can get it done quicker" grumbled the chief
"they'd probably remove your vocal cords first, the hive mind isn't big on sarcasm" retorted the drone
the chief done a double take and looked around in disbelief, he caught a few ensigns, who had been within earshot, trying to stifle their laughter
"ok.. ok fair enough, your smarter than you look, lets get this done so we can stop insulting each other" said the chief, a little half-smile played across his face
"why , you afraid to loose to a 'drone'" asked the Borg
"well what AM I supposed to call you" enquired the chief
"My Borg designation is 2 of 9 adjunct..."
"2" cut across the chief " I’ll call you 2"
" I’d say what I’m going to call you but I think there are children within earshot" replied 2
"smart arse" commented the chief as the two headed down towards the deflector control
****[ an hour and much bickering later]********
Ragin to Leah
Leah: go ahead chief
Ragin: we're all done here, you should be able to find that base now.....
Leah: thank you chief, Leah out
“Therefore we feel it will benefit both the Federation and Star Empire for us to work together” Drew concluded, the two Romulan Officers and two Starfleet Officers were now sat by the long table in the conference room, after pleasantries in the Ready Room, after much debate, Drew and Gene had managed to explain their plan, now they just awaited the Romulans response.
As the tension in the room begin to escalate as the Romulan Commander thought over the deal, Drew’s comm. Badge chirped, “Bridge to Captain” Drew sign briefly before tapping his badge “Drew here, go ahead” the officer of the other seemed to struggle for the right words to reply to Drew finally deciding for the simple way “Sir, sensors indicated that Borg circuitry has been added to some systems”.
Both Gene and Drew looked at each other in shock the two Romulan Commanders begin to raise “So you are outfitting your ship with Borg weapons near the Neutral Zone, an Federation Invasion is much more believable then your story of Borg Resistance cells” Tvek stated angrily, punching his fist on the table.
Drew too rose from his chair “Let me assure you Commander, we know nothing about this, if you excuse me for two minutes I will discover the cause of this”, he nodded his head to Gene as he left the room “I am sure it is nothing to be concerned about” he heard Gene saying to Tek, trying to calm the situation down.
Walking out on the bridge Drew looked straight to the Operations Station “Report” he simply ordered, the officer would know what he wanted.
“Sensors just detected Borg nano technology in core systems” the Ensign reported fearing the worst Drew indicated to the Tactical officer to standby to send in a security team.
“Bridge to Engineering” he said tapping his comm. Badge “Go ahead Drew” Ragin replied quite calmly “Chief we just detected Borg nano technology in the systems, do you require a Security detail?”, he heard Ragin curse “No, we have added the Borg technology ourselves” “Pardon?” Drew said now with a small frown coming across his face “After discussing the situation with the drones, me and Leah came up with a plan to adept the Fang’s systems, sorry sir, we got caught up in our own ideas and forgot to inform you” Drew stood still for a few moments “Report to my Ready Room” “Aye Sir” Ragin replied cutting the channel, as soon as the line was free Drew tapped his badge again “Commander Lamont report to the Ready Room”.
Inside the Turbo Lift
The lift stopped on deck four, Ragin looked up as Leah entered the turbo lift, “You got summoned too?” he asked “Apparently” Leah informed him “Any idea what its about?”, the Chief nodded his head “We forget to tell him about our little Borg plan”, now Leah cursed.
In the Ready Room
The two officers walked slowly into the Ready Room to find Drew sit behind his desk, his chair turned so they could not see his face. Standing to attention they waited for the Captain to speak “Take a seat” he said moving his hand to indicate they should sit, they could see he had a small PADD in the hand as well, taking their seats the three sit in tension filled silence for a few moments. Finally Drew spoke
“Now one of you explain how Borg Technology was fitted into my ship’s systems without me being consulted first”
Leah spoke up first “Captain, I take full responsibility, I ordered Ragin to integrate the technology” Ragin begin to protest not letting his follow crewmember take all the blame but Drew but him off “I did not ask who did it, I asked why I did not know”.
“Sir” Leah begin “We have discovered a way to locate the Borg base, but we need to use a taycon wave to do it” “That is impossible” Drew told her “With Federation technology yes…” “But not with Borg” Drew finished for her turning around in his chair “So we have your reasons, now how do you know the collective will not be able to take control of the ship somehow?”
there was a seconds silence before the chief spoke
"the Borg tech is connected to our deflector dish, nothing more, the technology has just given us the ability to send out a tachyon wave, but I fitted something extra to it
drew raised an eyebrow "what, exactly"
"this is little something I put together a while back" said the chief tossing a small, flat metal disc onto the desk..
"its mainly used for breaking *out* you brigs and what not.. it fries any system within a small radius, about twelve inches
or so."
"there are six of these attached to each of the Borg components"
drew stared at the disc for a second
"are you sure this'll work, what if the Borg adapt.."asked drew
"well they haven’t seen these before, and they will all go off at the same time. there should be no time for them to adapt"
"its not 100% certain is it" asked drew
"nothing is" replied the chief " if you want I’ll rip the Borg components out, I’d be happy too"
"no, we need to find this Borg base, keep an eye on them, at the first sign of trouble, disable them"
the two turned to leave and then the chief stopped
"ohh sir, take this"
the chief handed Drew a small device, shaped like a phaser but with one button on it
"what’s this?" asked drew
"its the manual detonator, it'll activate the charges on the Borg components, just incise"
drew took it and then pocketed it "very well chief, dismissed"
*****[ in the turbo lift]*****
"I can't believe you put 6 of those on each part" said Leah
"that’s nothing, I wanted to place explosive charges on it, until I realised that I’d probably blow up the deflector dish, and half the ship with it." responded the chief.
"does the drone know" asked Leah
"2?, he saw me attach them, but I don't know if he knows what they are, he didn't ask"
"2? "
the chief pause for a moment " ohh yeah, its his Borg designation, 2 of 9 or something"
Leah nodded "I see"
there was a silence as the two started thinking about the current situation
"listen, Leah, I’m sorry about that I should have mentioned it to drew."
"yeah, well, no harm no foul..." replied Leah
the turbo lift stopped near astrometrics
"he.. listen, Leah, could you possibly take that other drone off my hands... I want to be able to look at the Borg components without him looking over my shoulder"
Leah nodded " sure, I’ll get him to come back to astrometrics
the doors closed and the turbo lift continued on its way towards engineering
Leah entered astrometrics where Guinevere, Kern and one of the drones, whose designation Leah still did not know were already at work doing the final reconfigurations before they could start sending out that tachyon wave. Remembering the chief's request she contacted engineering.
"Lamont to engineering"
=^= Ragin here. We are all done =^= the chief said, although he knew exactly that Leah already knew they were.
