Subject: [FanFic] Operation Rescue Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 19:06:59 +1000 From: "AndrewT" Newsgroups: alt.startrek.vs.starwars Operation : Rescue Andrew Thorpe Disclaimer: This story contains characters, situations, technologies, events, and locations created and owned Paramount/Viacom Communications; Lucasfilm Ltd; and from "The Ballad of Halo Jones" and "Nemesis the Warlock" by 2000AD, Fleetway Publications. This story has been written purely for entertainment only. No money is being made and no infringement is intended. Also, special thanks to Michael Wong's Stardestroyer.NET site for the information about Star Wars and Star Trek technologies. And, ironically, Graham Kennedy's Daystrom Institute Technical Library (www . ditl . org), for detailed information on Trek tech and timeline. Author's Notes: * This story takes place about a few years after FleetEx (my previous and currently unfinished fanfic). The ships under development there are completed and operational here. * The "Halo Jones" references are limited mainly to the "Tarantula Wars" which happen during the previous Fanfic. Nemesis references will mainly be the names of planets in the Fringe and Nether-worlds. * Also, my style will evolve during this story. I'm experimenting with different literary techniques as I'm going. * When I'm describing the ships, I try to use the most common references. Where disagreements arise (ie: Star Destroyer armaments) I'll either use the reference I consider the most appropriate or a mid-point between the high and low numbers. * Some literary license may have been used in places, eg: the Victory-III class Star Destroyers DO NOT EXIST in any canon or official reference. I made them up as an improved Victory-II class (which is canon and official) with a redesign to standardise on components between it and the Imperator/Imperial-II class Star Destroyer. * Finally, the events in this story take place about 2373-2374. It was long after I plotted the story arc and was more than halfway through, that I checked a Trek site for a time-line. This story was written on the pretext that the Dominion War happened about six to eighteen months after it did according to the Trek time-line. But, in my skewed view, that's what could have happened anyway. My universe. My story. My event sequencing. That aside, I did try to keep everything within the standard Trek world, without the phase-aligned treknobabble that it is known for. Background: Space is three-dimensional. It's difficult to comprehend how one piece of space can have many borders. The piece of space in question is an unclaimed section of the main spiral arm of the Alpha Quadrant. Unclaimed up until a century ago when a group of refugees from the Federation decided to strike out on their own, after being severely disillusioned by the Federation's techno-socialism. Here they made contact with several races one of whom, the Fanranti, had a science and technology base/philosophy far in advance of the Alpha Quadrant norm. This piece of space became known as the "Fringe-Worlds" bordered by the Federation, the Cardassian Empire, the De-militarised Zone, and the Romulan Neutral Zone. The closest point of contact with the Federation is its outpost at Deep-Space 9 near the Bajoran System. The Fringe-Worlds number about thirty systems, with about half having a habitable class-M planet, and the rest have at least one partly habitable world. Beyond a point known "Star's End" is a region of space known as the "Nether-Worlds". This region of space lies in between the two galactic spiral arms and is sparsely occupied by star systems. The density of star systems in this region is barely one-percent of that in the galactic spiral arms. The distances between star systems here can be in the hundreds of light years. It forms a useful natural barrier against what lies on the opposite side of the Nether-Worlds. The Borg. Chapter 1 - Shakedown Cruise On the far side of the Nether-Worlds, six huge dagger-shapes floated motionless in space. Two of these behemoths were over sixteen hundred metres long. Three were about nine hundred metres in length, and the last a `mere' six hundred metres. These ships were based on twentieth century science-fiction design concepts, with over a century of advanced theoretical research and engineering to bring them into being. Singly, they represented the most powerful ship technology in the Alpha Quadrant. Combined, they represent the most powerful fleet in known space. These ships were a quantum level of technology over anything else in the Alpha Quadrant. The journey at warp 9.9997 (200,000c) would take several years for any Federation vessel. For these ships, the journey was only a matter of hours. The reason for these ships being out here, effectively in the depths of nowhere, was that it's a L-O-N-G way away from the Alpha Quadrant power blocks. This way, testing these ships could take place without uninvited guests watching as well. The test for today concerned the smallest ship in the fleet. The ship shared the basic design with it's larger siblings and would be considered attractive, if it wasn't for the four bulbous spheres that broke up its austere straight lines. This was an Interdictor cruiser, and the spheres concealed it's powerful gravity-well projectors and subspace jamming equipment. These made this small craft more expensive than the two I-class ships accompanying it. Even the costs of the three V-class ships seemed paltry in comparison. The sub-space jamming equipment was a last minute add-on. Its effects included disrupting sub-space distortion fields; effectively denying warp drive, and overloading sub-space communications (importantly this included the sub-space receiving implants in Borg drones, thereby causing them to operate with less efficiency; almost clumsily, like a drunk). The gravity-well projectors could pull ships out of their faster-than-light drive; it had worked against warp-drive equipped craft in previous tests. Today's test was against a 'hyperdrive' propelled probe-craft, launched from within the Fringe-Worlds. Thorn, Captain of the I-class ship "Chimaera" and commander of the fleet (referred to obtusely as the Advanced Research and Concepts Group, ARCaG for short), stood in the centre of the command bridge. The view from the bridge's metre thick transpari-steel windows encompassed the other I-class ship "Iron Fist", several kilometres off to starboard. Also the three V-class ships ("Armageddon", "Thor's Hammer", and "Lucky Hand")which surrounded the I-class ships, and the solo "Interdictor" sitting a half-kilometre ahead. Even several kilometres away, the sheer size of these ships was apparent. Details down to the 50 metre sized heavy 'turbolaser' turrets were still clearly visible. Even now Thorn was taken aback at the scale of technological innovation and engineering skill these ships spoke of; ARCaG and the Fanranti had outdone themselves this time. The I-class ships were probably the most powerfully armed ships in existence. Each side of the dorsal surfaces mounted four large turrets, three of which contained two heavy 'turbolaser' weapons a piece (with the equivalent power of a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb per barrel). The remaining forty-eight light 'turbolasers' had a much higher rate of fire and faster target tracking. The light reference was relative, they only had a power yield in the kiloton range. The name 'turbolaser' had been designed to disguise the true nature of the device, and to confuse any analysts who heard of the weapon. The real nature of the weapon was that of a gas-plasma discharge device. With no coherent frequency, the target's shielding could not adapt to it and nullify its effects. The cover-name had stuck however. The rest of the ships heavy weapons were the 'Ion-cannons'. With 2 heavy (mounted in the last 2 Large turrets in quad-barrel groups) and twenty-two light installations situated across the hull in a similar fashion to the Light 'Turbolasers', these weapons were designed to cripple the enemy by overloading their electrical systems (another instance of a cover-name that stayed with the device, despite its real nature being a charged-particle projector). Scores of particle-enhanced laser cannons and a number of CIWS 30-mm emplacements gave the ship a significant point-defence against incoming missiles. As an additional weapons fit, missiles fitted with conventional high explosive (with self-contained oxidiser) or small thermonuclear warheads were also carried. Ten tractor beam projectors completed the ship's weapons fit. In addition, the ship's cavernous docking bays could hold up to six squadrons of fighters plus a large number of shuttles and other support craft. The V-class ships were quite heavily armed, for their size. Though originally equipped with thirty-six light turbolaser weapons, twelve light ion-cannons, and ten tractor beam emitters; during construction it was decided to remove twelve of the light turbolaser installations and replace them with two heavy twin turrets as fitted to the I-class. Two squadrons of fighters and up to six shuttles are also carried in the docking bays. Similar, although scaled down, close-in defence was provided by laser cannons and 30-mm cannons. The Interdictor, however, was not intended to enter the battlezone. Its primary weapons were the four gravity- well projectors and subspace jammers mounted in the hull. Its role was to be at the edge of the combat area, denying the use of FTL drives to prevent enemy craft escaping. This meant that all the Interdictor's weapons were defensive in nature, and restricted to twenty light turbolasers, a single squadron of fighters, and a few shuttles in the docking bay. Point defence was taken care of with a large mix of laser cannons and CIWS installations. "Sir, target is due in fifteen minutes," said the ship's chief sensor operator Tycho Jones, interrupting Thorns musings on the fleet. "Very well," acknowledged Thorn. "Comms, advise Interdictor to begin powering up the gravity-well projectors." "Yes sir," replied the communications officer. During the next few minutes, a gravity well equivalent to that of a large planetary body was formed in the area of space in front of the ARCaG fleet. Non-essential personnel were standing at the sides of the bridge, staring through the transpari-steel windows. Thorn chuckled to himself on seeing this. "What do they expect to see? A four metre long probe that's going to revert five kilometres away?" He whispered to Tycho. "Yeah, but it's human nature." replied Jones."Would you prefer it if they sat around like unemotional Vulcans?" The minutes slowly counted down. The moment came and went, nothing runs to timetables down to the second; especially after a journey of 2,000 light years. It was the sensor operators who saw it first. "Reversion successful," reported Jones. "Target is bearing eight degrees to starboard, range eight kilometres. Structurally intact. Thor's Hammer is moving in to intercept." A few minutes later the engineering crew aboard the Thor's Hammer reported a successful recovery, and that microscopic analysis of the probe was taking place. "Jones, how big is the Interdiction field?" queried Thorn. " It's covering a cone about 150 Space Units in length," replied Jones. "We could sit on a major space way and stop everything that passes through." "Sir!" shouted the one of the other sensor operators. "We have a major reversion. Target bearing starboard 4 degrees, range twenty kilometres. Size. . . three kilometres in all dimensions!" "Oh shit!" Hissed Thorn, he then raised his voice and started to give his orders "A Borg Cube! Comms raise all ships. Interdictor, hold your position. Thor's Hammer, withdraw to fleet, all others alpha-strike on the Cube!" Within seconds of the orders a huge volley of ice-white ion-cannon blasts were fired at the Borg Cube. The first shots impacted against the Cube's outer hull, with the excess discharges snaking over the structure. The Cube's shields were raised, blocking the rest of the volley. However, about a third of the shield emitters on the forward face were knocked out by the initial ion-cannon impacts. It was then that the turbolasers opened up. "Commander, incoming transmission from the Borg," said the communications officer. Thorn looked over and nodded his head, "Piping it through to the bridge speakers now sir." "We are the Borg. Prepare to be assimilated. Your existence, as you know it ... is over. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt, to service us. Resistance ... is futile." "Response sir?" queried the communications officer. "For all it's worth, NONE," replied Thorn. "Interdictor, concentrate the gravity-well projectors on the Borg Cube, I don't want them to leave early." Looking out the bridge windows, the green storm continued to assault the Borg's shields. Here and there the remaining shield generators started to give way under the strain of the heavy turbolaser impacts. On board the Cube, the Collective was intrigued. The ships did not match anything in the Collectives' extensive databases. Nothing matched the designs, power-plant profiles, and, more importantly, the weapon signatures. All attempts at adapting to the incoming weapons had failed. Despite appearances, there was no coherent frequency that the weapons used, and so the forward facing shield was starting to collapse in places. The heavy impacts had started to hit the hull, leaving a pock marked appearance. Worse, the self-repair systems could not keep up with the damage being inflicted. The Cube's Collective even considered retreat, but found it couldn't move as it's drive systems were apparently being impaired by an outside influence. The Cube's Collective had to consider the possibility that it might lose this engagement. The Cube's weapons returned fire, but the effect against the ARCaG Fleets shields was minimal. Nearly all of the facing weapon installations were knocked out by the initial ion- cannon and turbolaser bombardment. The gravity well held the Borg in position, unable to effectively move or manoeuvre. The incoming fire was too great. As the shield generators were progressively knocked out, ion-cannon fire resumed. "Captain, the Cube's facing shield has collapsed and returning fire is minimal," said Jones. "Maintain mixed mode firing," replied Thorn. "We'll have to make sure they don't survive and report back." The turbolaser and ion-cannon blasts now struck into the interior of the Borg Cube. The ion-cannon blasts disabled the Cube's internal systems and then the turbolasers blasted them into free-floating atoms. With each impact, scores of Borg were annihilated. The self-repair systems tried to set up force field barriers, but ion blasts in nearby unprotected areas overloaded the generators, incoming turbolaser blasts then disintegrated them moments later. The ion-cannons were now impacting the internal power and communications grids. The cascade of charged particles overloaded weapons, propulsion, communications, and defensive systems. Normally the systems would re-generate with time, but time was not something the Borg had. The turbolaser fire had destroyed the last physical barrier protecting the Borg's power plant allowing a barrage of ion-cannon blasts to strike the reactor. As the ion-cannon strikes arced their way over the structure, the containment fields separating the highly volatile and reactive fuels collapsed as their emitters were overloaded. Super-criticality was achieved and the Cube and several kilometres of space briefly turned into a miniature star. Seeing the demise of the Borg Cube, and knowing what would follow, Thorn ordered all of the ships to brace for impact. The released energies shockwave washed over the arrow-shaped ships, mostly deflected by the shape and the shields. Thorn smiled to himself, knowing from experience that traditional StarFleet craft, with their proportionally greater surface area, would have been carried away by it. With the destruction of the Borg Cube, the Fleet stood down their weapons and the Interdictor powered down the gravity-well projectors. "Comms, all Captains on the monitors," said Thorn. Moments later the Captains of the other ships appeared on the monitors above the Captain's station. "Good work gentlemen on the destruction of a Borg Cube." Thorn said, starting with a deserved commendation "Now, we just have to work out how it managed to slip past our sensors." The Captain of the Lucky Hand spoke first. "If the craft was using a conventional warp drive or a hyperdrive system, it would have been detected by our sensors." "What about a Borg transwarp conduit? Aren't they supposed to allow much higher speeds than warp technology?" That was Kahla, Captain of the Iron Fist. Thor's Hammer's Captain spoke up. "That would be the most probable solution. Transwarp, in theory, is supposed to be ten to twenty times faster than conventional warp, but the technical problems proved insurmountable and everyone supposedly gave up on it." "Except the Borg," added the Captain of the Armageddon. "The conduit must have been added since our last visit. And if there's one Cube, there's likely to be more." "Well we've got the firepower to deal with them, and we have the beginnings of the tactics on how to bring it about," said the Captain of the Lucky Hand. "This was ONE Cube," commented Thorn. "What would we do if we had to face two or three? Have your technical teams perform an analysis of this engagement. Ok everyone, time to go home. Kahla, take the Iron Fist first, next will be the Interdictor, then the Lucky Hand, Armageddon, and Thor's Hammer. The Chimaera will leave last. We'll leave at thirty-second intervals from the Iron Fist's departure." The screens blanked after each Captain gave their acknowledgment of the orders. "Course laid in sir," stated the navigation officer. One by one, each of the ships gave a blur of pseudo-motion and then vanished as their hyperdrives engaged. Within a few minutes there was no trace of the six giant ships or their Borg victim. Chapter 2 - Unreasonable Demands The Sovereign-Class ship hurtled through space, heading for its rendezvous with the Bilbringi facility in the middle of the Nether-Worlds. At first glance, the rendezvous is in the middle of nowhere, the nearest planetary system is at least four light years away. Closer inspection would reveal that a lot of space traffic passes through this area. An analysis of communications traffic would yield a huge volume of data passing to, from, and relayed through this facility. The Sovereign-Class represented the pinnacle of StarFleet design. Combining the durability of the Excelsior-class, the versatility of the Galaxy, faster than an Intrepid, and stronger than a Defiant. And this particular craft, the Enterprise-E, was flagship of the fleet. Normally under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, he had been pre-empted by the mission commander Fleet-Admiral Halsey. The nature of the mission had Picard concerned. Normally the Enterprise-E would have a crew complement of 885. For this mission, almost double that had been squeezed aboard. --- The journey of the Enterprise-E did not go unnoticed. The traffic control teams at the Bilbringi facility had the Enterprise-E monitored as soon as it left Federation territory and had it maintain a standard commercial flight path. The Bilbringi facility was many things. It had started as the primary transport and communications hub for the Fringe-Worlds. With communications and transport, commercial enterprises had opened their offices for business. Warehouses for handling trans-shipping freight were constructed. Accommodation for the temporary and permanent residents were next, followed by leisure and recreation facilities. With so many ships passing through, maintenance bays for repairs, and then shipyards for construction were added to the facility. With so much activity, it was easy to transfer the government and administration to Bilbringi, along with the military, and the Advanced Research and Concepts Group. Thorn sat in his office. The office would have been considered large, if it weren't for the huge collection of contents. The main workstation in the corner looked like an open plan office cubicle without the extra walls. It was crammed with several computers, LAN ports, an archaic communications console, several shelves stacked with books, folders, electronic data pads, ancient digital/optical storage disks, and all manner of other undefined clutter. Under the workstation desk was a small set of mobile drawers and an electrically powered compressed gas cooling cabinet (or refrigerator to the non-techies) Between the workstation area and the door was a low coffee table and several one and two seater chairs. Lining the rest of the walls are glass-fronted cabinets, unremarkable in themselves; the contents however were a different story. There were reproductions of period photographs, sporting medals and trophies, military awards and decorations, uniform pieces, more photographs. And Guns. It was an eclectic collection, ranging from Lee-Enfields and Mausers of various types (Some original, others modified) to purely military weapons such as a Heckler & Koch G3 and model 21 light machine gun. The austere lines of the MG3 and FN-MAG General Purpose Machine Guns. The pure functional appearance of an Israeli Galil ARM assault rifle. Various M16s, some with their original clean appearance, others modified with attached grenade launchers, optical sites, collapsing stocks (and short barrelled carbines) and others with laser aiming devices or torches attached. A scattering of submachine guns of various types. Uzi, MP5s, Beretta model 12, Stirling, even an Owen gun. There were even a few civilian replica firearms that had been pressed into military service throughout history. A couple of AR-15s, one original SP1 sporter model, and a later A2-HBAR variant. A standard M1A with a Springfield type target sling, and a `Scout' length version with a webbing sling. Then there was a rifle on it's own, a .303 calibre standard No4 Mk2 Lee-Enfield displayed above a series of photographs of dead Borg. It's wooden furniture, blued metal, and brass butt plate standing out among the matt parkerised metal and synthetic stocked military and para-military ordinance. The only other objects of note in the office were a sledgehammer leaning up against the wall in the one far corner, and a holoprojector in the corner behind the seats. The comm system beeped and Thorn acknowledged the call. "Commander, traffic control here. Enterprise-E is inbound at warp 9.995. ETA 2 hours." "Thank you," replied Thorn, and he then keyed to disconnect. "Typical Federation gun-boat diplomacy," Thorn said to Kahla, who was seated opposite him. "They're probably trying to overawe and cow the natives with this display." Kahla laughed at that. She was the only daughter of one of the Klingon minor houses. She had grown up aboard her father's K'Vort class Bird of Prey. On one patrol, they'd rescued Thorn from a planet infested with a xenomorphic species. Against Thorn's objection, the sub-commander decided to capture some of the creatures for bio-weapons research. The officer and his detachment did not survive the encounter. The crew had only tolerated Kahla because her father was the Captain. Thorn, being the only human on board, was regarded with even more contempt! However, the Klingon crew had only ever dealt with StarFleet officers, not the Fringe-Worlders. After several crewmen had been taken to the infirmary, Kahla had taken an interest in the human. He had assisted Kahla in fitness, combat training and techniques. After proving himself in numerous hand-to-hand engagements, Thorn was accepted, reluctantly at first, by the Klingon crew eventually rising to the rank of crew chief. Thorn and Kahla were an efficient and effective team, often given the task of beating into shape (often literally) new crew members. He had later moved back to Fringe-Worlds, whilst Kahla attempted to enter the Klingon Academy; She was rejected because of her gender and the status of her family. Thorn offered her a commission with the Fringe-World's military, which she accepted. She had worked hard and quickly rose through the ranks, regarded as an efficient and effective commander. Thorn leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind in head, a position he often adopted when in deep thought. The stance exaggerated the muscular shoulders and narrow waist of his physique, the blue denim shirt with the shoulders rolled up above the elbows and the denim blue jeans highlighted the tanned forearms. Comfortable running shoes completed the ensemble. He had long believed that comfortable clothes make a better working environment. Kahla sat watching him, her head leaning on her right arm, which was resting on the right arm-rest. Her left leg was crossed over the right. The mass of long black hair was drawn back into a ponytail. She wore a black, crewer's t-shirt, with the Iron Fist's mailed gauntlet logo front and back, black riding jodhpurs, and knee-high black riding boots. The outfit accentuated her athletic build and made her look very attractive for a Klingon, much less any other humanoid. "Kahla, how about a bet?" Thorn asked, still staring up at the ceiling "My guess is that they're here about that missing Intrepid-class ship, the Voyager I think, that disappeared a few years a go." "What's the wager?" She asked, smiling coyly. "Loser takes the winner out for a meal and the entertainment of their choice." "You're on." "And how did your father respond to your new command?" He asked, again appearing to be studying the tiles above, though there was a hint of a smile now. "It overwhelmed him. He wants one, correction, several." "Once a warrior," started Thorn. "Always a warrior," completed Kahla. --- Admiral Halsey was not in a good mood. But then, he never was in a good mood. His advancement through the ranks was typical for a peacetime career officer. His career basically involved being in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time, and avoiding any controversial activity. "They said WHAT!" shouted Halsey at the communications officer. "Don't they know who we are?" Picard stared at this latest outburst in disbelief. Disbelief that this ignorant, arrogant oaf had managed to achieve flag rank. He found it amazing that a flag officer could so easily lose his cool in front of the crew, but waited for the right moment to interject. To an empath like Deanna Troi, the tension on the bridge had just reached new heights. She also shared Captain Picard's disdain for Halsey. To her senses Worf looked as though he was ready to tear the admiral's arms off and beat him to death with the stumps. The ensign at the communications console was nearing a state of nervous breakdown. Data was like an emotional black hole. Data himself, though not human, had augmented aural and visual capabilities. These coupled with his years long interaction with, and study of, humans led him to believe that the raised voices, and noticably faster cardio-vascular activities of the bridge crew meant that the tensions were fast approaching a critical point. The Ensign answered nervously, "They said to proceed to docking bay M-001 and gave the... the flight-path we-we were to follow. An-And th-they said they do know who-who we are b-because they said p-please." The Admiral's face was as red as his duty uniform. The veins in his forehead looked as though they were going to burst at any moment. "And the transporter?" He ground out between his teeth. "Th-they said no use of the tr-transporter under an-ny circumstances." "AND WHY NOT!" screamed Admiral Halsey. "Admiral, sir," interjected LtCmdr LaForge, "there's a field of some kind around the facility, it appears to prevent warp drive and transporter locks." "Admiral," said Picard, trying to impose some calm on the situation "we have been given a flight-plan and a destination, why shouldn't we follow it?" He asked. "Because, Captain, StarFleet doesn't follow anybody else's orders. Least of all, from a bunch of traitorous renegades. We give them to others and THEY follow them." Picard could sense that this mission was not going to go well with `Bull' Halsey negotiating. The man had no sense of tact or diplomacy. He was like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum because he cuoldn't get what he wanted. "Admiral, the settlers in this region left the Federation of their own accord more than a century a go. They have provided us with valuable supplies, equipment, and services for many decades. And they wish to remain on good terms with the Federation for the future." "BUT, Captain," retorted Halsey, "they don't give us those goods and services, they make us pay for them in HARD currency. They only take LATINUM or goods of equivalent material value, NOT Federation Credits." Picard was gaining new insights into Halsey's mind. The impression he was getting was that certain senior StarFleet officers and Federation bureaucrats regarded themselves as an imperial power, and that others should pay them tribute. He shuddered at the thought of where the Federation could be heading, with these sorts of people in control. Picard saw no easy way out of the argument and decided to concentrate on the matter at hand. "Commander Data, our hosts have given us directions, let's follow them." "Yes Captain," replied Data, "course laid in." Picard returned to the Captain's seat, leaving Halsey standing on the bridge. "Engage," ordered Picard. Halsey, seeing no easy way to save face in front of the bridge crew, turned to Picard "Very well Captain. I'm returning to my quarters. Advise me of our arrival." With Halsey's departure, the easing in tension was apparent to all, not just Troi and Data. --- Thorn and Kahla are relaxing on one of the two seater lounges in his office. As long time companions who had been through the trials of combat together, their bond was beyond professional. Thorn sitting on the right side his left arm around her waist, Kahla with her right arm around his shoulders, her left hand in his lap, and her head on his left shoulder. "Thorn, what do you know about the Voyager?" She asked. "Basically what we got as we monitored StarFleet's systems. Intrepid class, second production craft, about 150 crew. Commanded by Captain Janeway, last mission pursuing Maquis in the demilitarised zone. Disappeared about two or three days after departing Deep Space 9." He answered. "And aside from the usual biographical details, what do you know about Janeway," asked Kahla. "Hmm. A bit of a firebrand, known to shoot first and ask questions later. Especially if her crew's survival is at stake. The only parallel I can draw is that of Kirk. To be honest, she's one of the few StarFleet commanders I have any respect for. Unlike that idiot Halsey." "So why would StarFleet come to us about the Voyager?" "Ah, now for the interesting part. About two months ago, a contact was made with the Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram, stating they were in the Delta Quadrant." He turned to look at her reaction to this. "The Delta Quadrant? That's mostly Borg territory!" "Yes, but if they've survived this long, a few more weeks or months isn't going to matter." "What do they want to do?" She now had a worried look on her face, as the pieces slowly came together in her mind. "Someone's hatched a rescue plan, but they didn't indicate the rendezvous point," replied Thorn. "And what do they want us to do?" asked Kahla, the answer now certain but she had to ask. "Oh, nothing. Except surrender the ARCaG fleet to them." There was again that smile on Thorns face. "WHAT!" The matter-of-factness of Thorns answer caught Kahla by surprise. Her head lifted from his shoulder and she looked at him. "That's why Halsey's on the Enterprise." He said, then seeing her concerned look he added, " Don't worry, they won't be taking them. Those ships in StarFleet's hands would seriously alter the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant." --- The Enterprise docked at its assigned docking bay. First off were Admiral Halsey, Captain Picard, Commanders Data, Riker, LaForge, Worf, Counsellor Troi, and Doctor Crusher. They were taken by ground vehicle to the ARCaG fleet offices. With the exception of duty personnel, the rest of the crew disembarked to enjoy the rest and recreation facilities on offer at Bilbringi. Riker was amazed at the scale of the Bilbringi facility. "Data, what do we know about this place?" He asked, craning his neck to look around at the facilities they passed. Data thought for a moment and said, "The Bilbringi facility measures thirty kilometres by twenty by five. It's this sector's administrative, military, transportation, and communications hub. It features extensive storage, accommodation, and shipyard facilities. At any one time, the population is said to be several million people. Every year the facility grows by ten percent." "Where did you find this information, Data," asked LaForge, also impressed by the scale of the engineering. "StarFleet intelligence summary?" "No," replied Data, "From this brochure I found in the vehicle." "It almost makes Starbase 74 look small," commented LaForge. "Commander LaForge, several of the larger Starbase 74 sub-assemblies were fabricated here," replied Data. Admiral Halsey turned and scowled at the Enterprise's crew, silencing any further conversation. He was not going to have what he perceived as the Federation's engineering triumph denigrated so lightly. The vehicle stopped outside a nondescript building, whose occupancy was only noted by a sign in the front window. Once inside, the group was then escorted to Thorn's Office. Thorn and Kahla by this time had taken position on the cubicle side of the coffee table. "Ladies, Gentlemen, Please take a seat," said Thorn as the group walked through the door, motioning toward the lounge chairs. "Would you care for refreshments?" Halsey moved to one of the single seat lounge chairs and pointed at Kahla, "This is supposed to be a private meeting, so your secretary will have to leave." If Worf earlier desire to remove the admiral's arms and club him to death with the stumps was extreme, Kahla's reaction was a step worse. She wanted to tear off the admiral's limbs and use them to block any available orifice. But what someone wants and gets are two different things. The Admiral apparently oblivious to her reaction, would live; for now. "Admiral. Kahla is my second-in-command. You have your... advisers, and I'll have mine present as well." Thorn said, taking a seat himself. Riker's and LaForge's attention was clearly on Kahla. Both of them squirmed in their seats trying not to make their reaction too obvious, much to the amusement of Troi and Crusher. Even Worf was captivated and made a low guttural growl. "Then I'll get straight to the point. We're here for those six ships you've built." Said Halsey, determined to put this young fool in his place. "They're not for sale," replied Thorn. "I didn't say anything about buying them," retorted Halsey. Picard and his bridge crew were obviously in the dark about the subject of the conversation. Their blank stares made this fact even more obvious. "You still can't have them," said Thorn, matter-of-factly. Halsey stood, and reading from a datapad said, "By the power vested in me by the StarFleet Emergency Seizure and Forfeiture Act, I hereby seize the required vessels in the name of the Federation." "No." Again Thorns voice was quite, almost a whisper. Yet heard by all over Halsey's bluster. "What?" "I said No," replied Thorn. "What part of no don't you understand? The N, or the O." Admiral Halsey was used to giving orders and having others obeying them. To be talked to such a way was... infuriating! "I have just formally claimed those ships. You will hand them over immediately!" He said, as though explaining something obvious. Thorn pointed to a spot on the wall and said, "Admiral, the nearest point of Federation space is thirty-five light years that way. You are NOT in Federation territory. Federation law has no hold here. All you have done is make a needlessly verbose speech backed up with some petty posturing." Picard, seeing himself torn between his loyalty to StarFleet, a senior officer, the law and his conscience, spoke up. "Admiral, you can't take these ships. They belong to a group external to the Federation." "Quiet Picard, or you'll find yourself demoted to Ensign Junior Grade, 2nd class, even if I have to make the rank especially for you. We can take those ships by force. We have the numbers to take them and skeleton crew them back to Federation territory," snarled Halsey, clearly determined to make his point and stand his ground. "With what?" asked Kahla. "The double crew aboard the Enterprise," replied Halsey. Kahla burst out laughing. Between giggles she'd managed to say, "with the 1300 personnel who are now in the recreation sector's bars and brothels? They don't serve synthahol in there you know. By now most of them will be either under a table or a prostitute." Riker looked as though he'd made a mental point to check this area out, if given half a chance. LaForge looked as though he'd made the same decision. "And as for skeleton crewing," added Thorn, "you might have the numbers to half-skeleton crew ONE of the Victory class ships. But seeing as your not taking them, it's a moot point." "Not that you could use them," said Kahla, after recovering from her laughing fit, "every aspect of those ships is completely different from conventional technology. Power generation, propulsion, sensors, weapons, shields, are all working from totally new concepts and designs than the Federation norm." "It would be like giving the Wright Brothers a Concorde and expecting them to fly it because it's still an aeroplane." said Thorn, trying to give an appropriate analogy. "We've still got the Enterprise," said Halsey, desperately playing his last hand. "Admiral," said Thorn calmly, "the Enterprise is held in place by docking clamps. You've just lost the two biggest advantages in space combat. Speed and manoeuvrability. As for firepower, you're blocked in by our Predator-class patrol ships, and the stations defences have the Enterprise targeted as well." "And if you try to force the issue," added Kahla, " the Enterprise will be reduced to slag. We won't fire first, but we will fire last." Seeing his ace-in-the-hole beaten so soundly, Halsey slumped in his chair. "The Voyager," he mumbled, "we owe it to them." "Of course," said Thorn "you could hire them, for the right price." Chapter 3 - Acceptable Compromises Thorn called for refreshments, which arrived minutes later. The group broke up into various discussion groups. Worf was looking at the weapons, correction, Worf was drooling at the weapons, and the memorabilia, obviously trying to work out the puzzle of the No4 and the Borg. Halsey sat slumped in the chair. Picard and Thorn were conversing, with Kahla standing beside Thorn with her arm around his waist, and his around hers. Riker was staring at Kahla from the other side of the room, also drooling. LaForge was trying to work out the significance of the sledge hammer. Troi and Crusher were laughing at Riker. "You have a lot of hostility towards the Federation," said Picard. "No, I have a low tolerance of hypocrisy and double-standards. Six years on Heard Island does wonders for your outlook on things," replied Thorn, bitterly. "Heard Island? Where's that?" Asked Picard, geniunely puzzled. "About halfway between South Africa and Antarctica. It makes the penal colony on New Zealand look like a holiday camp." Thorn explained. "How could any place be worse than the New Zealand penal colony?" "Heard Island is still influenced by Antarctica's weather patterns. The wind almost never stops. You're lucky if you see the sun one day in two months. And to top it off, the 4000 metre peak on the island is an active volcano." Thorn elaborated, the memories bringing a look of loathing to his face. "And what did you do there?" Picard enquired, his curiosity truly piqued. "Supposedly I was there to monitor an AUTOMATED weather station. In reality I was sent there to die." "That's a harsh assessment," scoffed Picard. "Picard, I was dumped there with only a survival suit, no shelter except from what I could scrounge, and, initially, monthly supplies. The re-supply intervals soon increased to two months, then three, and a year later it was six months. After the third year, the supplies came annually, and after the second annual drop, they stopped coming altogether." "How did you get off the island." "A maintenance team arrived over two years after the last supply drop. They took me to Durban, where I arranged my transport off world. I haven't been to Earth in nearly twenty-five years." "And why are you adamant that StarFleet not take possession of these ships? Halsey is the only one who seems to know anything about them." Picard changed the subject. "Picard, if StarFleet had those ships, it would seriously alter the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant." "How could six ships do this? We have the same number of Sovereign-class ships nearing completion at the Utopia Planetia yards, and the hulls for another dozen being laid." "The Sovereign-class is the ultimate refinement of existing technology. Imagine the strategic and tactical implications of a drive system that is much faster than warp." LaForge overheard this and joined in the conversation. "How much faster?" He asked. "Several orders of magnitude beyond the fastest warp EVER attained. Estimated from 50,000 to several million." "That would have severe implications," conceded Picard. "That's right," replied Thorn. "We could do hit-and-run attacks on some member worlds, settlements and outposts. While you're reacting to those, we could perform an end-run maneouvre on your capital," said Kahla. "And," added Thorn, "similar quantum leaps in firepower, sensors and protection. You experienced the firepower, scaled down, in last year's fleet exercise." He smiled, "We don't call these types of vessel 'Star Destroyers' for nothing." "There's also the sheer scale of the ships." Kahla supplied, "The smallest is 600 metres in length, the next three are 900 metres, and the two biggest are 1600 metres in length." Picard shuddered at the thought. He knew that if StarFleet had those ships, even just the technology, the other power blocks would consider the Federation to be enough of a threat to start yet another conflict. "And we've already shredded a Borg Cube," said Thorn. That was enough to get Worf's attention away from the weapons and to join in the main conversation. Even Riker was interested enough to approach the group. "And if you don't believe us, watch this recording from the Chimaera's sensor logs," said Kahla as she approached a holo-projector in the far corner of the room. After the appropriate file was accessed, a two cubic metre three-dimensional image was projected above the machine. "The Z-dimension scale has been compressed to keep things at a visible size," she added as she stepped back from the projector and moved towards Thorn. "The actual target distance was over twenty kilometres." As the audience saw the Cube pulled out of the warp conduit, she moved beside Thorn habitually wrapping her arm around his waist. As the Star Destroyers began to engage the Cube in the alpha-strike, he