"Very good chief. Then will you please send 2of9 here. His help might quicken things up a bit"
She heard the drone protesting in the background, he did not seem to be too eager to leave the Borg technology alone with the chief.
"Oh c’mon 2" she heard the chief say in a familiar tone, "I won't mess with any of this trust me. They need your skills up there now!"
"Is he coming? The Borg won't wait with assimilations just because we can't get started" Leah said trying to sound as impatient as possible.
=^= Yes I am coming, and remember my designation is 2 of 9, and I would prefer to addressed personally and not spoken to in 3rd person =^= 2 replied sounding not too happily about how he was being treated.
Hearing a Borg drone speak in such manner made Leah grin, and she felt a bit guilty about treating their allies like that, but at least it would leave Ragin time to study the Borg technology by himself. She heard a door in engineering open and close, then Ragin said =^= Thanks Leah, he's a good lad really but he was starting to annoy me slightly =^=
"Any time chief. Have fun..." Leah replied and closed the connection, leaving Ragin studying the Borg technology.
Two minutes later 2of9 entered the astrometrics lab, still mumbling a bit.
"Ah 2of9, good to see you here. We are almost ready, why don't you take the station over there and supervise the reconfigurations" Leah said.
The drone nodded and took his station. After half a minute he said "looking good. 5of9 would have well been able to do this properly without my help. I should return to engineering."
"No no you stay here, we are starting now and we will need you to help us analyse the data we get from the wave." Without letting him reply Leah looked over to Guinevere and Kern. "Everything ready there?" she asked.
The two scientists nodded.
"Astrometrics to the bridge, we are starting"
=^= Very well Commander =^= Drew replied.
"Aligning the deflector dish" Kern said.
"Frequency is set to 1.43 Ghz, which should make the Borg think it's a natural tachyon stream" Guinevere added.
"If they find out it's not we can forget the surprise moment" 2 kept on grumbling.
"See that's why we need both of you here, to make sure us imperfect people get it right" Leah said trying to keep her face straight when 2 twitched his eyebrow very Vulcan-like.
"Initiating tachyon wave" 5of9 exclaimed. "It will reach the sector where we've estimated the Borg base in 2 minutes."
The two minutes passed in silence, everyone hoping there would be a result soon. After 2 minutes and 10 seconds a light flashed on 2of9's console.
"That must be it" 2 said, actually sounding slightly excited. "For a brief moment when the wave passed by there was something, something large, not a ship. Confirmed, it's the base!"
"Lamont to the bridge, we've found it. Kern please transfer the coordinates to the bridge."
=^= Good job people. I will forgive you messing around with my ship this once. We will be on our way immediately. Drew out. =^=
There was general cheering in astrometrics, although localizing the base had only been the first step, and probably the simplest one...
"Lamont to engineering. We've succeeded! Good work chief!"
=^= Wonderful =^= Ragin replied. =^= Then I can get rid of this Borg junk now? =^=
"I would advise that we leave it there for the moment" 2 of 9 said. "That Borg junk might prove helpful once more later on..."
"Why did I only know he would say that" Ragin sighed. Well at least he would have more time to study it now...
Graeme, Anna, and the drones leaned over a computer panel configuring and reconfiguring any options available.
The new modifications in the ship's systems helped with the simulations but they weren't were Anna wanted them to be. More than anything, she just wanted this whole Borg mess to be done with.
The last three simulation provided no more help and the commander suddenly stood up.
"Alright gentlemen, we've been at this quite a while. It's time we take our predictions to the test." she said.
Hours of endless simulations and changes had resulted in a 92% survival rate. At least the odds were on their side.
Anna tapped her comm badge.
"Shipley to Drew..."
"Go ahead no.1" he answered. Drew sounded like he was in another conversation.
"Sorry to bother you sir, but we've completed our simulations."
"What do you have for me commander?" he asked
"Well sir, we've brought our chances up to 92% and I don't think we can get any better than that with our resources. I believe our plan for entering the base has already been explained to you. At any rate, the Fang will be well prepared for battle." Anna said
"Very good commander. We'll get the details of the Borg base to you as soon as we can. Until then, complete the details of the plan. I want a report of the simulations and attacks in an hour."
"Aye sir. Shipley out"
"Computer, begin tactical simulation beta 12!" Graeme commanded. Anna and the 2 Borg drones stood back a little. Suddenly a holographic mini battle appeared. A few cubes hovered in the air. A few metres away(this simulation is scaled way down) an orange-yellow nebula was hovering. Its size increased as it showed the Fang and the faint outline of a couple of clocked Romulan warbird. "Computer, begin attack" Anna said. The simulations sprung to life. The Borg cube flew in towards the base. The base started hailing the cube, but it didn’t respond. It responded requesting supplies. They were denied. Before the base had its armour fully charged, an away team were beamed on board. They consisted of the two Borg drones(both had the virus they intended to deploy directly into the cloaking device), Anna three security officers and two Romulan security guards.(Graeme was told that he should remain on the ship when they begin fighting and Ragin for repairs instead of helping the Borg.)The other cubes started firing on the Unimatrix zero cube. Suddenly the Fang and three Romulan warbird suddenly appeared on Borg sensors as they left the nebula and started attacking the cubes and base.....
Graeme and Anna watched the simulation, expecting the Fang and its allies to win, instead the Borg did not appear at all surprised by the assault, as the Allied ships fired at the base, two more Borg cubes dropped out of transwarp, within minutes the simulation had ended, the Fang exploding in a ball of fire.
“What went wrong?” Anna asked staring at the frozen image in shock; Graeme quickly called up report logs from the computer, analysing them against previous simulations
“The Starbase’s sensors are too powerful, they were able to detect us in the nebula” Anna paced the small control platform before turning to the drones, “Would the Borg detect us if we were hidden somewhere else?”. The two drones looked at each other, “A method used before was to hide ships instead cubes, due to the ever-ongoing assimilation process, captured ships are regularly transported in cubes” one of them reported.
Anna walked back over to Graeme “Run the simulation again on the same settings, this time have the Fang hide in the Borg cube, and the Romulan ships cloaked” Graeme quickly made the adjustments and activated the simulation, the same battle played out, expect this time the Borg were not expecting the attack force, thankfully when it ended the Fang was not in a ball of flames.
“Looks like we have a new plan – I will inform the Captain” Anna said heading out of the door, turning her head “Graeme I want you to gather your best people and prepare to join the away team yourself, we will capture the base quicker with our best people, tell Ragin to do the same”.