instinctively moved his arm around her waist. The mixed-mode firing phase was now in effect, with huge chunks of the Cube being obliterated with every strike. The Cube was starting to take the appearance of a doughnut, and then it turned into a brilliant but short lived star. The recording was enough to even shake Halsey from his stupor. "What are your terms, Thorn," He grumbled. "No Fed-Creds," said Thorn as he untangled himself from Kahla and picked up a datapad from his desk. "The only use for those is to wipe my backside, at least I could if they were more absorbent." Thorn tossed the datapad to Halsey. Kahla was now starting to giggle at the jokes. Worf approached Kahla to discuss some peculiarly Klingon matters with her. Halsey read the payment list and started to turn white. "You want too much," he all but screamed. Thorn stood over Halsey, who was still seated, and replied, "Those ships represent a MAJOR capital investment, and you want to take them three-quarters the way across Borg space. At least those materials will give us a head-start if we have to re-build them. Besides, we'll accept a third before we go, another third at the rendezvous, and the last third on our return to Bilbringi or Deep Space 9. Now we both have a vested interest in this operation. You get the Voyager back, and we get the resources." "And I suppose you want the Voyager's cartographic data as well," asked Halsey, cynically. "That would be fair," replied Thorn, "especially as we could trade our recon data of the Borg territory with you. You see, Admiral, instead of blustering demands backed by threats that could have precipitated a war, trade and negotiation will achieve much more in the long run." "You sound like a damned Ferengi," snorted Halsey. "I don't regard that as an insult," commented Thorn. "The Ferengi regard us as tough, but fair customers. And all of our trading partners know we'll abide by the terms of a contract." "Is there anything else," queried Halsey, sarcastically. "Crew." Replied Thorn, simply. "The Interdictor was originally design for a crew of three thousand. The Victory-class was intended to have a complement of six thousand; and up to fifteen hundred... passengers, and the Imperial-class was supposed to have about thirty-eight thousand crew and up to twelve thousand passengers. We've been running them with bare skeleton crews of four hundred, nine hundred, and two thousand respectively. Increased automation and robotic security and maintenance has made it possible, but more hands would make the job easier." The crew numbers required were staggering when compared to StarFleet craft. "We would accept volunteers from the Enterprise's crew. The Admiral could draw up the orders for their secondment, and the Enterprise's senior staff could join as a liaison team. The crew will be paid individually according to their rank and experience." Thorn concluded. "That is acceptable," grumbled Halsey, "but what about the Enterprise?" "You and a skeleton crew take the Enterprise back to Deep Space 9," replied Thorn. Halsey had to admit that an acceptable compromise had been reached. Worf spoke up. "What is the significance of that archaic relic amongst the military weapons." "I was on vacation near the outer rim when the Borg decided to conduct a snatch-and-grab recruitment drive." Thorn replied, his gaze seeming to glaze as he remembered the events. "Localised sensor jamming prevented them from teleporting the entire colony, so they transported down some drones to do the job personally. They adapted to the phaser weapons used by some of the locals, but their personal shields are set for energy weapons, not projectile or impact weapons. It was like being on a target range. I just sat down and picked off the Borg drones one-by-one until one group was finished. Other people got in on the act, and several hundred Borg were massacred. The Cube cut it's losses and left. It amazes me how many of those old relics are out there in private hands." "And the sledgehammer," asked LaForge. "My turn," said Kahla as she moved excitedly to the sledgehammer in the corner. She picked up the hammer and balanced the shaft on her shoulder with the head behind her. "We've also been researching new materials. Mostly various neutronium based alloys, but this stuff is fantastic. Its called Transpari-steel. We use one-plus metre thick sections on our capital ships, thinner sections on starfighters and shuttles. The layer on these cabinets is only two millimetres thick." With the spiel out of the way, she raised the hammer, and swung it down onto a cabinet, which had a clear top section. Instead of breaking through as expected, it bounced off with a metallic PING. Three more hits had the same result. "Impressive stuff, huh?" she asked as she placed the hammer back into the corner. Picard adjusted his uniform top, "We all have a great deal to organise. So, if this concludes the matters here, we will head back to the Enterprise to get started." With that the StarFleet personnel, began to file out. With the guests now gone Kahla turned to Thorn and stood right in front of him. Normally this would be a provocative act, but Thorn wrapped his arms around her waist with his hands on her buttocks, feeling her athletically toned muscles through her t-shirt and jodhpurs. She simultaneously drew him closer, until they were pressed against each other. Their faces mere centimetres apart, their eyes staring into each other. "You bastard," she said seductively. "You knew what they were here for." "Well I do have my sources," Thorn said as their lips joined. At first slowly, then time had no meaning for next few minutes. Still embracing each other, he said, "Because of the deception, the bet is off. I'll pay." "And afterwards, your place or mine," she said softly. "It depends on whose place we can find while nearly blind drunk." He said with a smile. "And that is an offer I will take you up on," she said as she turned toward the door and led him hand-in-hand, with their fingers interlocked, out to find the nearest bar. Chapter 4 - First Encounters The next few days the ships were a constant hive of activity. Ironically, the Star Destroyers needed the least preparation. They only needed their reserves of Tibanna gas (the name for the gas used as ammunition for their tubolasers) and consumables topped up from their previous journey. As an indication of how much food and other consumables were available, the Imperial-class ships have enough for 50,000+ crew for six years. The Victory-class ships can carry enough for seven and a half thousand for four years, and even the Interdictor carries enough for three thousand people for more than a year. Most of the activity was taken up in the receiving of the first installment of StarFleet crew members, and the training thereof to a standard required to operate the ship's systems without causing accidents. Luckily the Star Destroyers were designed to be more-or-less idiot-proof, with multiple redundancies and fail-safes to prevent accidents, so that the StarFleet personnel would be able to learn on the job (Without the numerous accidents that the Federation seemed to take for granted!). The Enterprise-E slipped its moorings and headed for Deep Space 9 with Admiral Halsey in command, with a volunteer skeleton crew, who all insisted on combat pay while the admiral was on board. If anything, it was harder to get crew for the Enterprise-E than it was for the Star Destroyers about to head into Borg space. After a standard week, the final crew round up was under way. The StarFleet personnel in the bars were escorted (often with drink still in hand), to the crew assigning section. Those in the brothels were escorted, politely once their time was up, to the medical centre for screening, and then to their new billet. The Chimaera, being the command ship, had the Enterprise's senior officers on board. Already there were frictions, one of the first complaints was about using transporters. Even before departure, Picard had a list of complaints. "Thorn, I have some issues that need to be discussed." He said as he and Thorn were on the bridge. Thorn motioned Picard to enter the Captain's bridge office. "What is it Picard? Our ETD is in less than ninety minutes, and final readiness checks are under way." "First," said Picard, referring to a data pad. thought Thorn to himself. "The transporters. Why are they off limits to all personnel?" "Picard I'll answer each item in turn.," replied the exasperated Thorn, "We have a moral objection to having our matter converted to energy for, what is to all intents and purposes, a cloning process. Why waste the time and energy when there's a perfectly good door. Transporters are only used for freight handling." "The lack of recreation facilities," continued Picard. "You mean the holosuits? They are earmarked for the training of your people. Anyway, there are recreation lounges, a library, gymnasium, even a swimming pool. However this is a warship, first and foremost." Thorn pointed out. "The crew assignments." "I'll consider promoting your people once they've proved competent at the tasks they've been given." "No replicators." "Why have several thousand tonnes of raw food stock, which requires a lot of energy to make passably edible, when there's a perfectly good galley that can make passably edible food from more conventional sources, but if your people want to install a food replicator in the crew's mess, then they are welcome to do so." "The accomodations are a little spartan, and cramped." Concluded Picard. "See point two, but know we're all in the same situation." "I think I've seen better appointments in a prison," retorted Picard, pressing the point. "Picard," said Thorn, barely restraining his anger, "if you're looking for sympathy, then I suggest you'll find it in a dictionary, between shit and syphilis. Now go away, I have more pressing concerns." Picard seeing his arguments going nowhere, and deciding that nothing useful would come from further debate, left the Captain's office and returned to his senior staff in a meeting room near their quarters. They had much to discuss. As he made his way to his seat, he asked for reports from the crew relevant to their areas of expertise. Riker spoke first. "These ships are designed to fight," he stated simply. "All the systems have several levels of duplication and redundancy. The hull consists of an armoured belt of neutronium alloy, at least thirty five metres thick. It would take a lot of fighting to knock these out for good." Worf spoke next. He had been drooling of a data pad showing a schematic of the ships weapon systems. "Multiple weapon systems, with multiple redundancies for power supply and ammunition feed. Taking out one installation does not affect the others. Duplicated targeting systems and independent operation of each installation ensuring maximum effectiveness. Weapons can be slaved to track one or many targets." He stopped while he thought about these points in context. "Even against the Chimaera alone, a Romulan D'deridex Warbird would be lucky to survive. Against the fleet, no chance at all." Geordi LaForge spoke next. "The ship is powered by a `Solar Fusion Reactor'. It's likened as a miniature star, and in power output it's not a bad description. Peak power output is only required for a 'hyperspace' jump. Most of the time it recharges the power cells that regulate the supply to the other ship's systems. The 'hyperdrive' itself is several orders of magnitude faster than a warp drive, but does not have the low-end superluminal speeds that warp drive has. The hyperdrive is an all-or-nothing system, but that speed opens up a lot of new strategic and tactical scenarios. All told these point to a very different design and technology base than our own, not to mention more advanced. To duplicate these we would need to spend a considerable amount of time just trying to copy the start points and move on from there." "Commander Data, your report please," said Picard. "The ship's computer systems consist of a central super-computer, but many functions are distributed to other computers, who then report back to the central unit. The main computer is not essential to the running of all the functions of the ship, but it does help a lot." "And," added LaForge, "a Warp core explosion is also impossible. No excess reactants are in the main reactor. Excess material is scavenged for re-use. The reactor vessel is large, that's what causes the bulge on the ventral line." "A potential weak point," queried Picard. "No," replied Riker. The hull in that section is triple layered, and then there's the vessel itself. The combined thickness is over one hundred metres of neutronium alloy." "Beverly, your report." "The ship's infirmery is mostly crewed by specially built medical droids. They are nothing but efficient and very capable, though they are lacking in the human touch. Most of the medical technology is standard, with one exception. Bacta, this material can be applied locally to a particular area or the patient can be dipped into a container of it. The healing properties of this stuff is amazing, but it's purely biological in it's origin, and cannot be replicated. I have no idea where they got this from, but they are not open to trading it." "Counsellor Troi, your reactions to the crew, ours and theirs." Picard continued. "Well Captain, our crew is adjusting to the change. The most common complaint is about the cramped quarters, but most have adjusted by only sleeping in them and conducting off-duty recreation activities elsewhere. Their crew has the same attitude in this regard, but they're more at ease with the situation. If anything, it's anticipation and eagerness that I detect from them, but for what I don't know." "On board a warship," replied Picard, "that could only mean one thing." --- On schedule, the six ships slipped their moorings and headed out under their sublight drives. On board the Chimaera, Thorn was sitting in the Captain's position, aft of the crew pits on the main bridge. "All ships," said Thorn, "set course for Star's End and await further instructions". The other Captains each acknowledged their orders and activated their hyperdrive systems. Last of all, the Chimaera jumped into hyperspace. Picard and rest of his command crew are seated at the back of the bridge. For a first time experience, hyperspace could be visually described as a bad acid trip. "How far is Star's End," asked Picard. "Star's End is about Eighty light-years from Bilbringi," replied Thorn. "It marks the furthest reach of what is regarded as the Fringe-Worlds. Beyond are the Nether-Worlds between the galactic spiral arms." "How long is that going to take," asked Riker. "About eighty to ninety minutes. Long enough for us to use the Captain's office upstairs for a meeting," Thorn replied as he stood and moved to the turbolift at the aft end of the bridge. Picard and his command crew also stood and moved to the turbolift. The contrast between the crews couldn't have been more apparent. The StarFleet command crew in their issue bodysuits, and Thorn and the Chimaera's crew in camo field fatigues, with webbing belt and sidearm. Moments later they emerged from the turbolift into the Captain's office. This was the highest inhabited part of the ship. Above them were the pre-processors and power feed for the sensor domes and the armoured roof structure. The room would have been similar to any company board room. Instead of durasteel decking, there was comfortable but still functional carpeting. Laminated wood panels replaced the usual functional plastic and steel wall panelling. The centrepiece of the room was a twenty seat table with a holoprojector in the middle. Not real wood of course. A wood laminate material, much lighter in colour than the wall panelling. Inletted into the table were covers for concealed network and power connections. Around the table were a number of wheeled office chairs. In the centre of the forward wall was a floor-to-ceiling Transpari-steel window. The window was over twenty five metres wide. The panoramic view, even with the streaked view of hyperspace, was incredible. The view also gave a clear indication of the size of the ship, with the long dagger point of the bow nearly fourteen hundred metres away. Thorn sat down and activated the holoprojector showing a map of the known galaxy. "Obviously you've told the Voyager to lie low and wait. Where is it?" He inquired. Picard nodded to Data who said, "The Voyager is waiting in this gaseous nebula" he pointed to a region two thirds across Borg territory from the Romulan empire. "Thank you Commander," said Thorn. "Now our course from Star's End is going to cut through the Cardassian territory from here to here," he pointed the path in the holomap, and then skirts the edge of the Romulan's territory to reach the furthest known edge of Borg territory here." "Won't the Cardassians react or retaliate from your incursion," queried Worf. "No. The Cardassians know that any engagement with us will cost them dearly. Do you remember the Setlik III incident?" Thorn asked looking around the table. Most of the StarFleet people nodded their heads. "The Cardassians took it after a... mis-understanding. We took it back!" Thorn made it clear that the Cardassians had not come out of that well. "They've tried to launch raids into our space, with the exception of a few of the early ones, all have been repulsed. Now, the region of space we're going through is sparsely populated, only with mines and penal settlements, always together for some reason. They won't bother us, even if they somehow detect us in Hyperspace." "What of the Romulans?" added Picard. "We're passing by them, not through them. Since no-one has had these ships pass through, they'll read any emissions as a sensor glitch or an anomaly reading. We should not be disturbed until we get to Borg space." Thorn explained. "And then," queried Picard. "We'll see when we encounter the Borg." --- The ARCaG flotilla raced through the known territories, stopping only briefly to check their locations between jumps. Nonetheless, it was more than a week before the first encounter. There are no real borders in deep space. It was only noticed that the Romulan influence had diminished, and that every system investigated was a dead world. It was while passing through one of these dead systems, that a ship was encountered. "Captain," Tycho Jones called, "contact bearing 352 by 5, SAPs is working on an ID." "Ok,I've got it on my monitor," replied Thorn, "what does SAPs have to say about it?" SAPs was the Signals Analysis Program. The software was a slightly tweaked version of the analysis software fitted to the Predator-class ships. It could identify types of ships by their emissions' profile, even individual craft could be positively identified if enough data is gathered. "SAPs reports it to be a Ferengi bulk hauler, but only with a thirty-one percent certainty. This ship is heavily modified." Tycho said, watching his sensor operators working on aquiring a more complete analysis. "Check it against known Borg profiles." Thorn suggested. "Confirmed, ship is matching the generic Borg signatures, certainty measured at sixty-eight percent." "Fire-control," said Thorn, "Run solutions on that target." "Captain, target is now on a reciprocal heading to us." Reported Tycho. Picard and Riker, who were in discussion, now approached Thorn's station. "What happens now?" asked Riker. "First Contact with the Borg," answered Thorn. "The ball is in their court, but I have a feeling how they're going to play." "If anything," commented Picard, "the Borg certainly are predictable." "And that's why we're going to sow some confusion and uncertainty in their midst. They'll probably try to transport a drone or two on board. When they bounce of the shields, they'll try to bore us to death with the usual speech." Said Thorn. "You may enjoy seeing our reply, I'm going to use a set of overlay images in the comms system. Sit in the bridge briefing room and watch on the monitors in there," Picard and Riker walked into the bridge briefing room to note that two monitors were activated, one with "RECEIVING" overlaid on the blank screen, and "TRANSMITTING" overlaid on the other. A few seconds after they sat down, the Borg message was on the screen. The usual speech with the image of Borg drone on the screen. Picard supressed a shudder at the sight. Before Riker could make a snide comment on the speech, the transmitting image was on display. Thorn's image had been replaced by that of a figure in black robes, with black body armour, a black helmet and a black breathing mask. The bridge crew was replaced by figures in white armour with white full helmets. "Unknown vessel, this is Lord Darth Vader of the Galactic Empire." The black figure stated "In the name of Emperor Palpatine, you are ordered to stop your vessel and prepare for boarding." If Picard was shaken by the Borg's first speech, their next statement sent shivers up his spine. "Your Empire and Emperor are irrelevant. You will be assimilated into the Collective." The black figure on the screen pointed out the forward viewport. "I want that ship disabled NOW for boarding!" He ordered. From the port side, the heavy ion-cannon targeted the Borg ship and fired one shot. The charged particles arced their way over and through the Borg ship. Picard got to see a Borg show signs of intense pain before the ship's communication's equipment were overloaded by the discharge. The Borg ship was never boarded. There was too much ionic discharge, and not enough mass to absorb it. Like the Cube a few weeks before the matter/anti-matter containment field emitters were overloaded allowing excess reactants to mix in an uncontrolled manner. The Borg ship disappeared in a brilliant flash of white. After regaining his composure Picard, with Riker following behind, approached Thorn's station. "What in the devil was that charade about Thorn," asked Picard, his puzzlement plain. "Disinformation," replied Thorn. "They would have been transmitting back to the Collective. The last thing we want them to know is that Species 5618 (human) is conducting a raid, writ large, with ships of new technology and design. This way the identity of their attacker is unknown." "And the references to an Emperor and Empire?" Asked Riker. "Further dis-information. The names came from popular late 20th century literature. What did you see on the screen? Humanoid type figures, two arms, two legs, and a head. Any further identification would be impossible." "You have satisfied my curiosity in this regard, but I have to ask,why aren't you letting us know about your plans in detail?" "Because Picard, what you don't know, you can't reveal to the Collective once assimilated." Stated Thorn. The comment about assimilation must have touched some raw nerves. However, it was Riker who spoke first. "Some people could take that to mean you don't trust the Captain because he was assimilated." He said, his displeasure at the implication obvious. "Riker," replied Thorn, "I give Picard far more trust and respect than most StarFleet officers. It's StarFleet high command who don't trust him." "What do mean by that," asked Riker, clearly taken aback. Picard was strangely quiet during this exchange, as though it could be the answer to several questions. Non-essential crew members were listening-in from a distance. Even the present StarFleet volunteers were paying attention. "Do you remember Admiral Satie's witch-hunt, finding spies and saboteurs throughout StarFleet?" Thorn replied, dropping his voice so anly Picard and Riker could hear him. "Because of his assimilation as Locutus, Captain Picard will never make flag rank. The only reason he hasn't been medically discharged and kept under close observation is because of his popularity and reputation as Captain of the Enterprise. Thats why almost all of your assignments are in the furthest reaches of the Federation. It's known as damage limitation. They're keeping you on a short leash. Every now and then it's given a tug to let you know where you are." Picard turned and walked to the turbolift. Riker, initially stunned by the revelation, had to jog to catch up to Picard. They both returned to their quarters. The ARCaG fleet then prepared for it's next hyperspace jump. Chapter 5 - Escalations 'Chimaera' Captain's Log: "The Borg were not slow in reacting to the destruction of what could be considered a scout ship. Several other ships were encountered in the day's following and were similarly dispatched. I understand that economy of force is major factor in military operations, but the Borg seem to take it to extremes. They've only sent single ships, for which I'm grateful, but it's only a matter of time until they start to send cubes after us. Now we're experiencing problems with the StarFleet crew members. Most are getting increasingly angry and irritable. Many are not sleeping at all during their off-duty periods. My personal opinion is that, as mad as it may sound, they are suffering from some form of withdrawal from an addictive drug. What that drug may be or even if that is the real reason, is something I intend to find out." Thorn sat at the meeting table in the captain's office, the CMO Commander `Cutter' Carter, a 2-1B medical droid, Crew Chief Blaste and Security Chief Gurney were there as well. The topic of discussion having once more turned to the problem with the Starfleet personnel. "The Fleeties are flipping out," said Blaste. "Work standards have fallen, and many are now not turning up to their rostered duty times." "Assaults between them and us, and even just between themselves have skyrocketed in the last few days," added Gurney. "We already have a few in the detention blocks, but they seem to be responding to bacta therapy from the medical centre." "Oh? And how do they end up in a bacta tank," queried Thorn. "Well," replied Gurney, trying to be diplomatic, "some... force had to be used to restrain them, especially as some of them were in a manic state, but nothing serious or permanent was done to them." The embarrassed Security chief quickly moved on "Anyway, a day in the bacta tank fixes whatever we've done to them, or mostly what they've done to themselves. And they seem to have recovered completely after bacta therapy. It must fix whatever causes them to flip out. There are no repeat offenders after treatment." "Doctor, your response," prompted Thorn. "You were right in your supposition of withdrawal from an addiction," said Doctor Carter. "And, it appears to come from the food replicator in the main mess. The ones most affected have been the ones who have used it the least. The 2-1B," He nodded his head in the droids direction, "Found it after analysing all the food served in the mess. 2-1B, your findings." The medical droid had already plugged itself into one of the table's network connectors. Using the table's holodisplay the droid presented its findings. While pointing to a highlighted part of the display, the droid droned, "This component is identical to all synthesised foodstuffs generated by the Federation replication unit. At first thought to be a batch marker, after analysis it turned out to be a very powerful anti-depressant drug with a synthetic opiate attached to it." "I've always wondered why Fleeties look like they're munching the happy pills," said Thorn. "They're loaded to the eyeballs on Prozac and they're using narcotic addiction to keep them from straying too far. What are our options?" "Well, firstly the drug is slightly more complex than you think, there's whole groups of combinants with specific tasks." The Dr looked around the table, wanting to ensure that everyone understood his point. "Someone somewhere spent a great deal of time and thought on this, the small size versus effect suggests that this has been refined over time. Just making sure it didn't have an adverse reaction in differing species when administered via differing food items must have taken years of research.," replied Carter, "As to what to do about it, well thats simple. My suggestions are to remove that food replicator and run the Fleeties through a course of bacta therapy." "Thats a start," said Thorn, "Blaste, how will this affect your crew rosters?" "It will be tough for a while, but it may be necessary to get things back to normal." The Crew Chief replied. "Ok, Dr could you to think some more on those points you raised?" asked Thorn, recieving a nod from the CMO, he knew the man would have done so anyway but it didn't hurt to ask. He looked at the Agenda "Any other problems?" Blaste gave a look of exasperation and replied "Ensign 2nd class Timothy Jones. I'd swear if he was any more stupid, he'd have to be watered several times a day! Even the Fleeties try to avoid him if possible." Doctor Carter shook his head and added, "The only time I've ever thought about conducting a live disection was when he was assisting the medical orderlies. They were this close to drowning him in a bacta tank, after he tried to cure them with a StarFleet tricorder and StarFleet medical equipment. Doctor Crusher always seems to be unavailable when he's about. The LAST time he was on medical duty, all of the patients decided they were cured and signed themselves out." Blaste continued, "when in the engineering section, he tried to boost the reactor's power output. Luckily he was stopped in time. Later when maintaining one of the heavy turbolasers, he didn't acknowledge the concept of recoil buffering so deactivated the "useless, power-hungry system", so the first shot would have destroyed the turret and severely damaged the ship. In Environmental Control, he started to set the system to make poison gas that would have killed everybody. Oh, and finally when working on the ships sensor array he made a "Efficiency boosting" modification, which if energised, would have sent out a massive subspace signal that would have called all Borg in a fifty light year radius. Luckily, his co-worker decided to check his work." "That's not all," said Gurney, "in small arms training in the holodeck, we were very lucky that the safety protocols were active. He whinged when he was thrown out. The thought of Timothy Jones with a weapon even made the Fleeties nervous, and they were relieved when it was clear that he wasn't going to be allowed to have one." "Where is he now?" asked Thorn, his head swimming in disbelief that anybody could be that stupid and still be alive. "Cleaning the bilge tanks," replied Blaste. "It's the one place he can do no harm...at least I don't think he can." --- The ARCaG fleet was now at its latest lay-over point. This stop would be the longest because of some catch-up maintenance. In the bowels of the 'Chimaera', Ensign Timothy Jones was up to his knees in sludge. He wore a hazardous environment suit, but somehow the smell still seemed to penetrate. After a few minutes, the suit was as hot as a sauna. He just could not escape that smell, even the decontamination scrub and spray couldn't remove all traces. Timothy Jones wondered why each assignment was worst than the last. 'All I tried to do was help,' he thought to himself while trying to remove a blockage in the filter at the drainage pipe. He could barely grip the tools he was given with the suit's thick gloves. Trying to remove the small, slippery material blocking the pipe was almost impossible, almost. 'I could have cured those patients in the infirmary. I had the tools and skills from the StarFleet Academy first aid course. MY modifications to that primitive fusion reactor would have boosted its output at least tenfold. It's only what I was taught at the academy. Don't they understand basic fusion theory? I thought all the weapons were lasers. Turbolaser has the word laser in it. Lasers are light. Light has no mass, so why the recoil mechanism on a light weapon? MY improvements to the sensor array would detect everything within a hundred light years. Don't they appreciate my genius? No of course not!' He sighed 'This sort of thing never happened to my classmate Wesley Crusher. I wonder what became of him?" he mused as he was finally able to remove the blockage. He spent a few seconds looking at the sewerage plastics he had removed before tossing them into the plastic bucket beside him. He continued his musings as he shovelled a mound of semi-solid biological waste into a disposal chute. 'And the training session. What primitive weapons. They look ugly, are very noisy, hurt the user, and need constant re-supply. No, I like the sleek profiles of the Type II hand phaser and the Type III phaser rifle. It's the latest technology from the best StarFleet engineers. It MUST be the best! And all I did was turn to ask the instructor a question. No-one was in any danger. The holodeck safety protocols were on. I think his response was totally uncalled for. And why didn't the other StarFleet personnel help me?' He looked at the mound and realised that he would spend most of the rest of the shift shovelling shit into a chute. With a sigh of resignation, he kept shovelling. Things were not quiet for long. At another part of the system the fleet was stopped in, four ships emerged from a transwarp conduit. Three Borg scout ships and a cube. However, this did not go unnoticed; as soon as they had reverted to real-space, the Borg had been detected. Thorn, Kahla, and the other captains were quickly in conference from their command stations. "'Interdictor' and 'Lucky Hand'," ordered Thorn, "move off and distract the smaller craft. The rest with me on the cube. I think this matter has just gotten serious." The 'Interdictor' and the 'Lucky Hand' moved off in the direction of the 'Chimaera's port side. They moved in classic combat separation with several kilometres between them. The Borg scouts altered their course to intercept. While this minor engagement was forming up, the Borg cube was approaching the remaining vessels. The Borg, once more reacting predictably. "We are the Borg. Prepare to be assimilated. Your existence, as you know it ... is over. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt, to service us. Resistance ... is futile," droned through the bridge speakers. At this point the cube was now in range of the ''Chimaera''s and 'Iron Fist's heavy weapons. The ice-white Ion-Cannon blasts stuck home with the excess discharges snaking over the structure. The Borg continued relentlessly forwards. Numerous shield generators were knocked out in the initial Ion-Cannon volley. The heavy turbolasers added to the damage striking where the shields had collapsed in some places, and collapsing the active shields in others. Yet the Borg cube continued. It was now in range of the lighter weapons, aa well as those of the 'Armageddon' and 'Thor's Hammer'. The visual effect was like that of a meteorite storm in a planetary atmosphere. Hundreds of ice-white ion-cannon and green turbolaser blasts. The Borg cube continued to progress towards the four ships. The Borg scout ships approached the 'Interdictor' and the 'Lucky Hand'from the starboard side. The combined firepower of the two ships literally shredded the lead ship causing the other two to break off their attack. Testiment to the skills and discipline of the gunnery crews that the 'Interdictor' was able to add its firepower onto the lead scout craft while not hitting the 'Lucky Hand'. The break-off manoeuvre allowed the other two craft to escape while dividing the attentions of the ship's gunnery crews. The Borg crew realised that most of the weapons fire was coming from the opponents upper surfaces so they concluded that most successful attempt would be to attack from the lower side. The two ships turned in a beautifully choreographed manoeuvre to attack the lower side. Once the Borg ships were below the horizon caused by the ship's superstructure and in the relative safety of the ventral side, they concentrated their beam weapons trying to cause a local shield failure. Whilst most of the Star Destroyers weapons were indeed on the upper (dorsal) surface, enough weapons are mounted on the lower (ventral) side to at least give the Borg ships something to worry about. The Borg considered that a nominal success. Of course a few drones were "permanently disconnected" from the continuum from the incoming weapons fire, but those losses were preferable to losing whole ships. The Borg scout ships raced past the Star Destroyers to turn and commence another attack. The collective's best plan was to cause a local shield failure on the larger ship's ventral surface and try to transport some drones to begin assimilation of the crew. But the 'Interdictor' had anticipated this move and had rolled one hundred and eighty degrees to face down, then moved into close formation with the 'Lucky Hand'. The effect was to lower the quantity of firepower available to be concentrated on a single target, but to also cover each ship's ventral side with mutually supporting fire. The Borg realised that once between the two ships, their probabilities for success, and surviving, were much higher as neither of the large vessels could fire without hitting each other; also each would only be able to bring their Ventral batteries to bear. One ship approached from the bow end, the other from the stern. The one approaching the bow received the attentions of the bow, beam (side), and ventral weapons of both ships. The shields collapsed under the onslaught and the scout ship turned into a funeral pyre for the drones on board. The Fringe-Worlders regarded the assimilation process as a form of brain death. The body was a meat puppet, kept alive by the implants, with the collective pulling the strings. Killing Borg drones was simply regarded as an act of mercy, finally releasing the damned souls to oblivion. The other ship approached from astern while keeping out of the engine's ion-emissions. Those same engine emissions, shielding, and the sheer thickness of the hull armour prevented a successful transporter lock. Ion-cannons near the docking bay opened fire. Just enough to shut down the engines without causing a catastrophic matter/anti-matter reaction. Tractor beams then pulled the ship into the 'Lucky Hand''s docking bay. To say the Borg are relentless is to say the least. The front face of the Borg cube was now resembling an asteroid. The corners had been shot off, deep craters had appeared in the front face, and the efforts of Borg self-repair systems were being set back with every incoming shot. The cube's return fire was now very sporadic. What little of it was only a minor inconvenience to the Star Destroyers. To the StarFleet crews able to witness this full demonstration, it was awe inspiring. Survivors from the battle of Wolf 359 were cheering as more of the cube disintegrated before their eyes. It's one thing to see a recording. It was something else to see it for real. StarFleet weapons had progressively less impact as the Borg tuned to their operating frequencies. The combined turbolaser and ion-cannon barrage did not lessen in its intensity or effect. The storm of ice-white and green continued to hammer the Borg cube. The ion-cannons progressively disabled the cube's systems, whilst the turbolasers then blasted them apart. The crater in the centre of the cube's front face was visibly enlarging, and deepening. With time the cube's self-repair systems would restore the cube, but time was running out. With very little impediment, the turbolaser barrage started to remove larger and larger chunks from the cube. There was little to stop the combined barrage striking the cube's main reactor, turning the cube into a brilliant but brief stellar object. The expanding shock wave was felt through the deck plates of the closest ships. But to Timothy Jones, presently up to his knees in shit (and other unmentionable substances) in the bilge tank, the vibration was enough to lose his grip on the floor and to send him flat on his back covered in the muck. Although protected from the sludge by the suit, it didn't stop a small avalanche from descending over his legs and torso. 'Now I know that things can get worse,' he thought as he started to remove the stuff by hand. On board the 'Lucky Hand', there was still a matter of tidying up the mess that had been brought aboard. The Borg ship was manouevered into the main docking bay. A Jamming field was in operation to prevent transporters, a security detachment armed with E-11 BlastTech carbines was ready. Most of the troops would have preferred a slug-thrower like a M4 carbine or a shotgun. A few reserve troops were carrying Heckler and Koch UMP-45 submachine guns, but their use was in EXTREME emergencies only. On board space ships packed with ordinance, delicate electrical equipment, fuel, and many thousands of kilometres of piping and wiring, there are many things that don't take too kindly to bullets, to say the least. The E-11 BlastTech carbine is in effect a scaled down turbolaser. It was intended for tactical distances, typically within 200 metres - 300 metres at a stretch. The plasma bolt it fired was very damaging to soft targets. Tissue damage was often downright horrific. None of the neat disintegration of the phaser, the E-11 just blew big holes in things. The Borg scout ship was about forty metres long. The design was from some humanoid race, but had been heavily assimilated. Clues to its origin lay in the size of the main airlock door and the location of the controls. The engines and power plant were at one end, the airlock door was forward of the ship's reactor, then what looked like cargo spaces and finally what was presumably a cockpit at the front. Speed was of the essence. No-one wanted to give the Borg a second chance. The security detachment were wearing ablative armour that combined a light isolation suit and self-contained communications and tactical sensors. One squad of troops rushed to the cockpit view-port, and the second towards the main airlock door. Breaching charges were set, the squads withdrew to temporary safety, and the charges were detonated. The muffled crump noises echoed throughout the docking bay. Before the echoes had stopped, one squad was entering through the cockpit while the other stormed through the main airlock. Any Borg resistance was met with a hail of red blaster bolts. It was only a matter of seconds before anything Borg on board the ship was roasted meat, whether they resisted or nor was irrelevant. The Borg bodies, and pieces thereof, were then hauled out and packed into stasis containers to be shuttled to the 'Chimaera'. An engineering team then boarded to attempt recovery of any information from the ship's systems. A while later on board the 'Chimaera', Doctors Crusher and Carter, assisted by the medical droids were performing autopsies on the Borg shuttled in from the 'Lucky Hand'. The fifteen complete bodies, and pieces for at least another five, were laid out on the examination tables. "Doctor Crusher," asked Carter, "what is your opinion of these Borg?" "Cause of death, massive internal and external trauma caused a large number of short-range plasma discharges," she replied deadpan. "And their source of origin?" "The first four are human," she said. Doctor Crusher then walked past each body and examined them with a medical tricorder. "And then a Cardassian, two Romulans, a Bajoran. The rest are unknown." "Well there's something to keep you occupied," replied Doctor Carter, "some xenobiology ought to prove interesting." Chapter 6 - Revelations Some hours later