Fang Bridge
“So what do you think is going on?” Ensign Johnson called at the Operations Station, his friend Lt.jg Bell look over at him from Tactical “Something big, all the senior staff have been in meetings, Commander Shipley has spent hours in the holodeck before going to see the Captain, Commander Lamont is down in one of the science labs”.
With no senior officers currently on the Fang Bridge the junior officers were taking the opportunity to discuss the current mission, and lack of knowledge they had, “I heard the Romulans were going to be helping the Borg destroy the Federation, that’s why Admiral Von Hawk is in there with them trying to resolve the issue and re-establish peace”.
Before anyone could reply to her the Ready Room doors opened, the entire bridge went silent as Drew and Anna walked out, taking their seats in the centre, if they knew they had just interrupted the junior staffs morning gossip they did not show any sign of it. Instead the two were talking in silent whispers “The Admiral is with the Romulans now, from what he has said it is going promising, they should agree” Drew told Anna “Good, our chances of successfully completing this mission relieves on it”, both knew the great danger the ship was putting itself, the idea had been in both their minds that maybe this one was encounter the Fang would not survive, although neither had spoken of that. As the busy silence on the bridge continued, Admiral von Hoek walked back onto the bridge from the conference room, a slight nod of his head told Drew the Romulans had agreed to help them.
As the Admiral took the third chair along the command deck Drew gave him a quick status report “We have found the location of the base, we are ready to move off”, Gene nodded his head “The Romulans require one hour to prepare their ships”. The three command officers sat back into their chairs, each of them containing their private fears that this mission was impossible, not matter what the computer said.
One Hour Later
The entire Fang senior staff was now gathered on the bridge, each of them had relieved their junior officer from the station to man it their selves. “Romulan ships report ready” Leah reported “Tell them to prepare to cloak on my mark” Drew instructed her, “Helm take us in”.
The Prometheus Class ship begin to head for the open port of the huge Borg ship, compared to the rest of the small Fleet the Fang was the smallest ship, though perhaps one of the most heavily armoured.
“Mark!” Drew ordered on the Fang Bridge
The two Romulan war birds begin to shimmer into nothingness until star’s could be seen through them. Now the Fleet was ready to move.
Warping into the system locating the base, the away team members, Anna, Leah, Graeme and Ragin all hurried for the transporters room, where teams of security and engineering officers awaited them, in the turbo lift Anna went once more over the plan “Ragin, you and Graeme are heading for the engineering deck at the bottom of the base, you will command the team, while me and Leah are heading for the command deck, try to avoid a fire fight if possible, when you reach the deck try and sabotage as many systems has you can”, all three officers nodded their heads understanding her orders.
Back on the bridge Drew was waiting to get the final word from the Ops Officer that would start the most important part of this mission “We are in transporter range sir” Johnson reported “The base’s shields are down, they are not expecting anything” “Bridge to Transporter Room One, prepare to beam the away team to the base, good luck Commander” he added addressing his Number One.
“Energise” he ordered. the chief and Graeme materialized deep in the Borg base.
they two hid in an unused alcove as they awaited for their eyes to adjust to the gloom of the Borg base.
the place was humid, and the dry heat of the air made the chief uncomfortable
Graeme: ready?
Ragin: Yup
the two made their way cautiously towards the engineering section of the base
*** [ five min later ] ***
the two had made steady progress, encountering not one Borg drone
suddenly Ragin stopped
"I don't like this"
Graeme stopped two "what"
"a Borg base, and we've not met on single drone, or even seen one, what’s going on?"
Graeme stopped, then started pacing ever so slightly
"look I don't care, lets just go and get this done"
Graeme looked uncomfortable just being in the Borg base, and the chief didn't blame him, but them again, this was what the fourth or was it fifth time the chief had faced the Borg.
he was almost getting used to them
Graeme started walking ahead, and the chief started to catch up.. he could hear the hum of large Borg machinery getting louder as the two approached the main engineering section
amazingly icy was empty also
Graeme turned to the chief "ok, now this IS strange"
Ragin took out a small case and handed it to Graeme
"stick these discs on anything that looks important, well blow them later"
as Graeme set the EMP charges the chief busied himself explosives at various key nodes
after 15 min the two were finished.
Graeme and Ragin had planted the last charge. They were programmed to detonate at the push of a button on Graeme's tricorder. The two officers began to leave the engineering deck slowly being very cautious. They had made intensive scans of the deck and had detected no life but with this being the Borg it was more than likely that they were there. Ragin and Graeme went round a corner. Ragin's tricorder began to beep. Graeme almost jumped and said "what is it?". "Imp not sure but something is coming towards us and fast!" Ragin replied. Graeme gripped his phaser tightly in his hand and was prepared to kill whatever was coming towards them.
Graeme and Ragin stood at an intersection, the bleeps of the tricorder getting closer and closer together
"15 meters" called Graeme, his phaser rifle gripped tight.
the chief rummaged in his bag and pulled out a long pipe with a wooden butt
"what’s that" asked Graeme
"my boom-stick" replied the chief as he loaded the shotgun
(ooc: sorry, couldn't resist bringing it back)
"its a bit primitive" said Graeme "10 meters!"
the chief finished loading, and looked around, in the gloom ahead of him he saw something move, then disappear
"Graeme... I think its here" said the chief, he stood with his back to Graeme, both covering each others blind spots
"its no drone" said Graeme "they can't move that fast.. "
Graeme turned to his left sharply as he heard something move
the chief swore
"I can't see it" he glanced down at the tricorder "... can't get a clear reading... its at 7 meters"
both the men looked around... "I can't see it!" called Ragin
"4 meters" the two said nothing as the both strained to see what was stalking them
suddenly the chief felt a slight breeze on the back of his neck... he looked upwards and saw the same shape he had seen earlier crouched above them
he shoved Graeme hard and jumped back himself, attempting to aim upwards as he dived
the creature fell where the two had been standing, it looked like a giant armour plated lion.. whatever it was the Borg had transformed it into something terrifying
it looked at Ragin as he struggled to bring his gun to bear
it opened it mouth wide, and in place of its canine teeth there were two tubes similar to the ones the Borg used for assimilation
"ohh.... bugger" managed the chief as he let of a round from his shotgun
it hit the creature on the side of the head, and its head snapped back with the force of the shot.
it slowly tuned its head back around, and look straight at the chief.