Picard and his command crew are discussing the day's revelations. LaForge distinctly despondent, Riker viewing a tactical simulation on a datapad. Crusher was a little pale from spending so much time looking at plasma-fried Borg Bits. Worf was looking very pleased and Troi appeared confused. Data simply sat at the table waiting his turn. Picard motioned LaForge to report. "I think I lost an argument on engineering principles to the ship's chief engineer," said LaForge, sighing. "Not really a problem, when you consider this ship to be so different in it's engineering." replied Picard, trying to bolster his Subordinates flagging pride. "But sir," responded LaForge, "in addition to the advanced technology like the power plant, the hyperdrive, the sensors and weapon systems, there is a lot of very low technology on board as well. There are no EPS conduits. Instead, just simple electrical cabling with manual circuit breakers. No structural-integrity fields, just massive hull sections made of neutronium alloy." Pointing to the ceiling he notes, "even the lighting is simple incandescent and fluorescent lighting." "Maybe they are employing the simplest technology to perform a certain task," said Data. "The technology used on board this ship appears to be the easiest to repair and maintain. It is an often forgotten engineering principle that the most elegant solution is the one that uses the least technology." "That," said Laforge, "is how I lost half the argument. It's the other half of the argument that was the most embarrassing. The crew chief gave me fifty, fifty incidents off the top of his head about where StarFleet and Federation technology failed unneccessarily and caused casualties." "What was his proposed solution?" asked Riker. "You're not going to like this," replied LaForge. "He suggested that the engineers at the Utopia Planetia shipyards be rounded up and forced into an airlock. Their failures and the casualties, listed to them, and then to open the outer door." Riker let out a quick laugh, "Now there's a new motto for Starfleet Engineerings R&D department, 'Beatings will continue until designs improve'." He noticed everyone staring at him and shrugged. After a stern look at his First officer, Picard asked "If we might return to a semblance of a briefing. How do they deal with failure in the FringeWorld's fleet?" "D T D", replied Riker. "Demotion, Transfer, and/or Dismissal, depending on the scale and consequences. Further judicial action can also arise." Picard nodded, then brought the meeting back to the matter of the earlier combat. "Will, what is your analysis of today's engagement?" "The Borg cube was simply dealt with by sheer firepower. Even without two ships, the available firepower was reduced by less than twenty percent. The two Imperial-class ships have about two-thirds of the fleet's firepower on their own, so that event was a foregone conclusion." Activating the desk's holodisplay he continued "It was however, this secondary engagement that proved most interesting." The simulation showed the three scout ships attacking the Star Destroyers from abeam. "The first ship was destroyed by the combined firepower of the two ships. Note that none of the 'Interdictor''s fire struck the 'Lucky Hand' or it's shields. The closest shots missed the 'Lucky Hand' by less than fifty metres. From this there are two conclusions. One: Their gunnery crews are trained to a very high standard. Two: Their shielding is much closer to the hull than our ships." The simulation now showed the remaining two scout ships on their second attack. Riker continued his commentary. "The Borg now try to attack the ventral surface. Their fire was concentrated on a few places. An educated guess would be that they were trying to drop a shield and transport in some drones. The ventral guns are enough to drive them off. Now things get interesting." The simulation now had the 'Interdictor' performing it's roll manoeuvre. "By performing the roll and moving in to close formation, they were able to improve their defensive cover. "Now the front Borg will find out that eighty percent of the Star Destroyer's firepower can cover the frontal arc," stated Riker, a trace of a smile on his face as the Borg ship vanished in a hail of green streaks. "The other then finds out that the ventral surface is dangerous too." The scene changed to the last Borg ship being crippled and drawn into the 'Lucky Hand''s hangar bay. With the holo-simulation finished, Riker added, "The available firepower to the aft section is barely ten percent of the total for the ship, but this is compensated by their tactics, which seem to have a doctrine of mutual support." "Thank you Number one, a lot there for us to think about" Picard said, then turning to Beverly, he asked. "Doctor, you're opinions on the drones?" "Nothing that we didn't already know," replied Doctor Crusher, "but we're still performing tests. The weapons they used are BARBARIC, Jean-Luc." She was now visibly shaken. The last word was all but a shout. "Not the clean and neat effect of a phaser weapons, those..." she struggled for the right word "blasters caused massive damage. What they'd do to a non-Borg could only be imagined." Worf spoke next. "Yet they are effective. The instructors tell me that the E-11 BlastTech was designed to counter the Borg on a... uh... personal basis." He reached into a bag and removed a selection of weapons, placing them on to the table. He holds up an E-11 carbine. "This is very effective. Light and short enough to be used as a pistol, yet can also be used as a long-arm." He put the E-11 down on to the table. Riker reached for it and began his examination. Worf picked up a heavy blaster pistol and continued "This is the DL-44 BlastTech pistol. Almost as powerful as the E-11, but only has twenty-five shots to the E-11's one-hundred and fifty. Simply, they are scaled-down turbolasers. The other weapons." he put the DL-44 down and pointed at the others, "are crude projectile weapons, many dating from twentieth century designs, but ALL are effective on the Borg. Oh, the blaster weapons do have a stun setting. The projectile weapons do not." "Counsellor, I understand you're bringing bad news to us," stated Picard. "Yes Captain," replied Troi. "There have been a number of StarFleet personnel who wish to resign their commissions. Mostly enlisted personnel, and a few non-commissioned ranks, but a few junior officers have considered the offers." "An interesting conundrum," stated Picard. "We can't let these people go because of the shortage of trained crew from the Academy, combine that with operational losses and StarFleet is in a manpower crisis. Yet they are all free citizens with the right to determine their own futures." Riker added, "I suppose that would explain how Jones was assigned to the Enterprise!" The mere mention of the name made Picard, Doctor Crusher, and Counsellor Troi shiver. LaForge gripped his head as though he had a severe migraine, and Worf looked like he was about to tear someone's head off and use it as a toilet. "That, and the fact that his father is a fleet admiral," replied Picard. "I've heard he has been as much a problem for the FringeWorlders, but they've dealt with him, for now," added LaForge. Professional, more than personal concern prompted Counsellor Troi to ask, "What have they done to him?" Riker responded, "They have him in a Hazardous Environment Suit shovelling solid waste in the bilge tanks." His smile returning to his face. "Commander Data," said Picard, trying to keep the meeting on track, "what can you tell us about Commander Thorne?" "Commander Thorn," started Data, "was born in the third quarter of the twentieth century in the continental land mass of Australia. Tertiary education in computers and communications, and numerous self and employer sponsored post-graduate studies. Worked in the Information Technology industry until the outbreak of the eugenics wars, there he was drafted into the military. Despite being in his early thirties, he was considered one of the best recruits. When they found out about his tertiary education, he was given the choice of officer training or special forces. He chose the latter." "That's unusual, a university educated man in the military," commented Troi. "No Counsellor," replied Data. "It was a common practice in the twentieth Century for Major Militaries to have Officers and even Non-commissioned ranks attend a university for educational purposes. Indeed in some Militaries it was a bonus to induction to have a university education before joining." There being no further points raised, Data continued with his appraisal of their hosts history. "It was during this period that he and many others were exposed to various bio-weapons. This and the various experimental drugs used to combat the designer-diseases, and experiences in the later atomic wars resulted in physiological changes, these have lead to a much prolonged lifespan. With the disbandment of national governments and their militaries, he went into brief retirement, and then was hired by the fledgling StarFleet as a ground operations and security consultant, and also assisted in analysing fleet operations." He paused here, accessing a subfile "Many of his papers were extremely controversal, and most are still rated `Above Top-Secret'. Periodically he retired or resigned, was re-hired later, fell foul of someone, and would leave again." "However," added Data, "his most notable achievement was the setting up of a covert intelligence gathering station on Kronos, for over twenty years up until the Khitomer treaty." This revelation stunned Picard and his officers. "They had gained access to the Klingon civilian and military data networks and were the source of nearly all indepth intelligence gathered during that period." Checking further files Data continued "As a result of his service aboard Commander Kahla's father's ship, the Klingons have a lot of respect for the FringeWorlders, and had to rethink their attitudes towards humans in general. It is noted that the Klingons were impressed by his ruthlessness and efficiency in two particular cases." "He's probably spent so many years among Klingons that he doesn't know who or what he is," said Riker. "From what I detect with his emotions," Troi countered, "he is probably more at ease with himself and his actions than anyone. Maybe he isn't pretending, or hiding behind a mask or a facade. Since there's no pretense, there's no conflict." The meeting was then cut short with a red-alert warning. Picard and the rest of his crew ran for a turbolift headed for the bridge deck. When they arrived, they couldn't see any opponents, but they could feel the heavy turbolaser fire through the deck plates, and the impact of incoming fire. It was only when they went to the bridge's transparisteel windows could they see where the fire was directed. Here were two Borg cubes being engaged. Twice as many that hammered StarFleet forces at Wolf 359. Twice as many that arrived at Earth. Twice as many as anyone in the Federation has ever seen. Instead of facing the Borg `nose-to-nose', the two Imperator class ships had rolled to present their dorsal surfaces to one of the Borg cubes, and were manouevering to keep the second cube behind the first. The closer cube was starting to take the pock-marked appearance of it's predecessors. The three Victory class ships were using their faster sub- light speed to conduct hit-and-run attacks at the closer cube, while keeping themselves out of the way of the second. The 'Interdictor' was using it's gravity-well projectors to keep the Borg from running away, and to hamper their manoeuvring. "All ships," said Thorn, above the noise of the bridge crew, "Launch fighters and attack craft. Send out the "brights" and "tri's"." With the Star Destroyers were also the appropriate support craft, with modifications. A heavy fighter, with shields and hyperdrive, had been one of the first designs. When its wings were in attack position, they formed an X shape, giving the craft its name. Another craft was the A-type. Much smaller than the X-wing type design, much faster, almost double the speed of the X-wing, highly manouevrable, but lacking in firepower. However, the X and A-type fighters are not very space efficient. Even in the cavernous hangar bays in the Imperial/Imperator class Star Destroyers, wasted space was a luxury that no one could afford. The next series of craft were designed to be extremely compact, space superiority fighters and attack craft. The first were powered by Twin Ion Engines, and established a design philosophy that was still apparent in the later designs. The basic TIE starfighter was a simple fighter that had been relegated to training and point defence. The round cockpit and vertical panels earned the craft the nickname "eyeball". The next model doubled the offensive firepower and more powerful engines boosted the maximum speed by nearly half as much again as its predecessor. Lower overall mass made the new version an extremely manoeuverable craft. This new version was dubbed the TIE Interceptor and it was used as an advanced trainer, local patrol craft, and space superiority fighter. Despite using the same basic cockpit as the TIE starfighter, the smaller panels with their upper and lower panels canted back towards the cockpit with a slice cut out of them gave the Interceptor version the nickname "squint". The last two craft designs addressed the main criticisms of the TIE design. The lack of shields and a hyperdrive. The first of these designs was intended to act as an attack craft with secondary, but significant, space combat capability. Looking like an Interceptor on steroids, the Advanced or Avenger series had much larger wing panels that stretched further forward and aft than the Interceptor. Four laser cannons and Two warhead launchers gave the Avenger the same punch as the X-wing, and the same speed as the A- wing. The larger cockpit gave the nickname "bright" as the cockpit was the largest and most comfortable so far. The final series was the Defender. Designed purely as a space superiority fighter with heavy weapons, hyperdrive, and much stronger shields and hull than the predecessors. Four laser cannons, two ion-cannons, and two warhead launchers gave the Defender a powerful punch for its size. The Defender departed from the traditional TIE design in having three wings and engines. Directional thrusters make the Defender able to perform manoeuvres that the Interceptor would find impossible. The three-wing layout has given the craft the nickname the "tri-fighter", or "tri" for short. In speed the Defender at full throttle, with all discretionary power diverted to the engines, was described by pilots, as the same as strapping yourself to a concussion missile. The "bright" and the "tri" also had a small tractor beam array in addition to their armaments. The TIE craft are suspended from the ceiling racks, whereas the X and A-types took up valuable floor space. That was why there were few of those craft. Most of the pilots were seconded to other duties, but were released when the launch order was given. The fighters quickly formed up into their groups with their squadron commanders giving the pilots their final briefing en-route. While the capital ships dealt with the nearest Borg cube, the fighters were to keep the other Borg cube occupied. Like fleas against an elephant, the Avengers and Defenders systematically located and destroyed shield generators, sensor arrays, phaser banks, and anything else that stood out from the Borg cube. The Borg's self-repair systems tried to heal the damage, but with so many fighters, they were simply overwhelmed. The fighters were fast and manouverable enough to render any return fire almost ineffective. Almost, as some shots did strike, and some fighters were damaged, even destroyed by the returning fire. The dead would be mourned later. They were volunteers, and they knew the risks. The crippled craft either used their hyperdrives to exit the area quickly, or flew in as haphazard a manner as possible to avoid being shot down. If they made it to the nearest ship, they were then tractor-beamed into the hangar bay. A familiar pattern started to emerge. It was time to seal the fates. "Comms, on guard channel," ordered Thorne. "Channel open," replied the communications officer. "All ships, this is call-sign Thunderhead, say again call-sign Thunderhead. Mission plan is windmill, say again mission plan is windmill." Within moments of that transmission the fighters broke-off their attacks and engaged their hyperdrives for a brief moment. Not long enough to go very far, but far enough to be safe from what happened next. The capital ships had their bows pointed in vectors that would take them away from the fight. The Star Destroyers launched a massive volley of concussion missiles at the crippled Borg cube and then engaged their hyperdrives for a brief journey. The missiles were targeted at the centre of the damaged cube. Borg shields were modulated for attacks with energy weapons. They were not particle shields, that could deal with this onslaught; certainly the damage the cube had already sustained hampered the creation of new shielding, leaving the cube vunerable to the incoming missiles. What little structure that was left in front of the main reactor was destroyed by the first few missiles. The rest slammed into the main reactor, the resultant flash rivalling a sun. The resulting shock wave would have been disastrous to the smaller fighter craft, hence the order for them to clear the combat zone quickly. Because of their orientation to the Borg cubes, it was prudent for Star Destroyers to similarly evacuate, just after leaving a parting gift. The remaining Borg cube, just having all obvious weapon and sensor protrusions systematically removed, was not so lucky. The shock wave slammed into the Borg cube, knocking it off course and, judging by its at-best erratic flight path, seriously damaging the flight controls. Standing on the 'Chimaera's bridge, Thorne gave the mission code 'recall' to have the ships return to the battle zone. "We still have a job to complete," stated Thorn. "Comms, on guard channel, call sign Thunderhead, call sign thunderhead. Star Destroyers to fleet formation, mission plan is Speedball." Normally the Star Destroyers would come to a relative stop, or slow speed, to allow the fighters to enter the docking bays easily. This time, it meant that the Star Destroyers would be pursuing the crippled cube at maximum sub-light, and the fighters would have to return while doing so. The only things that made task easier was that the fighters were a lot faster than the capital ships, and once in range the capital ships could use their tractor beams to bring the craft in. Not an easy manoeuvre, but one that was practised for just such a situation. The 'Interdictor' loitered in the battle zone to retrieve any surviving damaged craft. It only took a few minutes to over-haul the damaged Borg cube. Once in range of the heavy guns firing envelope, the cube started to suffer another battering. Again the facing side resembled an impact crater, that was steadily enlarging. Several shots were able to strike the main reactor. This time instead of forming a single colossal explosion, the reaction passed along the internal plasma conduits, resulting in the cube breaking up, with the various pieces heading their own separate way. In the next few minutes the fighters returned to their parent ships while post-combat analysis was performed. The fleet then plotted it's course and engaged their hyperdrive engines. Other than some dispersing wreckage, little trace was left of the battle. Chapter 7 - Blind Realities Once the fleet has resumed it's course, Thorn was requested to attend a meeting with the Enterprise's senior officers. Just after sitting at the table, Riker thrust a datapad into Thorn's lap and bellowed, "Explain this!" Thorn examined the displayed contents of the datapad and noted it concerned a report of a particular incident when he'd been aboard Kahla's father's ship. "It's true," he replied calmly, "but this only has the actions. It does not explain why." "Then kindly explain it," retorted Picard. "Such an act of barbarism demands an explanation." Even Worf was shocked by the revelation. "I'd expect that from a Starfleet officer, taking the supposed moral high ground, hiding behind your Prime Directive, when that is really an excuse for gross moral cowardice. You obviously don't know what atrocities happen without your knowledge," said Thorn. "What could be worse than the summary execution of prisoners," asked Worf, in a low growl that was felt more than heard. "Have you ever heard of chumping," countered Thorn. The vacant expressions told him the answer. "It's obvious that the Academy does shelter you from the harsh realities. For every jewel in the Federation, there are plenty of dung-heaps. Once off the major trade routes, you will see poverty and squaller worse than could be imagined. I'm talking about places that make Turkana IV look like a holiday camp. Didn't you find it amazing how quickly the Federation declared that matter an internal affair and hid behind it's Prime Directive?" "I suppose you believe your people could have brought the gangs under control and restored order.", said Doctor Crusher. "Yes," replied Thorn, "and in far less time than you would think possible." "No doubt with a very high casualty count," added Counsellor Troi. "No more than what would have occurred in any given month," said Thorn. "And there are places worse than this?" asked LaForge. "Mostly of the Federations doing," replied Thorn. "How," asked Picard. "Any industry beyond basic resources such as agriculture and