"sonava.." mutter the chief, as he fired again and again.
each shot bounced off the armour of the creature, slowing it down a little, but not stopping its slow advance
before the creature could get close enough to attack the chief there was the sound of phaser fire
"told you that was primitive!" called Graeme over the sound of phaser fire
the chief muttered something as the creature moved back and began to advance on Graeme
Graemes phaser volleys were having little effect on the creature, as it adapted quickly
Graeme backed up quickly, trying to change the frequency of the phaser as the creature got closer
seeing what was happening the chief ran towards the creature, with his crewmate in danger the chief stopped thinking and used his bare hands to grip the creatures tail.
the second the chief laid his hands on it the creature twisted its tail and grabbed the chief’s arm.
with one movement it threw the chief over and he landed in-between the creature and Graeme
the creature opened wide and the two tubes sprang forth ready to assimilate the chief
the chief reached up and jammed the barrel of the shotgun as deep as he could into the creatures mouth
he pulled the trigger and prayed
***[after the chief comes to]*****
"chief, you ok?" Graeme asked as he gently roused the chief
"...and your mother!" replied the chief as he came too
"what?" asked Graeme
"sorry... ohh my head.... I must have passed out is it.."
"yeah you got it...." replied Graeme
"what the hell was it?" asked the chief
"I have no idea, I looks like they assimilated something like a puma, and then fitted it with armour" said Graeme
"explains why there were no drones, lets get out of here" replied the chief
"good idea"
the two left the corpse of the creature behind as they continued their journey upwards
****[ 10 min later]*****
"we far enough away?" asked Graeme?
"yeah pretty much, do it" said the chief
Graeme pressed a button on his tricorder and there was a gentile rumble that got louder, and finally the base shuddered
"ok, lets get outtalk here" said the chief Meanwhile on the Fang…
After the away team beamed off the ship Drew ordered a Red Alert, now the Fang was fully charged for battle. Drew stood in the centre of the bridge taking strength from the power of his ship it gave him confidence that maybe, just maybe the Fang could do this.
Turning to his chair he begin to give the commands that would start the Fang’s part of the mission “Helm stand by to leave the cube on my mark” taking his chair he looked down to the Operations Station “Ensign single the Romulan Ships to de-cloak at the same time we emerge from cube – Tactical stand ready all weapons”
Rounds of “Aye Sir” filled the bridge in response
Taking one last look around the bridge, making eye contact with every crewmember Drew looked to the view screen and said, “Mark!”
From inside the cube it looked as if a tiny silver bug was flying away, as the Starfleet ship began to move out, until finally returning to the space where it belonged.
Almost as soon as the Fang and her Romulan allies began there attacks, there fire was met and returned by the two Borg cubes protecting the Starbase, as well as the Base’s weapons.
“Report” Drew called out as the Fang shook heavily from weapons fire
“Forward shields at 70% and falling” the Tactical officer replied “Targets shields also at 70%
As he finished his report the bridge crew were thrown to the floor as the Fang jerked picking himself up Drew survived the situation, the Fang was not winning.
“Stand by to fire Quantum Torpedoes full spread”
He looked to the view screen to see the powerful weapons impact on the Borg’s shields, also seeing the return fire hitting the Fang. Under normal circumstances he would order a retreat, but the away team’s successful capture of the base depended on the Fang and her allies distracting the Borg.
“Sir that last shot brought the shields down to 40% we can’t take much more of this” the unnamed
tactical
officer reported“Now would be a good time for the away team to make some progress” Drew thought to himself, wishing he was a telepath before he could issue more orders Kern called out a reported
“Captain, I am detecting explosions of the base, originating from the engineering section, the base is starting to lose power”
“Good work Ragin” Drew said pulling his fist up in victory, “One section down, one to go” he muttered to himself.
Anna, Leah and their security team made their way in the direction of the command deck. They were moving carefully, trying to avoid any Borg. Leah doubted that the Borg would ignore the Starfleet officers like they did on regular cubes if they didn't see a threat in them. This base was different. Something was going on here, something they should not discover. But as they drew closer to the centre of the base they hardly saw any drones, only now and then one or two were passing by ahead of them and they could easily stay out of their way. Leah had never been on a Borg cube but of course she had studied the data Starfleet had and this was completely different. It was Borg, but it was nothing the federation had ever seen. Whatever they were up to this time, it could not be good.
"This way" Anna whispered and pointed towards something looking like a big door, almost a portal what would seem to be the command centre. Leah nodded and signed the security team to go ahead. No drones were to be seen at the moment, but by the time they disabled the Borg in the centre every single drone would know they were here. They would have to work quickly. Having their phasers ready, each one assigned to different frequencies, they entered the command centre. Only two drones were inside and the two security officers shot them immediately. Anna ran to one interlink node and Leah to another one, having their tricorder ready, trying to get as much information out of it as possible in the short time they had.
"I have access to their central database" Leah said and Anna nodded, affirming that she did also. While the tricorder saved down the data she went over to a display that showed some sort of wormhole structure surrounding the base. It seemed to be some sort of simulation, Leah had never seen anything like it before. Behind her Anna was closing her tricorder, tapping her comm badge. "Fang be ready to get us out of here!" she ordered.
"Not yet" Leah yelled. "I have to see what this is!"
"Leah we have to go, the Borg will be here any seconds" Anna said impatiently.
"Just a moment. Fang keep the transporter lock. But don't beam before I saying so."
She scanned the display with her tricorder and did a quick analyse of the data. "Oh my god" was all she could say after she saw what her tricorder was showing her. In the same moment the door opened and several Borg drones entered the room. The two security officers hit the first two Borg but then they had adapted and the phasers were useless. The Borg reached the two ensigns who could no longer keep them off, Leah was still too stunned of what she had just learned, in the same instant Anna hit her comm badge and yelled "Beam us out!" She saw Anna fading, but she didn't feel the prickly feeling of the transporter beam on her. The drones were moving closer, two of them grabbed the security officers and injected the assimilation tubes into their necks, then a drone grabbed Leah who was not strong enough to defend herself. Her eyes saw the little tubes come out of the drone's hand almost in slow motion. Then she felt a twitch in her neck, as if she was stabbed with a very sharp knife. For an instant of a second there was nothing. Then she finally felt the feeling of the transporter beam grabbing her. And then there were voices stabbing her brain...
Minutes before
The Fang continued to take a beating in this battle, the once spotless bridge was now filled with smoke, and wreckage lay across the floor. The emergency lighting had kicked in after the main power had failed, giving the bridge a red bloody effect.
Holding onto his chair for support as the deck beneath him shock Drew turned to the Admiral sitting beside him, the older man had a deep worried look in his eyes, Drew knew he feared for his families safety ~civilians should not be in this situation~ he thought to himself.
Turning his attention back to the battle unfolding around him, Drew requested a report, “Shields are now at 20% and falling, the Borg ships are in a similar state, but they seem to be adapting”
“Dam” Drew muttered, his thoughts were interrupted by a urgent Anna over the comm.
"Fang be ready to get us out of here!"