mining, unless it's strategically important, is eliminated. Federation social workers arrive to help the displaced workers. Local currency is bypassed with replicators and replicator food stock." Thorne leaned back in his chair, continuing "Civil administration is progressively duplicated and then replaced by Federation officials, often overseen by a StarFleet officer. Part of the social welfare plan calls for the replacement of educators by Federation officials. Within two generations at the most, you have institutionalised conformity and passivism, and shared poverty, with all the problems of hopelessness and despair that it brings." "There are no signs of those symptoms," replied Counsellor Troi. "That's because replicated food contains anti-depressants," stated Thorn. "It's why the StarFleet personnel were going crazy a few weeks a go. By eating more of our food, they weren't getting their daily dose, and they started to go through narcotic withdrawal. Doctor, you should be able to identify the symptoms of rapid detox." Doctor Crusher sat back in thought, reflecting on the happenings of the last weeks. "He could be right, but I'd like to see some proof." "I'll see to it that you receive a copy of Dr Carters report." Assured Thorne, he then continued with his dissection of the Federation. "With the poverty and despair is the desire to leave and go somewhere better, but since StarFleet controls ALL transport, their chances are very remote. The only approvals for transport are granted to ambassadors, senior local government officials, Federation bureaucrats, and StarFleet officers. After that it's a limited number of Ordinary people who are going where the Starfleet ships are headed." "Yes, but to have everyone travelling everywhere would be a major drain on our transport and logistic services," interjected Troi. "It would cause great upheavals to have people travelling to destination after destination." "Point proven, where's the private shuttles?" commented Thorn. "And where does everyone want to go? The number one destination is Risa. Risa is designated as a StarFleet recreation planet. By mutual agreement between Risa and the Federation, migration there is banned. But, there are... organisations... that can arrange transport to and residency on Risa for an exorbitant, but attainable fee. When boarding, people, luggage, and valuables are separated for... safety reasons. Once the ship breaks orbit and is heading outbound, the cargo bay with the passengers is opened to space and... so long chumps! Hence the term." "The Federation has no need for currency," Pointed out Troi. "Then why did the Federation adopt the 'Federation Credit' as an internal currency," replied Thorn. "You cannot have inter- galactic trade based on a pure barter system. For a start it is primitive and does not take into account relative values. Latinum is the de-facto currency in the border regions, and the only one freely exchangeable between the various factions. The Fed-Cred is not freely exchangeable. It was designed as a closed economic system, but in reality it leaks like a sieve. There is an unofficial exchange rate, but it is highly variable." Even Worf was taken aback by such activity. Piracy and... this... were... dishonourable. Troi and Crusher were in a near state of shock, and the other StarFleet officers shook their heads in disbelief. "What do these... murderers hope to gain from this," asked Picard, angrily. "For a start, the transport fee; even sufficient amounts of Credits will exchange for a good some of Latinum. There's also the valuables, and the cargo. It's not uncommon in the ghetto areas near the borders and off the secondary and tertiary trade routes." "How does this explain your actions to these prisoners," queried Riker, addressing the main point again. "That was a backgrounder to let you know what happens out there in the deep black." Thorne replied, turning to address the Commander "In this case we'd intercepted a suspected `chumping' ship, unfortunately too late for their last intake of passengers. We used an airlock as a temporary holding cell. Originally they were going to be put through the Klingon judicial system. However on a border patrol and counter-smuggler assignment, we had a lot of leeway to our actions. A check of the ship's logs revealed they had been responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands! On top of that, they had the arrogance to demand release to a Federation facility saying it was my StarFleet duty to do so." "Yes, they would have been shown the Error of their ways and re-integrated back into society," exclaimed Troi. "With the proper treatment, they would have been productive members of the community." "Well, I told them that I was SpecOps, not StarFleet, and I was seconded to the Klingon military; that their request was denied, and opened the airlock's outer door." Thorne said bleakly. "How did the Klingons react to this," asked Worf. "The commander and the crew of the ship were impressed by the ruthlessness and efficiency demonstrated. No drawn out extradition hearings. No disputes over which jurisdiction the offences occurred in. There was a fleet investigation, but the ship's logs vindicated our actions." "Logs can be faked," Interjected Riker. "You're right," replied Thorn. "Logs can be faked very easily, but the supporting documentation, such as traffic control reports, eye witness accounts, and other ship sightings are much harder to fake. The logs were validated as part of the inquiry, with a near 100% correspondence to other evidence, and the matter was closed. As is this." With that, Thorn stood and left the room, returning to the bridge. During Thorn's walk to, and the ride in, the turbolift he had to think. The StarFleet officers were really starting to irritate him. It was their naivety mostly. Obviously they had very little exposure to reality. They thought that humanity could be conditioned into a supposedly higher state. Forget that. When it comes to the crunch, humans can be as ruthless and resourceful as anyone. The Klingons knew that. The turbolift doors opened at the bridge deck. Thorn exited, walking through the entrance foyer and along the short corridor to the bridge itself. Two meeting rooms flanked the corridor, presently unused. Thorn walked to his station. The Captain's station was a raised dais a few metres inside the bridge itself. The dais was only raised by about thirty centimetres, but it gave a commanding view of the bridge and the transpari-steel viewports. The station was circular in shape and surrounded by control consoles. Most were set for repeater mode, merely displaying information from other crew consoles from the crew pits a few metres away. The crew pits were about sixty centimetres deep recessions into the bridge deck's floor, and each pit had ten to fifteen people in each, depending on the functions controlled. All the functions could be controlled by Captain from the command station, but the workload would have been immense, especially during combat. In the centre of the command station was a swivel chair where the captain could easily respond to any situation. Thorn entered his station by the gap in the consoles, sat in his chair, and placed his feet on one of the repeating consoles. "What's up boss," asked Nichols, the Chief Officer - Information Systems (or CHOIS for short). A bit shorter than Thorn, and a bit wider around the middle. A specialist in Information Systems, Nichols was the chief designer of the Star Destroyer's computer networks. The system was based on an intranet model, but with a special focus on security and reliability. "Fleeties getting to you again? What was it this time?" "Do you remember when I spaced the chumpers?", asked Thorn. "Yes, and many would have done the same. They're desperate if they're trying anything on that", said Nichols. "They try to take the moral high ground on everything." Sighed Thorne, "It gets tiring after a while." "Their enlisted personnel are okay, and are willing to listen and learn, but their academy officers are a real pain," said Nichols, grimacing. "How do you keep them in their place?" Thorne asked, turning his chair slightly to face Nichols. "I tell them that a simple text search will not take four hours on our systems," replied Nichols, grinning like a Chesire cat. "I take it you know of an incident where theirs did." Thorne said, waiting for what he knew would be an amusing anecdote. Nichols had a knack for finding the silliness in a story. "Well apparently the Enterprise had a bout of people dying in the showers...fully clothed.Obviously the manuals forgot to cover the undressing drill for the ablutions in sufficient detail." Nichols waited for Thorne to stop laughing, then continued enjoying the chance for a good anecdote "Anyway they had to do a search-" ------ There was a stunned silence in the Starfleet officer's meeting room, following thornes abrupt departure. Getting back his composure Picard addressed Data,"You said there was another incident concerning Thorn while he was with the Klingons." "Yes, sir," said Data. The security footage is on this datapad. I'll connect it to the holoviewer for evaluation." The datapad was connected. "The footage was taken while repelling a boarding action by pirates. The vessel was attacked by three ships. Two were beaten off, the third and the Klingon vessel were engaged in a fight to the finish," explained Data. "The pirate vessel docked, and boarding tubes were extended. Most of the crew repelled the pirates at one tube. Thorn repelled at the other, because he was the only person available at that area." "One human against pirates? How did he do this?" asked Worf. Data's reply was to press the start button on the PADD. The data was played. The human on the display was wearing a heavy jacket over his field fatigues, and a bucket-like hat. He was carrying a funny looking weapon in his hands that had a container under its balance point. Another identical weapon and several more containers were on the floor, against the wall beside him. A smaller lighter weapon was slung over his shoulders, that had an ominous looking attachment under it's barrel. Several pouches were attached to the jacket, and a small (relative to the other weapons) sidearm was on his right hip. The more historically aware members of the Federation might have identified the equipment as a Level 3 Ballistic Jacket, a "Fritz" type ballistic helmet, a M249 (F89) Minimi 5.56-mm light machine-gun, with a 200-round belt box under the feed tray, an M4 carbine (short M16A2, 5.56-mm) with a M203A2 40-mm grenade launcher attachment, and the sidearm, although not visible, was a Heckler & Koch Model 23 in 45-calibre (11.43-mm). The pirates attempted to charge the solitary human. The lead ranks had personal shielding. It had no effect. The human crouched down on one knee, and sighted the weapon like a rifle; a bit of a handful, but doable with the bipod folded. Then there was a loud tearing noise, underpinned by a rhythmic bass rumble. The corridor with the human was brightly illuminated by the muzzle flash. Empty cartridge cases and belt links formed a pile just to the right of the weapon. The front ranks appeared to have been smashed by an unseen assailant and gave a collective moan as they fell backwards. Most fell and did not rise. A few writhed in obvious agony. The personal shielding worn by the front ranks was for energy weapons and worked by jamming the incoming beam with a completely out-of-phase equivalent signal. Against a kinetic energy projectile weapon, there was no defence. Supposedly no one used those weapons any more. Supposedly. With the initial burst, those as far as the third rank fell, although more wounded than dead. The middle ranks paused in shock, some even tripping over the dead and wounded. A mistake, and a fatal one at that. Some tried to turn in panic, but the following ranks created an awful crush. Those in the back lines could retreat, but those in front were mown down where they stood. The survivors retreated to the relative safety of their ship. "Don't you want to play any more," shouted the solitary figure, unfolding the weapons bipod. The light machinegun was placed on the floor, it's ammunition box empty. No time to reload or grab the other weapon. The carbine was unslung. Instead of emptying the magazine at the pirates hiding in their end of the ship, the grenade launcher was slid forward. A light grey coloured munition was inserted. The launcher was slid back, the weapon was aimed, and a small shape was then launched down the boarding tube corridor. The velocity was low enough to be seen on the video. A cloud of gas erupted at pirate's end of the corridor and a ragged coughing was heard. "He's using poison gas!" Exclaimed Doctor Crusher. "No", said Data. "The substance has been positively identified as CS gas. It is also called Chemical Smoke. It is an irritant that affects the lungs, throat, and nasal passages of most humanoids, resulting in a slight choking sensation, shortness of breath, and stimulated tear glands. Commonly known as tear gas." "Maybe this will encourage you," said the figure. The grenade launcher was opened, and another munition was inserted. The launcher was closed, aimed, and fired. The projectile travelled its visible arc and exploded on impact in a cloud of white-hot sparks. "Come out, come out, or we BURN you out," shouted the lone figure. At the far end, the pirates ran out screaming. The affects of the burns were already apparent. "What was that", asked LaForge. "White Phosphorus", replied Data. "Used for smoke marking, but also known for its affects in confined spaces." The solitary figure took up position at his end of the Tube, his body mostly hidden round the corner using the wall as a steadying support for the rifle. Those wounded by the burns were shot down to relieve their agony. The figure Waited and sure enough more fgures appeared, holding their weapons blindly infront of them firing sporadically whilst screaming in agony. The Human calmly shot them, one at a time not wanting to waste his ammunition. Minutes later the figures stopped emerging. The carbine was re-slung, and the man started to talk into his communicator, obviously conversing with the Klingons in the other party. The footage ended a few seconds after that point. "One of Thorn's top secret analysis commented on StarFleet's weaknesses in close quarter combat," commented Data. "A StarFleet security detail would have been extremey unlikely to survive against those pirates, and then only with casualties." "What specifically are these weaknesses Data," asked Picard. "No support weapons. Little air support, no armour or artillery support. Personnel have little defence against splinters and fragments, no camouflage, and no protection from Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical weapons. Scouting is done by active scans with tricorders, effectively broadcasting their position, and beam weapons precisely indicate the position of their user." Data rattled off the Bulletpoints from the file in his memory. "Clearly the Fringe-Worlders have not ignored his suggestions." Stated Riker, thinking back to the boarding operation against the Borg Scout. Chapter 8 - Death of a Thousand Cuts The ARCaG fleet entered the next system. Despite the number of Borg engagements, damage was light, and casualties minimal. On entry to the system, threat indicators went into overload. Tycho Jones, who had spent the last few days "proving" to the Federation personnel he was absolutely in no way even remotely related to Timothy Jones (who was still shovelling waste in the bilge tanks), immediately reacted. "Multiple contacts, still getting the numbers, several hundred minimum, possibly at least a thousand, all Borg." The weapons control team commander added, "Small to medium class ships, ranging from fighters to scout ships." Thorn was quick to issue orders. "Comms, all ships, configure defences for massed fighter attack. Fire control, set the heavy and light turbolasers for flak bursts, under computer assisted manual control. Point defence lasers and CIWS on automatic control. CAG, send out "squints" and "tri"s for BARCAP ops. " Aye sir, Setting the "Squints" on the inner track, "Tri"s on the outer." The CAG replied, informing the Captain of the fighter set-up he intended and 'recommended'. As already pointed out, the turbolaser is a plasma cannon. The laser component is simply a containment vessel for the plamsa. By adjusting the electromagnetic lenses in the discharge tube, the laser component can be collimated to collapse in on itself to release it's plasma load. This is a suitable use of the heavier weapons against attacking fighters and missiles. The Combat Air Group was using the TIE Interceptors and TIE Defenders for Barrier Combat Air Patrol. The slower unshielded Interceptors on the inside track, and the shielded and more capable TIE Defenders forming the outer picket. The orders were acknowledged and carried out. The fleet moved into close-combat formation. The two Imperators were in line-abreast formation, the 'Chimaera' on the left, the 'Iron Fist'on the right. In between, separated by several kilometres was the 'Interdictor', for all the world giving the appearance of two parent avians protecting a nestling. The three Victories were in their own formation. The 'Lucky Hand' forming the point, two kilometres ahead of the 'Interdictor', and slightly below to avoid damaging the valuable 'Interdictor' with its ion-wash from the sublight engines. The 'Lucky Hand' was flying in inverted position, with it's weapons covering the lower hemisphere. The 'Armegeddon' was two kilometres above the 'Interdictor', adding its firepower to the upper hemisphere. 'Thor's Hammer'was two kilometres below the 'Interdictor', also in inverted position, dedicating the bulk of its firepower to the lower hemisphere. The distances sounded vast, but with nine hundred and sixteen hundred-metre ships, it gave the impression of a very close formation. The flight controls were slaved to the 'Chimaera' to aid formation keeping. It was now time to prepare the ace-in-the-hole. "'Interdictor', power up the sub-space jammers and place them on standby," ordered Thorn. "What is your assessment of the situation, Thorn," asked Picard from the viewing station at the aft end of the bridge. "It looks like their going to try to overwhelm us with numbers to force us to divide our efforts," replied Thorn. "Unusual for the Borg to suddenly change tactics, they are normally so predictable," commented Riker. "Maybe they understand the concept of costs and benefits, or efforts to results," noted Nichols. "The Borg cube usually weighs 9,000,000,000 tonnes with 5 thousand plus drones. A probe is only 290,000 tonnes and a few dozen drones. A few hundred, even a thousand probes would cost less in resources than a single cube. After losing a number of cubes for little effect, they've decided on a different tactical plan." "From analysis of previous engagements, I'd say they will try to cause a local shield failure and transport some drones through," said Picard. "Good point, Picard. Intruder detection systems can isolate them and security details can deal with them," replied Thorn, silently impressed by Picard's input, maybe the man could get out of his Hidebound thought patterns afterall. The first wave of Borg ships raced in towards the fleet. A single-minded purpose to board and assimilate the unknown ships. The TIE Defenders were the first to attack, launching volleys of concussion missiles at the incoming Borg ships. Some ships exploded with the impactingmissiles. Others were damaged and careered back into the formation, with the collision taking out more ships. Yet still the Borg ships advanced. By now the Defenders had exhausted their missiles and were pursuing the Borg ships will laser and ion-cannon blasts. The Borg returned fire only if the opportunity presented, their goal was the large ships, not these annoying fighters. Ship after ship exploded, but still they flew on. The TIE Interceptors were now joining the fray. Although unshielded, slower, less manoeuvrable, and lighter armed than the Defenders, they still had enough to damage shields and take out a few of the smaller Borg ships. Like terriers nipping at the heels, the TIEs were gnawing away at the edge of the formation, until they were given a pre-planned code word. The TIEs were ordered to break off their attacks as the heavy turbolaser flak bursts erupted in the lead Borg formations. Entire flights were consumed in the plasma bursts. The heavy turbolasers were joined by the light turbolaser weapons, also set for flak burst. The losses started to climb, but still amounted to less than twenty percent. The point-defence laser cannons joined in. The Borg attack fleet was now far too close for the heavy guns to fire. The fighters were told to stay away from the capital ships for fear of friendly-fire accidents. They still engaged any Borg ships that exited the fleet formation. The CIWS emplacements added their fire to the Borg ships. The tracer lines looking like laser beams due to their rate of fire. A typical CIWS ammunition load was one-in-ten tracer mix, the rest being a mix of pure depleted uranium armour-piercing, tungsten carbide amour-piercing incendiary, and proximity high-explosive fragmentation. But each installation firing fifty rounds per second, there was an almost constant tracer line from the weapon to the target. The big 30-mm projectiles had an extremely high muzzle velocity, and added to their considerable mass, the `milk-bottle' ammo (so named because of it's shape) performed an excellent job of hammering the Borg ships they targeted. But even at this stage, the Borg