The urgency in her voice told Drew that her team needed to be beamed out soon, he did not like it but he was going to have drop the shields.
“By ready to drop the shields for transport, get them back up the nano second they are onboard”
For most of the battle Gene had been silent but now he spoke “Commodore with no shields we will be an easy target” the tone of his voice told Drew he was willing to countermand his orders
“I am not leaving my crew when they need me” Drew replied before Gene could protest further the Tactical officer spoke
“Away team ready to beam back”
“Drop shields” Drew ordered, before Gene could even get a breath out the officer reported he was in the middle of transport.
The Borg cubes all directed there fire to the now defenceless Fang, the bridge went into complete darkness for a few seconds –
“Sir, we are losing the locks, transporters have taken major damage”
“Keep those locks Chief, take power from life support if you have too” Drew ordered
“Aye sir” the Transporter Chief replied “We have every…. ON MY GOD Security to transporter room 1”
“Chief what’s wrong?” Drew called over the comm. No response “Chief?”
“We are Borg you will be assimilated” Leah’s voice now came over the comm.
That was all Drew needed to hear, indicating to the tactical officer he ran to the turbo lift – “Medical and Security times to transporters room one – Admiral you have the bridge” he called out as the doors shut.
*back on the base.....*
Ragin’s tricorder started to beep louder and louder as something was getting very close. "Chief I think it would be a good idea if we got out of here don't you?" Graeme asked concerned. "I agree, lets get out of here." Ragin replied. The two officers made their way round another corner. Ragin was getting worried, something was getting closer and they didn’t have a clue what it was. "Janeway to fang, requesting beam out. Fang respond!" Graeme shouted through his commbadge. "Ah Graeme,there is a dampening field in this area. It just went up." Ragin said. "We have to get out of here before we both end up being one with the Borg."Graeme said slightly sarcastically. The two officers started moving but they had no idea where while the dampening field was still up. The two stopped suddenly. They heard footsteps. They listened carefully but suddenly a red laser was directed straight at Graemes head. Suddenly three other drones headed towards them. The Ragin removed his phaser and aimed at the Borg moving towards them. Graeme and Ragin both fired. Two drones were down surges of electricity flowing through their cortical nodes. The officers shot the other two, one went down but the other had adapted to both frequencies. "Uh oh!" Ragin said. "What do we do now mr. tactical officer?" he asked. "Be resourceful!" Graeme retorted. "That is what engineers do right." he said again. Graeme grabbed a piece of bulkhead lying on the ground and hit the drone right across the face. "Don’t ever mess with me again! or Ragin for that matter."Graeme said angrily towards the Borg lying on the ground dead. "Lets get out of this dampening field, blow up the deck, destroy the base and the party!" Ragin said trying to improve the angry mood. "Okay then lets get moving. "Graeme said. The two officers walked down the long, green, eerie corridor to try and find a way back...
though it had been no longer than five minutes since they last encountered the borg it seemed to the chief that he and Graeme had been wandering the borg base for an eternity
"are we there yet" asked graeme
the chief tried to supress a small smile
"no not yet, this dampening filed seems to extend over this deck and the next two as well"
"so what do we do?" asked graeme
"it lookes like there is a way straight up at the next junction, a ladder of a lift or something... i think"
"you think?"
"the tricorder is on the fritz... its a side effect of the dampening field.... and i keep gettign odd readings of borg signatures, but they are far too small to be fully grown borg drones, and we're nowhere near the maturation chambers"
replied the chief as he shook the tricorder in an effort to get it to work
"lets go... i don't think the borg are going to sit around and hope we kill ourselves.. they'll be looking for us by now" commented janeway
the two officers reached the area the tricorder had told them was a way out
above them was a ladder and the borg equivilant to jeffries tubes
the chief shoved the last of his shells into his shotgun graeme re-adjusted the settings on his phasers
"after you" said graeme
"no i insist" replied the chief in mock politness
graeme sighed and grabbed the ladder and started climbing upwards
**** [ nearly at the top of the ladder ]****
the climb had been mostly in scilence but as they neared the top ragins tricorder beeped
Ragin and graeme stopped and held their breath
ragin puled up the tricorder
"signals.... drones... 20 metres away and closing... at least 15"
both of them swore and then graeme started to climb faster
"come on chief we don't want to be caught down here!"
the two moved as fats as they could, when the reached the top graeme paused for a second to help the chief out of the tubes
the two looked arounf the foggy corridor
"chief?" asked graeme
"10 meters anc closing, all directions"
"are we clear of the dampening field yet?" asked graeme
"nope.. 100 meters ...that way" the chief pointed to their left
"lets go"
as they started to move they saw the now familiar red lazers of the borg drones approaching
"i see about 5" called graeme
"we have to get past them" replied the chief
"then lets go" responded graeme
the two officers started to run at the drones, guessing it wasn't a tactic that they were used to seeing, most people ran away from the borg
the next few minutes were a blur the chief half-remembered firing the last few rounds from his shotgun and a borg falling infront of him.
he remembered graemes phaser fire dropping annother borg or two the next thing the chief knew he was facing a long empty strech of corridor
he turned around and saw graeme running to join him
behind janeway were the corpses of three drones and two more looking slightly bewildered, if that was possible for a drone
behind the two drones more drones were slowly marching towards the two starfleet officers
ragin and janeway looked at eachother
"RUN!" the cried in unison
after a few moments the tricorder made annother beep
"were clear" cried the chief
graeme tapped his comm badge
"graeme to fang, graeme to fang, requesting beam out"
the two stopped for a second and waited....
The chief shrank against the wall as Leah, who now visibly showed sings of being borg, walked in that obstinate way that terrified anyone in their path.
The chief had dropped his phaser in frustration and waited with only an expression of fear.
Behind Leah, the away team stood, phasers in hand. Anna motioned for them to hold fire, while she struggled to set her own on stun.
"Leah, stop." Anna pleaded.
She slowly turned, obviously agitated by the interruption.
"Resistance is futile, all will be assimilated." Leah answered, returning to the chief.
Sweat drops beaded on Anna's forehead, as her thumb inched closer to the phaser's button. She knew that it was a bad idea to only set it on stun, because the borg adapted so quickly, but the commander just couldn't bring herself to go any higher and hoped she didn't need to.
"Leah stop. That's an order." Anna said, knowing it was irrelevent to a borg to even mention orders.
This time she completely ignored the commander.
At that moment, Anna tightend her grip on her phaser and aimed at the borg. Then, just as she shot, the security team along with Drew filled the entrance to the transporter room.
The phaser shot did very little but knock leah down. Long enough for the cheif to pick up his phaser and get out of the way.
Now Leah leaned against the wall, faced with the captain and an entire team behind him....