losses were barely at thirty percent. The Borg ships raced through the ARCaG fleet in tight formations of threes and fours, concentrating their fire on the StarDestroyer's shields in localised positions. The view from the 'Chimaera''s bridge was amazing. Red tracer lines from the CIWS, the green turbolaser fire, the orange Borg phased disruptor fire. The amount of energy produced and consumed would have powered some civilisations from their emergence to their disappearance. The Borg ships then raced to their rally point to regroup and attack again. "That is the Borg's weakness," stated Thorn. "Being mechanistic, they can't stand disorder. Tactical, report." The tactical officer checked his reports and stated, "Fighter losses negligable. Two Defenders and six Interceptors are requesting entry vectors with minor damage. The Borg were only trying to shake them off. We were the priority target. Borg losses are at approximately thirty-one percent." "Our shields?" queried Thorn. "Generally at ninety percent or above, but some locations are down to fifty percent or less." The Tac replied. "Have security personnel and droids move to those locations, with instructions to repel boarders." Thorne ordered, turning back to the repeater screens to appraise the Borgs next move. The Borg forces had regrouped and were launching their next attack. The Defenders performed a microjump in hyperspace to take them to the new attack vector. The slower Interceptors flew through the fleet to take them to their picket defence position. Seeing the Interceptors, Thorn had an idea. "CAG, have Fel and his one-eight-one group take up position five to ten clicks behind the fleet." "Aye, sir." The CAG acknowledged, though obviously puzzled at the order. Technically he could, as the Controller Air Group, demand an explaination for this intrusion to his area of expertise, however he trusted his Captain implicitly. On this order, a flight of Interceptors with distinctive red stripes on their wing panels altered course to take up their new position. The ship's holographic tactical display showed the course of the battle. The TIE Interceptors heading to their new locations, the TIE Defenders already battling the incoming Borg ships. "Once they are in flak burst range, have the main guns open fire, and have the 'Interdictor' activate the subspace jammers," instructed Thorn. The Borg communicated with the collective via a subspace transceiver located in the frontal lobes of the drone's brain. A subspace jammer broadcast a very powerful signal on any or all the subspace frequencies, including the Borg communication channels. At least very least he would ruin their coordination, and more hopefully, effectively cut them off from the collective. Moments later the comms officer stated "Jammers are active, sir". The result on the Borg ships was almost instantaneous. Flying in close formation is tricky enough, but to have your senses overloaded is enough to cause momentary loss of concentration. That moment was enough to cause a lot of collisions in the attack formations. Yet the jammers are the electromagnetic equivalent of a lighthouse beacon. Despite their reduced efficiency, the Borg now concentrated their attacks on the 'Interdictor'. The 'Interdictor' was in trouble, and her Captain knew it. All of the ships weapons were engaging the enemy craft, but there were too many to handle. Commander Elis Rogosh, (such a (relatively) small ship did not rate a full Captain), was listening to the defensive systems officer report on the shield status. "Shields generally at forty five percent, but locally are starting to collapse," stated the officer. "Bridge shields are starting to fail as well." An alarm sounded at another console. "Shield collapse near the hangar bay. Intruder alert, transporter signature in forward storage bay." The Chief of Security informed her Elis responded quickly. She activated the internal speaker system. "All hands, prepare to repel boarders!" was ordered into the handset. Another Borg ship passed the bridge tower, firing a phased disruptor-type weapon at the bridge. "Bridge shields have collapsed," shouted the tactical officer. At that moment there was a familiar sound to most crewers. A transporter beam! Three Borg had materialised in the entrance foyer behind the bridge. The Fringe-Worlders reacted instantly, knowing that their actions were all that was between them and assimilation. Almost on reflex a number of weapons were grabbed from beneath the control consoles. The StarFleet bridge crew were stunned. Not only by the appearance of Borg, but by the Fringe-Worlders response. The first Borg shuffled towards the Captain. Elis instinctively reached to the small of her back, and produced an projectile weapon of ancient design, but still highly effective. Her other hand grabbed the M1911's slide, pulled it back, and released it, setting the hammer and chambering the first cartridge. The pistol was now held in classic two-hand pose. BLAM! BLAM! The Borg stumbled back a step. Two holes in the centre of the chest. BLAM! BLAM! The next two shots went to the face, exiting in a mass of blood, brains, wrecked implants, and skull tissue out the back of the head. The Borg fell over backwards, a spasm racked the body for a second, and then stopped. By now there was a storm of bullets and blaster bolts from bridge crew who had hidden DL-44s and a few E-11s. The other two Borg were most unfortunate. The second advanced to the bridge entrance, where a E-11 shot turned its head into a pink and grey mist. Other shots caused severe torso damage. The right arm was shot away in several places, the left was disintegrated from the elbow down. What was left collapsed onto its knees, and then fell forward, clearly dead. The third had most of the torso blasted away by the storm of plasma bolts before it also collapsed, permanently disconnected from the collective. "Comms," shouted Elis. "Tell the 'Chimaera' we've got to turn- off the jammers. We've got to repel the Borg boarders before we lose the ship." "Done captain, they've acknowledged," replied the communications officer. "Jammers are off-line," said the operator. "Power diverted to recharge the shields." Elis walked over to the ship's intercom handset. "Attention all crew. Standing orders. Destroy the Borg Boarders. All of them!" With the 'Interdictor''s subspace jammers off-line, the Borg resumed their attention on the two Imperators. In particular, they concentrated their efforts of the one that was transmitting and receiving the most signals. The 'Chimaera'. Weak spots in the shields were identified and marked for attention. Another Borg ship was right behind the bridge tower using its disruptor beam to bring down the bridge shields. Other ships were making high speed firing passes at the weak spots. "CAG, have Fel's group remove that pest from behind us," ordered Thorn. The CAG issued instructions, and the holo-display showed the TIE Interceptors moving to abeam attack vectors to avoid the risk of friendly fire on the bridge tower. "Bridge shield is collapsing," exclaimed one of the officers. At this moment, the one-eight-one group's Interceptors conducted a high speed attack run from the starboard side, firing double-linked laser cannons at the Borg ship. With a whole fighter group, the ship's shields quickly gave way, and hull was holed from stem to stern. The blue-white flash of a matter/anti-matter explosion indicated the ship's final act. What was so surprising was the lack of return fire. None to be precise. With unshielded TIE Interceptors, any hit was potentially fatal, especially from disruptor-type weapons. Fel's group, despite being the best trained and highest scoring fighter group, had not received its TIE Defenders. They were to receive the fighters in the next production batch, but had recieved deployment orders to the 'Chimaera' before they could be delivered. So they were making do with the Interceptors in the meantime. "Bridge shield has collapsed, multiple transporter locks inbound," exclaimed a bridge officer. "Further local shield failures in the forward sections," noted another. "Seal off those areas and have security teams deal with them," ordered Thorn. He was standing a few metres to the right his station when a whirring noise came from behind him. Reflexes took over. He removed the pistol from it's belt holster. The pistol was very familiar to the StarFleet officers. It was a Heckler & Koch model 23, in .45ACP. The same pistol they saw on the Klingon security recording. His other hand grabbed the slide, retracted it, and then released it to chamber the first cartridge. His hands in classic two-handed combat stance. He turned to see the Borg only two metres away. The Borg had it's left hand reached out, assimilation tendrils extended, and stepped towards Thorn. There is a saying, that if you're attacked by a hand, destroy the hand. BLAM! BLAM! The hand was reduced to a bloody pulp. The Borg drone examined the damage, not comprehending what could cause this. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Three shots in the Borg's torso stopped any further movement. The range was so close that the bullets exited out the Borg's back to impact into the kevlar spalling curtains at the back of the bridge. The exit wounds were the size of a clenched fist. BLAM! BLAM! Two into the head left the Borg dead. During the last stage of killing the previous drone, another had beamed in, even closer. Barely arms length away. Another reflex movement. Thorn dived to the drone's right, hooked his own foot around the drone's ankle (locking it's right foot in place on the floor)and kicked the drone's right knee from the side. Knee joints are designed to work within one plane of movement, not two. With the foot anchored, the force of the blow was taken by the knee joint, which gave way under the blow. With the Borg now falling towards him, Thorn rolled to left, turning during the movement. He was now in a kneeling stance with the Borg in front of him, and the back of it's falling head rapidly approaching his pistols muzzle. BLAM! BLAM! The Borg's head exploded like an over- ripe rockmelon falling onto concrete. Another transporter was heard. Thorn instinctively dived away. "Got him, boss," shouted Nichols. BRAAAAAAAP! A tight cluster of slightly smaller holes than Thorn's pistol had produced appeared in the Borg's chest. The Borg swayed for a moment, and then collapsed. Thorn moved over to the port side of his station, opened a panel, and was typing a code sequence into a keypad. The Starfleet officers had standard issue Type-II phasers in their hands. Nichols was removing the spent fifteen-round magazine from his Heckler & Koch MP5K, and replacing it with a thirty-round magazine. Other bridge crew had produced an eclectic range of weaponry. An assortment of slug-throwing weapons, mostly pistols and a few submachine guns, even a few shotguns. The rest using either DL-44s or E-11s. It was noticeable that the StarFleet bridge crewers were using blasters instead of phasers. Another group of Borg transported in. A shotgunner opened up first, his solid shot round smashing clean through it's target. The lead Borg collapsed forward, first onto it's knees, and then face- down dead, from the blast. "I really must talk to the bridge crew about their personal weapons," mumbled Thorn to himself. BRAAAAAAAP! Another Borg fell to the MP5K. It's nine-hundred round-per-minute cyclic rate being somewhat distinctive in the melee. The slower POP POP POP POP POP POP POP of the standard Uzi was a contrast. The whine of blaster bolts was also heard, and the stench of ozone in the air. Completing the code sequence, a panel opened up in the side of the Captain's station. Thorn reached in and tossed an E-11 to an appreciative Worf. "What are you going to do with that," asked Thorn, pointing at the phasers. "Vacuum some dust off them, or perhaps give them a shave and a haircut?" Doctor Crusher was incensed. "No, This!" she said as she fired the phaser at an advancing Borg drone, to no effect. "Bravo doctor. Did it ever concern you that the Borg collective may already know the standard base frequencies of the Federation phaser weapons?" The pistol was now in Thorn's left hand, after using his right on the keypad. Seeing the advancing Borg, Thorn snapped off three shots. BLAM! BLAM! . BLAM! Two in the body and one in the head. The Borg fell backwards dead. The last shot emptied the pistol. The slide locked back on the empty magazine. With reflexes honed by years, decades, even centuries of combat and training, the empty magazine was ejected and replaced with a fresh one; the empty pocketed. The safety was applied, and pistol re-holstered. Normally, it would have been holstered with an empty chamber, but this was now a combat zone, so combat rules applied. Thorn also grabbed an E-11, extended the stock, shouldered the weapon, and proceeded to shoot at Borg after Borg. Picard, Riker, and LaForge also grabbed one each to shoot at any Borg that approached. Worf was using his like an over-sized pistol. There were so many Borg bodies, the later arrivals had to climb over the bodies of those who arrived earlier. The battle for the bridge had turned into a Borg massacre. Ensign 2nd class Timothy Jones was exhausted. A full shift of shovelling shit inside a Hazardous Environment Suit was gruelling work. He had just finished decontamination when the intruder alert warning was sounded. After changing into his StarFleet uniform, Jones left the preparation room and turned down the corridor to go to the nearest turbolift. He found himself facing his worst nightmare. Twenty-five metres behind Jones were a section of four SD-10 security droids. They had responded to the intruder alarms. The Borg were spotted, and were about to be engaged. The SD-10 can be desribed as two-point-five tonnes of bad attitude. Heavily armoured, and armed. Nearly three metres in height, they only just fit in the ship's corridors. Personal defence shields give protection against infantry and light anti-armour weapons. With their in-built weapons, each is more heavily armed than an 'organic' infantry section. Their right arm has a Golan arms flechette launcher, capable of launching up to thirty projectiles per second. A right-shoulder mounted E-Web heavy repeating blaster, a left-shoulder mounted ion-blaster. The left arm had an in-built E-11 for lower priority targets. The droid's sensors included spectral, infra-red, millimetric wave radar, and ultrasonic to `see' and audio, and radio-frequencies to `hear'. A high level droid intelligence provided tactical targeting and priorities. "Warning! Human in line-of-fire! Secondary weapons only. Stand by!" ordered the section commander. The order was relayed digitally via short-range communications and via audio, for any `organic' infantry and as a backup. Jones had actually walked into the Borg. In shock, he fell backwards on his ass, and grabbed the phaser-II he kept hidden in his uniform. He instinctively pointed the weapon and fired it, to see that it had no effect whatsoever. And then he made his worst mistake. He turned and ran. "Human out of line-of-fire. Engage with secondary weapons." The SD-10s opened fire with the flechette launchers, just as Ensign Jones stood to run away. Right into the storm of flechettes that were slicing up the Borg drones. "Cease-fire, cease-fire, human in line-of-fire. Human is hit. Summon Medical unit." The droids ceased fire momentarily, as Jones body hit the floor again. "Human is now out of line-of fire. Re-engage." The Borg were systematically blasted by the E-11 bolts and shredded by the flechettes. "All units, advance of conduct mopping-up operations" ordered the unit commander. The four behemoths lumbered forward, firing at the luckless Borg. The Borg were a priority target. Anything else was not of their concern. Including Jones lying face-down on the floor. As the SD-10s advanced, there was a crunching noise as the bones in Jones' legs were crushed to splinters, and the flesh turned into mince by the droid's weight. The lead droid continued to advanced on the Borg. Terminating the Borg wounded, and dropping those still standing. Another SD-10 stepped on Jones' splayed out arm, also crushing it to a pulp. The Borg drones were able to assess their opponents. The Borg had to make contact with the subject to have the nano-probes injected into it. If kept out of arm's reach, the Borg problem could be dealt with quickly and efficiently. And the SD-10s were extremely efficient. With the battle over, the SD-10 unit commander assessed its priority list. "Attention all Medical units. Urgent medivac required. Triage category four." Nearby teams of security and medical personnel responded to the call. By this time Jones was going into shock from the wounds and the blood loss. Barely conscious, we wondered why was he feeling so cold. He could see shadows moving about him, but could not focus on them. Voices could be heard, but not clearly enough to make out what was said. He felt himself being lifted and relaxed in sections. And then he was lifted bodily this time and everything went dark. He was taken to an emergency medical lab. Triage category four means that the patient has a good chance of recovery, but extensive and intensive care is required. The medical droids then assessed Jones condition. "Right arm and damage to both legs too extensive for bacta." "Only solution is to amputate below the hip and fit prosthesis. Right arm is to be amputated at the elbow. Prosthesis also to be fitted." "Bacta therapy will correct internal damage after emergency surgery." "Corrective action plotted. Correct immediate damage via surgery. Amputate damaged limbs. Bacta tank treatment to heal internal organs and remains of limbs. Then the fitting of prosthesis." "Acceptable. Commence." There were hundreds of Borg engagements on board the ships. Thankfully, there were only two casualties. The first was Timothy Jones. The second was unfortunately fatal. StarFleet Ensign Paul Jacques was assimilated, and then terminated by a human security team. Some of the security team were StarFleet security officers. Little, if any, remorse was offered. The remains of the Borg were collected and dumped into space. The remaining Borg ships were destroyed during the battles for assimilation. Chapter 9 - Base Delta Zero With the events of the last few days behind them, the StarFleet officers had yet another meeting to review the last encounter. Picard started the meeting. "You first Doctor. What were the casualties from that recent fracas?" Doctor Crusher was still in a state of shock from the battle, but was able to respond. "The Fringe-Worlders had no crew casualties, no doubt because of the barbaric nature of those weapons. There were two StarFleet casualties. Ensign Paul Jacques and Ensign 2nd class Timothy Jones." "Hoo-ray" shouted LaForge. "I hope it was a dishonorable death" stated Worf with a rare grin on his face. Riker was also grinning, though making an attempt to hide it. Data had a blank expression, contemplating why the demise of two persons would elicit a response of joy. "But," continued Doctor Crusher, "Jones is expected to survive after intensive care." "Damn, nearly" exclaimed LaForge. "Almost," said Worf dejectedly. Riker sighed while staring blankly at the ceiling. "Beverly, what's the matter? You appear peturbed about something." queried Picard. "Jean-Luc, that was not the first time I've had to use a weapon in defense, but it was the first time that our technology failed us. A bunch of throwbacks who wouldn't be allowed out of nursery school without extensive psycho-conditioning, with equally primitive weapons made us look fragile and helpless." "Doctor," said Worf. "Anyone who deals with Borg that close is worthy of respect. Primitive or not, their weapons were effective and ours were not." "And," said Riker "they did lose a number of pilots. The debriefing said they lost eight pilots killed, and another twenty-four injured. They were all in the unshielded craft. Those fighters with the red stripes on their wing panels had no losses that I could see." "Counselor," asked Picard, moving on to the next point, "what has been the reaction by the StarFleet crew members?" It was now Counselor Troi's turn to look pale. "With the revelation of the replicator food additives and the ease at which the Fringe-Worlders can dispatch our most feared enemy, most of the non-commissioned crew and a sizeable percentage of junior officers are thinking of resigning from StarFleet and joining our hosts." Picard's reply was as simple as it was shocking. "Let them." "Captain, how can you? The personnel crisis is going to be exacerbated with the loss of so many trained and experienced people," exclaimed Troi. "Deanna," said Picard, calmly, "if we try to prevent them from leaving, that will only confirm their worst suspicions about the United Federation of Planets. If we let them leave, they do so without any ill feeling towards StarFleet and the Federation. It is not as though they are going to join the Romulans or the Cardassians. Now to change the subject, Commander Data, how much longer before we arrive at our next destination?" Data was quick to reply, and accurate. Unnecessarily accurate. "Exactly forty-two minutes, and thirty eight point one two nine seven, ..." "Thank you, commander," said Picard, "So, a little over forty minutes. Doctor, what has been the prognosis with Ensign Jones." "Well Jean-Luc, he is currently under-going intensive bacta therapy, but he has had to have both his legs amputated at mid-thigh and his right arm amputated at the elbow. The medical droids say he will be fit to resume his duties within a few days." Riker spoke up next. "How is a triple