Her mind was a complete mess. The voices were filling her brain, and although the billions of voices blended to a general murmur she couldn't understand a word of, somehow her subconciousness was affected by what was said. The voices surrounded her and made it impossible to concentrate on what was happening around her. She felt that she had materialized again and she was walking around, but her body was not steered by her own free will. The voices were commanding her. She could not fight them. Like it was in a far distance she faintly saw a woman in a red uniform who seemed to be staring at her. The woman said something, and although the voices were too loud for her mind to hear what it was she somehow picked up what she meant. "Leah stop," was what the woman was saying. Leah, that name, she knew it. She didn't know where she knew it from, but it was very familiar to her. Who could it be? Then she suddenly heard herself speak. It was her voice, although it was not her saying it. "Resistance is futile. All will be assimilated." Suddenly she understood. The woman had asked her to stop. She was Leah. But she couldn't stop...
Her body kept moving like a robot, the voices were commanding her. Especially one voice that united all of them. That voice seemed to be omnipresent. It was only a faint whisper, but with enormous power. It brought order to the chaos. It gave meaning to her existance. 'You are 1 of 3' the voice said. 'From now on you are one of us. We are the borg.' Then without doing anything she was aware of the two men behind her who had been security officers and were now 2 of 3 and 3 of 3. It was their task to assimilate this ship. Just as she wanted to start a phaser beam hit her but it did not have much effect, only distraced her for a second. Then the room filled with people. She saw herself facing a man in a red uniform who had an air of authority around him. In his eyes she saw no fear but for a brief moment there was something she had not expected to see. Consternation and sorrow, concerning her. Her mind wanted to scream 'help me captain' but not a sound crossed her lips. The voices were too strong. They ordered her to speak different words.
"We are the borg. We now know everything the woman called Leah Lamont knew Commodore Drew. Unimatrix Zero will not be a help to you. The borg cannot be stopped. Resistance is futile. Surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own."
"The hell you will" Drew replied, then a phaser beam hit her and threw her into a thankful blackness.
Drew lowed his phaser slowly, as what used to be his Operations Officer fail to the floor, the two security officers behind him had also fired there phasers and taken out the two other drones, both of whom Drew recognised as Ensigns from below decks. Unlike Anna’s phaser Leah had not known the frequency Drew and his teams phasers were set for, standing in silence for a few moments, in moaning Drew let his First Officer handle the situation.
Walking over to the unconscious drones Anna hit her comm badge “Sickbay prepare to receive casualties” pulling the tricorder out from her belt she scanned Leah “The Borg technology has taken over 60% of her body, if we act within the next 24 hours we should be able to save her without lasting effect”, Drew nodded his head in agreement of Anna’s orders.
A few minutes’ later six medics arrived in the transporter room to transport the drones to sickbay; Anna went with them without a Chief Medical Officer onboard her medical experience would be needed.
As Drew was about to leave for the bridge is comm badge beeped “Bridge to Drew” signing in a “what now” way Drew pressed the small device on his chest “Go ahead” “Sir, we have a shuttle approaching, the same one the Admiral took, the pilot is requesting permission to dock” “Tell the Admiral he is cleared to dock in Shuttle bay Two” Drew said, wondering briefly why he was being informed of this “Umm, that’s the thing sir its not the Admiral, they refused to give there identity to anyone but you” his interest peaked Drew replied “Clear for docking in bay two, I will meet them there” heading for the door, he turned to the small team that had came with him from the bridge “Return to your stations” he ordered.
beckie figured she'd at least get to rest. The mission in dominion space was alot worse than she thought.. She'd lost alot of friends then as well as gained someof her own personal demons. She didnt want to think about them right now.. The trip back to the fang was alot more difficult then she expected.. All the lives lost.. she had to forcefully shut down her empathic and telepathic abilities just so she could remain sane ( ok no puns from any one ) But not every thing works out to a pair of set plans.. Her startfleet medical training came more into play than anything else.. which was one reason she even bothered to continue her tour of service with starfleet command.
She stepped out of the shuttle and stood there for a few moments while the pilot was talking to the shuttle bay controller.. The only think she carried with her was a small starfleet issue carryall. which contained her clothes.. She didnt have her cats anymore.. which was another lose in the mission.. her lips pearced tightly together as she laced her hands behind her. as her long blond hair pulled back into a single braid that hung down her back.. she gaze around the shuttle bay.. and a small smile played on her lips as one thought played on her mind ~home~...
* about 5 minutes later *
The shuttle bay doors slid open as she stood infront of the shuttle and a tall man wearing a crimsin uniform top walked over to her.. her back was towards the man but when he walked up to her she turned around and stood at attention.. strange he looked weary.. " hello Commodore Drew " she said to him.. he nodded to her and " we dont have much time to talk Commander.. your needed in sick bay.. " with that he held out his hand and a guesture to get a move on.. ~ something must be very wrong.. ~ she thought.. maybe her life was just something trivial... she nodded to him and they both left the shuttle bay.. and than she was fully briefed... She didnt even have time to drop off her clothes.
" Leah? " she asked as he finished.. her brows nitted together in worry as they entered the sick bay.. she removed her carryall and then walked over to the bio bed and picked up her medical tricorder.. she saw anna standing there.. and forced a smile.. she'd missed her family but right now was not the time to get emotional.. especially for beckie.. but her eyes still held warmth... and she said " it looks good on you " meaning her uniform..
Kern entered sickbay from the bridge.
“Captain, it’s getting pretty bad up there, the Chief has managed to stabilise the shields at 38% and I’ve re-routed additional power to the lateral phaser array, but you’re needed on the bridge.”
Drew seemed reluctant to leave Leah but duty called; he had more than the safety of one crewmember to worry about.
Drew “Chief, get down to engineering, I want all available power to the defensive systems. Anna, Graeme, Kern, with me.”
Triano “Captain if you don’t mind I could use Kerns help her with Leah”
The Commodore nodded and left for the bridge.
Beckie was quick to act. She asked a nurse to erect a restraining field around the bio-bed; she didn’t want her first patient to go causing mischief.
Kern “I’ll try to erect a dampening field around the bio-bed, see if I can disrupt her link with the hive.”
Triano “Wait, I’ll have to sedate her first, there’s no telling what effects there might be from a sudden disruption of her link with the hive.”
Injecting her with the hypo she gave him a nod.
Entering speedy commands into the console he reported that he’d isolated the Borg interlink frequency.
Kern “I’m erecting a dampening field around the bio-bed”
Triano “Life signs stable, so far so good”
A little more cautious now Kern slowly began to disrupt the link between the hive and his friend.
“Re-modulating the phase difference of the dampening field to cut through the link”
Triano “Her BP is climbing, respiration is increasing. Nurse 50cc’s iboflorizene.”
The hypo had an instant effect the nurse reported the BP returning to normal
Triano “Carry on”
The sickbay lights dimmed momentarily as the Fang rocked with the impact of another volley from the Borg.
Kern “Almost...” The console displayed the invisible beam which was targeting her cordical implant begin to fluctuate”
“Almost.....done, the link has been severed”
Triano “No visible signs of distress. She’s resting”
Beckie hugged Kern in thanks for helping her friend and he realise how much he’d missed her. She broke away and began the pain-staking task of removing Leah’s implants and Kern looked at her with admiration as she carried on with a task not easy for a friend to do under any circumstances, least of all to be hit with it unpon arrival. She looked up and smiled and for a moment they said nothing.
Kern “Nice to come home to huh?”
Triano “Wonderful, still, it’s good to be back. Pass me the radial clamp”
The two continued to remove the black technology, which had peppered Leah’s body and Kerns what Leah would be able to tell them about the Borg's plans, but more importantly, he wondered what was happening on the bridge.....
Exiting out of the turbo left Drew did a quick inspection of the visual damage to the bridge, for most of the battle the cubes had been targeting the upper decks of the Fang. The red emergency lights still shone brightly, letting Drew know that engineering was having a hard time coping with the damage.
Seeing Drew walked onto the bridge Ragin turned to him, the Chief had only just beamed back onto the ship from the Borg base, and already he looked like had had enough. “Drew I don’t know what games you have been playing, but the ship can’t take much more of this”. As Anna and Graeme both went to take their stations Drew stayed at the back of the bridge to talk to the Chief, who was busy working the engineering station “How bad is it Chief?” he asked, something told him the answer would not be good, “I have got shields back up to 38%, and Kern did some magic with the phaser array, but the port nacelle has taken heavy damage, I don’t think we can go any higher then Warp 4 at the moment” the Chief pressed a few more buttons on this console, the normal status lights on the bridge returned to normal “And I just got main power back online, but we have hull branch’s of multiply decks, we are going to need a long stay in a starbase after this one. Drew patted the Engineer on the back “If anyone can fix it I am sure its you”.
The Chief muttered something as Drew headed to take back his centre chair, looking down at the Operations Station he felt a pain of guilt for Leah, but Bec and Kern were down working on treating her, he had every confidence she would be fine.
Now looking back to the starbase he remembered his mission, the chances of being able to capture the base were now slim, there was only one course of action left to take “Graeme target everything you have left on the starbase and prepare to destroy it” Graeme hesitated for a bit “Sir, we are down to just 50 quantum torpedoes, and I don’t know how much longer we can keep the phasers going” “Understood, but our allies seem to be handling the Borg cube pretty well so target that base and fire”
The full force of the Fang’s weaponry hit the base, within minutes the base erupted into a huge explosion, the Fang shook heavily as it was caught in the shockwave.
“That did it” Ragin moaned from the engineering station, “Shields are gone”
“Well then we better not let that Borg cube hit us” Drew replied “Archer now is the time for some fancy flying”
The Fang swooped down to join her allies, which was now down to just one Romulan warbird and the Unimatrix Cube “Target their engines and fire” Drew ordered.
Under the full fire of the allied ships the Borg cube was easily destroyed. Drew sit back in his chair and allowed himself to breath again before Ragin called out “We have a Warp Core Breech!”
Before Drew could give Ragin orders Beckie’s voice came over the comm. “Captain, whatever you are doing up there has caused problems, two of the Borg drones have escaped”
“Ragin get to engineering, secure the core, Graeme get a team together and stop those drones,” Drew ordered
the chief sprinted through the debris that littered the corridors, narrowly missing several repair crews as he made his way towards enginering
as he came to an intersection he caught sight of annother officer out of the corner of his eye, before he could react the two collided, and the other officer, a young woman, was sent flying
"sorry!" called the chief as he ran on
******[ in enginnering ]*******
as the chief entered enginnering his heart sank, various enginners were running about like headless chickens attempting to stop the breach
"warp core containment down to 47%!"
"matter/antimatter mix near critical"
the chief pushed forward and arrived at the main warp core console , dtanding beside him was micheal naysmith, the man he'd left incharge while he was on the borg base
"chief, that last shot blew half a dozen relays and fried the new borg tech in the deflector dish.. that set of the warp core breach"
the chief swore
"ok, antimatter dump?"
"is locked down, we can't dump it"
"what about a warp core dump?"
"locked down too..."
"manual overide?" asked the chief
"we can't the controls are frozen"
the computer voice suddenly spoke "three minutes untill warp core breach"
"then we're gonna hafta do it the old fashioned way" said the chief
"ok, everyone but naysmiths team.. GET OUT NOW"
most of enginnering looked at the chief, not moving
"MOVE, MOVE, MOVE.. OR I SWEAR YOU'LL ALL BE CLEANING PLASMA CONDUITS FOR LIFE, MOVE!" roared the chief
within seconds the room had cleared
"ok, naysmith, you, ramirez and Mortel come with me" he pointed to the remaining man
"you, when we dump the core, i want you to purge the buildup in the core, disperse it throughout the ship"
the man protested " won't that blow out more relays"
"just do it!" snapped the chief
the four men climbed into the jeffries tubes and mobed towards the anitmatter containment pod
*****[ at the pod]*****
the four men hurried to the release clamps around the antimatter pod
"ok on three pull the levers" called the chief
the chief made soem quick adjustments to the systems then stood by his lever
"one..two..three!"
on three they puller the levers and the pod moves slightly... then abit more, then with a sudden "whoomp" it was gone, leaving a gaping hole in the deck, a small forcefield protecting the chief and his crew from the vacum of space
"enginnering to the chief, sir, we've begun the purge... power failures on decks 12, 13.. the shields over the hull breaches are failing on decks 2, 3..."
"quick, to the jeffries tubes!" called naysmith, acting quicker than the chief
the four men managed to pile into the jeffries tube and seal it before the forcefield collapsed in the antimatter pod room
"ragin to enginnering... status?"
the chief badge refused to work
naysmith and ramarez tried theirs
"no luck, chief" they replied
"maybe the comms system is out" said mortel
"maybe" replied the chief
Beckie was sent flying back but quickly cought onto one of the bio-beds before she could hit the floor as the ship lurched.. supplies and hypo-vials were sent flying.. and a few of her medical trays crashed onto the floor.. Kern jumped over the bio-bed Leah was in and quickly grabbed beckie by her arm.. she nodded and looked around then quickly went over to Leah, and pressed some of the colored buttons on the consol for the bio-bed checking her stats.. then that was when a bunch of people from engineering and other decks started pouring into sickbay..
Kern started treating the people that needed more help than others.. alot of people had plasma burns. She took care of them. and kern took care of the ones that had scrapes and bruises.. she looked around there had to be like 20 or so beings here.. she reached into her pocket and pulled out a hair tie and pulled her long blonde hair back into a pony tail and picked up a dermal reginerator and began repairing the tissue on one person..
ensign davies her nurse... was giving people seditives to help people relaxe.. it never helped to have a hostile being when you were trying to heal there wounds.. one person actually pushed back kern and almost nocked him to the ground.. if davies hadnt injected him with the hypo. she was sure kern might of opened up a can of kick butt on him.. she smiled as kern got uo and tugged on his blue tunic.. his klingon teeth sneering almost ..then went back to work ... she only shook her head.. what hair.. he needed to tie it back ...
“Warning Warp Core breech in five minutes” the soft tone of the computer reported, the entire bridge crew sit in silence, everything was up to engineering now, the ship would either live of die, and Drew hated not being able to control which road the ship took.
As each member of the bridge crew counted down the minutes, each begin to make peace with their gods, finally the five minutes ended, as it did the bridge shook slightly but nothing more.
Holding his breath for a few moments Drew broke the silence “Report”, everyone remained quiet as the operations officer spoke “Relays all over the ship have blown, we have lost power on decks 12 through 14, and the force fields holding the hull breeches have failed” “The Core?” Drew asked “Readings are a bit hazy but it appears the core is now stable, whatever the Chief did it worked”
“Drew to Engineering – Good Work Chief” over the comm. Only static replied Drew gave the operations officer a questioning look “The comm system is out as are the turbo lifts, we are badly damaged sir”.
Drew leaned back in his chair “Lets hope they can handle what ever those Borg drones are doing down there”
Graeme and the security team comprising of lt. Crozier and lt.cmdr Irwin headed down deck 9 on which the borg drones were reported to have been seen by two ensigns. Graeme and the security team had located the borg drones and were heading in their direction. "Sir, when we fing the drones do we kill them or do we knock them out and put them in the brig?" Lt.cmdr Irwin asked Graeme. "We kill them there and then Lt.cmdr."Graeme replied quickly. Lt.Croziers tricorder started bleeping loudly. "This way sir." he said pointing ahead. The three officers headed towards deck 9 section 21 alpha. The three officers formed a pattern as they entered a large, dark room. "Lights!" Graeme shouted. The room light up and the two borg lunged out at the three officers. The officers shot the borg and each one went down quickly. "Janeway to bridge." "Go ahead commander." Drews voice said. "Both drones have been stoped." Graeme said back. "Good work commander, report to the bridge at once." Drew said back. "Acknowledged." Graeme replied.
After Graeme’s call Drew looked down to the Ops station “I take it the comm. system is back up?” he waited a few moments for the young officer to check his readings “Affirmative”.
Now with full communication restored to his ship Drew tapped his comm. badge “Drew to Ragin”, after a few seconds the tired voice of Ragin replied “Ragin here” “Glad to see you have the comm. working again” commented Drew, “We had to blow most of the EPS conducts to stop the breech, the comm. system took a beating” the Chief explained “And the core?” Drew asked “That’s other story, lucky for us the Prometheus Class has a warp core for each of the three sections or we would be dead in the water” Drew nodded his head “What speed can we reach?” “No more then Warp 3” Ragin replied “The middle and bottom sections cores were completely destroyed, we only have the top section’s and that can’t support the entire ship through high speed warp” “Understood Chief, good work” Drew cut the channel. An idea forming in his head.
“Status of the Borg cube?” he asked Graeme, who had just retaken his station at Tactical “She has taken damage, but her more advanced systems took less of a beating then the Fang’s” Graeme reported “Can they still reach transwarp?” Drew asked hopefully “Confirmed” Graeme informed him “In that case open a channel” Drew ordered.
A few minutes later the Fang was caught in a Borg tractor beam, Drew had arranged with the Borg ship to tow the Fang back to Starbase at transwarp speeds, the ship would be home within minutes.
“The cube is entering transwarp in 5,4,3,2,1!” Archer reported from the comm. the viewscreen of the Fang showed an deep blue corridor that the ship raced through at speeds a Federation starship could not reach.
Within minutes the Borg cube and the Fang dropped out of the corridor into normal space, as soon as they did the Borg cube was rocketed by phaser fire.
“Report!” Drew ordered witnessing the events on the screen but not understanding, Graeme explained it to him “The Starbase has ordered every ship in the sector to intercept and destroy the Borg cube – Sir they think it’s a Borg invasion”
“Transmit this message” Drew ordered the Ops Officer “This is Commodore Drew of the Fang cease fire cease fire”
“Too late sir” Graeme reported as the Borg cube erupted into flames
“No” Drew whispered
“The cube had already taken damage from the battle with the Borg, it could withstand an assault from that number of Federation ships” Graeme reported sadly from tactical.
Silence engulfed the Fang’s bridge as the crew moaned for the loss of innocent lives.
***One Hour Later***
***Vice Admiral T’Plet’s Office”
After the Fang had docked at starbase, Drew had headed for the Admiral’s Office, intending to inform her that her actions cost the lost lives and a chance for Starfleet to further explore Borg technology, the meeting was not going in the Commodore’s favour however.
“I understand your emotional attachment to the Unimatrix resistance, and the loss of life is regrettable, but I can assure my actions were most logical” the Vulcan Admiral informed him dryly.
“With all due respect sir, they may have been logical, but not the best course of action, IF you had contacted the Fang fir.. the Admiral cut him off “A Borg cube enters the region with a Federation starship, last reported engaging the Borg in a no win battle in tow, the most logical assumption was that the Fang had been captured by the Borg, and that the Starbase was there next target”
Drew could not believe the Admiral’s lack of remorse, even for a Vulcan “Damm it” he tried to think of some come back argument but the Admiral stopped him “My actions protected the entire Federation from a Borg invasion, faced with the same situation again I would undertake the same course of action” before Drew could say anything the Admiral continued her speech “The Fang suffered heavy damage and is going to be a the base for a few weeks, take some leave Commodore” Drew got the impression the Admiral wanted to add “That’s an order” to her statement, realising this was a no win argument Drew rose from his chair “Understood Admiral” as he stood to attention the Admiral dismissed him, as he walked out of the office he whispered under his breath “She has been behind that desk to long…”
The other side of the Stabase the Federation Starship USS Fang docked power down, Starfleet Engineering crew’s beginning to crawl along her hull, repairing the damaged to the ship, ready for her next mission.