amputee expected to resume that grueling labour?" He enquired, the bafflement and disbelief evident on his face. "I know Bacta's good but I think even it would be hard pressed to regrow 3 limbs, certainly not in a few days!" Doctor Crusher continued. "The medical droids told me that his limbs were too badly damaged to repair. I saw the triage report and concurred. The med-droids said they will replace his limbs with cybernetic prosthetics that will be indistinguishable from normal limbs in appearance and function." The meeting continued for a good 2 hours further, all raising points they thought Picard needed to address. --- The system the fleet was heading to was unique in Borg territory. The planet was the transport and communication nexus for a large section of Borg space. It literally provided the link between four sections of Borg space. The reconnaissance probes launched by the Fringe-Worlds had monitored the volume of data traffic throughout Borg space. There were two locations that were obvious. One in the middle of deep space and the other where communications were channeled through this choke-point. The plan was to disrupt this centre and to rendezvous with the Voyager while the Borg are recovering. A simple plan. But even the simplest of plans can have unintended consequences. Thorn was on the bridge discussing, with the other senior officers, the forthcoming operation. Present were the 'Chimaera's gunnery officers, the Combat Air Group Commander and the defensive systems officers. Also present via holo-link were the other ship commanders and their respective senior staffs. "The first phase of the operation is stop at the outer edge of the planetary system," said Thorn. "Then we conduct a high-resolution scan of the target world. CAG, your input please." The CAG stood and pointed to the holo-display of the system. "While the Imperators are conducting their scans of the target world, we will be launching brights and tris. We will be reverting to realspace on the 'south' side of the system. The fighters and attack craft will use their hyperdrives to jump to the 'west' and 'east' points before heading to the target world. They will receive targeting updates at this time. At the go command, they will conduct standard 'Wild-Weasel' defense suppression operations." Thorn continued the briefing. "The Imperators will then hyperjump to within one Astronomical Unit of the target, removing any defensive craft. The other ships will be on outer-system picket. Once the planetary and orbital defenses have been suppressed, the Victories and the Inderdictor will re-join the fleet and then arrange for a Base-Delta-Zero operation. Your individual briefing packages are being transmitted to you." The fleet reverted at the edge of the system. The two Imperators conducted a rapid but detailed sensor scan of the system, and a more detailed scan of the target planet. Meanwhile, the TIE Advanced and TIE Defender craft exited through the Star Destroyers' ventral docking bay entrance. The 'Chimaera's command crew watched via remote monitors as the TIEs formed into their wings and hyper-jumped to their rally points. The StarFleet command crew were watching this "Danse Macabre" from the spectator viewing seats to the port of Thorn's command station. "Sensors report that the TIEs are at their rally points," reported the CAG. "We're ready for the next phase." "Comms, get me the 'Iron Fist'." ordered Thorn. Kahla's face appeared on a monitor hung from the ceiling near Thorn's station. The monitor she was looking at was in the same location. "Kahla, is the 'Iron Fist' ready?" queried Thorn. "Ready to proceed. By your command," Was her terse reply. "Stage two, commence," said Thorn. At that moment, the two Imperators did a small hyper jump to within one AU of the target world. The huge sublight engines engaged, and the two massive dagger-shaped ships headed inexorably towards their destination. Like the fabled sword of Damocles - after the thread had snapped. "Final sensor sweep conducted," reported the tactical officer. "Targeting information has been relayed to the TIEs. They've acknowledged and are ready to hyper-jump, on your signal. Also we have detected two Cubes inbound for our position, sir." "Tell the TIE's to stand-by." The comm monitor was still open, the link having been re-established on reversion to real-space. "Kahla, you see the Cubes?" "Yes," was Kahla's reply. "You take the left, I'll take the right." The collective watched in anticipation as the two dagger-shaped craft approached. Despite many engagements, little had been learned. The massive subspace jamming had prevented any real tangible information being released. It knew that they had a drive system that effectively cloaked the craft while in transit. Subspace distortion drives like the warp drive could be tracked, but this unknown drive system could not. That factor, combined with its sheer speed could be a vital asset against species 8472. The weapons were totally beyond anything ever encountered before. Their power certainly impressed the collective, that and the fact that they had limited success in adapting to the technology. The collective shifted it's focus to one of the two cubes approaching what was presently designated as hostile craft. "Confirmed," said Thorn. "Set your fire control to broadside and then battery ripple-fire." Up until now, every available and effective weapon had been used on the cubes, but it had been done in an uncoordinated manner, with the gunners ordered to "fire at will". Basically every weapon had fired on its own mark. With the broadside, every available and effective weapon is brought to bear, and fired at once. The energy released could shatter a Starship - shields and all. In battery ripple fire, at any one time at least one weapon of a battery would be firing, while the others charged and targeted their next shot. The purpose of this was to maintain sustained fire saturation against a target. "Firing protocols programmed and ready," reported the gunnery officer. A muffled voice was heard on Kahla's comm, but the speaker was outside the receiving cone. "Settings are confirmed here as well," relayed Kahla. "Then once they're in the firing envelope, engage," ordered Thorn. On saying this, Thorn glanced at Picard, who returned an icy stare. Seconds later, a rumble was felt throughout the ship, as gigatons of energy was absorbed by the turbolaser's recoil mechanisms and ship's mass. Quantum physics only works on the micro-scale, that of atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, and so on. Newtonian physics worked on the macro-scale. Newton's third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The combined recoil of the turbolasers actually slowed the Imperators. The effect on the Borg cubes of the super-heated plasma's kinetic energy and thermal effects was nothing short of devastating. The cubes looked as though they had been stabbed with a glowing green lance. While the cubes' shields held, for a brief fraction of a second, the energy transfer simply overwhelmed them, they collapsed destroying many of the generators. The remainder of the broadside slammed into the cube's front face, leaving a two-kilometre diameter and a one-kilometre deep impact crater. The cube actually shuddered at the impact. There must have been a lot of internal systems damage as the Borg's renowned self-repair systems were not functioning. "Time to the next broadside," asked Thorn. The gunnery officer checked his console. "Stand-by sir, weapons are still charging. It will be at least another twenty seconds." The second broadsides hit the cubes. Much of the remaining mass of the cubes then disappeared. Numerous secondary explosions indicated damage to other systems. "Weapons cycling," said the tactical officer. "Can we start the battery ripple-fire," asked Thorn. "Yes Sir, we can," replied the gunnery officer. "Then do so," said Thorn. The ripple fire was a constant storm of green turbolaser bolts. The 'Iron Fist', taking the 'Chimaera's lead, commenced its own sustained bombardment. Within a few minutes, there was nothing left of the two cubes except for free-floating atoms and molten metal. "Order the TIEs to commence their operations," ordered Thorn to the CAG. "TIEs have acknowledged," Replied the CAG. The TIEs performed a small in-system hyper-jump and emerged barely fifteen thousand kilometres from the target planet. A form of planetary shield, one that was many orders of magnitude stronger than the one used to protect a Borg cube, but one that still had the same fundamental flaw protected the Borg planet. It provided protection against energy weapons, but still allowed the passage of physical objects. The TIEs passed through the barrier and started their defense suppression mission. Their targets were power generation and distribution, planetary shielding, defensive weapons, communications and any other targets of opportunity. The style of attack was completely unexpected by the Borg. Making the same mistake of assuming that opponents will attack in a manner similar to their own, they had expected an orbital bombardment and a follow-up with forces "transported" to the surface. While their defensive weapons could cover a large section of sky, they couldn't depress their elevation enough to track or target small ships attacking from low level. All this provided excellent air-to-ground practice for the TIE pilots. With the advantages of speed and numbers, the planetary defenses were rendered useless within a few hours. By this time the Imperators had achieved a nose-down orbit over the planet. The Victory-class ships were moving into their positions. The 'Interdictor' was also moving into its position. "All ships report ready, sir," Stated the tactical officer. "Are the 'Interdictor's systems able to infiltrate the Borg comm's system?" queried Thorn. "They report that access into the Borg neural command pathways has been achieved. Ready for your command." Riker spoke next. "What are going to do," he asked sarcastically. "Send them to sleep?" "No," replied Thorn. "I want them to know what is going to happen. I want the Borg to FEEL it. I want them to experience what their victims feel. That overwhelming sense of doom, despair, and hopelessness. To understand that any resistance WILL be futile, and when you push someone too far, they will push back." Thorn activated the ship-to-ship comm. "'Interdictor' here." Elise's face appeared on-screen. She looked barely thirty. Slender features, with short, dirty-blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes. "Insert the command: Panic!". Thorn said simply. The order was relayed. While there was no noticeable effect onboard the ships, or even from their lofty positions. On the planet below the Borg had a new sensation. FEAR! All they could do was look to the sky at the large grey shapes hovering overhead, and wait. They didn't have to wait very long. The trouble with having empathic abilities is that you feel the emotions around you. Although being onboard a ship a few thousand kilometres in orbit should lessen the sensation; when twenty billion beings on the planet below experience the one emotion simultaneously, you will feel it. Counselor Troi screamed and then doubled up in pain. Her hands gripping her skull so tight that her nails were drawing blood. A medic rushed to her and gave her a sedative with a hypo-spray. A stretcher was ordered, and she was rushed to the ship's main infirmary, with Doctor Crusher following. The tactical officer broke the stunned silence. "TIEs have exited the atmosphere and are returning sir." "All ships," said Thorn. The faces of the ship's captains appeared on the monitors in above and in front of Thorn. "Prepare to conduct operation code Base-Delta-Zero." Base as in beginning. Delta as in change. Zero as in Year-Zero. A return to year zero, the beginning. The 'Chimaera' started with a single shot from a Heavy Turbolaser to ensure the shields were fully down. The impact was the equivalent of a one-hundred megaton fission-fusion-fission device. The impact crater could be seen from the 'Chimaera', before dust, ash, and other materials formed a vertical column that then spread once the matter had reached sufficient altitude. The shape was familiar. A mushroom cloud. The ground around the impact zone rippled like a pond after a stone had been dropped in. For the ground to move like that over a distance of tens of kilometres was a clear indication of the power levels involved. The other Heavy Turbolasers belonging to all the ships then started to align on predetermined targets and fire. The medium weapons also joined in. The panic command had already disrupted the collective of Unimatrix One-Five. With the ground rolling like the waves on an ocean, vital services such as power, communications, and essential utilities totally broke down. Broken plasma conduits sprayed an iridescent white cloud, burning anything in reach. The populated areas of the planet looked as though they'd been mashed flat under a giant hammer. Smoke, dust, and other materials contributed to a fine haze that had settled on the planet. The haze was growing thicker. All planets have a certain level of tectonic activity. The heavy turbolaser hits had started to apply stresses on the mantle plates. Massive earthquakes occurred along the fault lines, joined quickly by volcanic activity. The streams of lava visible from orbit, especially on the night side. Several dormant volcanoes on the planet exploded, with massive pyro-plastic clouds leveling everything around them with the force of a medium turbolaser strike. The fleet's orbital path and the planet's rotation presented new targets, which were engaged with renewed vigor as the weapons systematically eradicated the surface. The atmosphere where the strikes had occurred was now so choked with dust that it the planet resembled a gas planet. Under radar scanning, the only sensor that could penetrate the dust clouds, the surface looked as though it had been hammer forged, with hundreds of overlapping impact craters. Any sign of habitation had been erased. The silicates in the planet's crust had fused to form plains of glass. Under the Heavy Turbolaser impacts, mountains were leveled, lakes and small seas vaporised, islands disappeared, and any artificial structures ceased to exit. The effect on the StarFleet crewers varied. The senior command crew on the bridge was stunned. Shocked. With the exception of Worf who gave a howl of triumph at seeing an enemy not only beaten, but totally crushed under foot. LaForge actually fainted. This caused another immediate medivac. Riker and Picard were in a near catatonic trance. Data just sat and observed, recording as much information as possible for later analysis. To the rank and file crew, many of who were survivors from previous engagements with the Borg, this was payback with interest! For several more hours the pounding continued. When the firing finally stopped the Borg planet had been reduced to a glowing cinder. The atmosphere had been superheated to many hundreds of degrees celcius. Any bodies of water were now free-floating vapour. The ecology was nonexistent, any trace of the Borg had been totally removed. Their work completed, the six dagger-shaped ships moved out of the planetary gravity well, and disappeared into hyperspace. Chapter 10 - Borg Secession The Borg collective was experiencing a new sensation. The collective's overmind saw or felt the collective as a giant single entity, like a body. The destruction of the communication nexus on Unimatrix one-five now removed the link to three parts of that "body". To have three sizeable sections disconnected from the collective felt like the amputation of an arm or leg. It was many hours before a flotilla of Borg cubes reached Unimatrix One-Five. The Borg ships now acted as the missing link to the rest of the collective. What the overmind experienced was blocked to the units in the main part of the collective. The three disconnected sections of borg space had become factionalised. Worse, the Borg units in two had regained self-awareness and made it clear that they were not going to re-join the collective willingly. The first faction called itself 'The Independent Borg Co-operative' and stated that all efforts to re-assimilate them would be resisted. The second group referred to themselves as 'The True Borg Collective' and espoused a concept that perfection is gained from within instead of assimilation from without. They stated that all attempts to force re-assimilation would be resisted, but they would make no effort to assimilate those at their borders. The third group called themselves 'The United Borg Co-operative' and, while similar to the first faction, were aggressively pursuing trade and other agreements with neighbouring systems outside their borders. Again, they stated they would resist any attempt at re-assimilation. All groups have moved cubes and scout-craft to their borders and were conducting patrols. Engagements were starting to escalate with the main collective, but very little between the other factions. This was limited to some minor border skirmishes where the actual boundaries were undefined. The collective's response to the loss of Unimatrix One-Five, its manufacturing facilities, and twenty billion Borg drones was one of irrelevance. The Borg occupied a slice of the Milky Way galaxy that covered most of the Delta Quadrant and almost half of the Beta Quadrant. With thousands of occupied systems, and millions more occupied planets, trillion and trillions of drones; one planet and its population was nothing. With a war against Species 8472, these losses were insignificant. What was significant however was that particular planet was a key installation that was the only subspace link between the main collective and the other three remote regions. The destruction of that link had caused a breakaway from the collective. The war with Species 8472 was a major concern, but to have three renegade factions was compounding matters. The collective re-assessed its priorities. A war is a problem at the best of times. One on multiple fronts can be disastrous. The Borg, being minimalists by nature, were going to find that resource allocation to be a problem. Not enough and the forces will be beaten. Too much and the forces will be used inefficiently. To Humans, overkill was usually enough. Onboard the 'Chimaera', the StarFleet Command crew was having yet another meeting. After being sedated a few days ago, Councilor Troi had been prescribed anti-depressants to stop her from over-reacting from the Base-Delta-Zero operation done to Borg Unimatrix One-Five. Riker and Picard were still recovering from the scale of what happened. The loss of twenty billion beings, even Borg, weighed on their conscience. "Jean-Luc, we should have done something." said Riker. "Will, had we done anything, we would have removed from the bridge, forcibly," replied Picard. "You know that their bridge crew are heavily armed, and they use their weapons with the casual familiarity that comes from a lot of practice. Even the Borg didn't stand a chance." "Will you two stop belly-aching about the Borg and consider the issues at hand," asked Doctor Crusher, sarcastically. "Wallowing in false pity will not help Councilor Troi nor Ensign Jones." Councilor Troi was sitting to Doctor Crusher's right, looking exhausted and ready to fall asleep almost immediately, unaware she was the subject of the conversation. "Beverly, how bad is Deanna?" asked Picard. "Better than yesterday. She spent that either restrained or sedated," was Doctor Crusher's reply. "When the initial drugs wore off, all she did was scream and assault the walls. She has not slept because of the recurring nightmares. The psychological shock may take a while to heal. And Ensign Jones, thank you for asking," She added pointedly "Appears to be suffering some form of post-traumatic condition, but my knowledge of psychiatric and psychological disorders is unfortunately limited." The question of Jones's condition was about to be answered in another place. Like many of the Fringe-World military, Thorn was basically a grunt. A ground-pounder. A soldier. Like many military, and ex-military, people, there is a certain pride in maintaining a level of physical fitness. Unfortunately with the duties of commanding not only the ship, but also a fleet, overseeing the required research and development plus the construction very little time was left for any form of serious exercise. A lot can be done on the job in the form of practice for qualification tests and pre-mission training. At other times however, a form of extremely intensive training was required. To this end, a special training area was established in the forward hangar, against the forward bulkhead. The wall in question was twenty metres high. The surface varied. Some sections were of flat panels coated in a surface similar to sandpaper. Other walls looked like rock in appearance and texture, but were in fact carbon fibre and fibreglass constructions painted and coated to give this impression. On most of the walls were a series of coloured hand and foot holds. Dropped from the ceiling were a number of belaying ropes, with a spacing of two metres between each. The ropes went vertically up to the ceiling, and then returned to an auto-belaying unit attached to the floor a few metres away from the wall. Climbing was a popular form of exercise, especially with the senior officers who were often stretched for time. It gave a fair amount of muscle tone, but not the sheer, and often useless, bulk associated with weight training, with more definition than athletics alone could provide. With this exercise came a few injuries. Usually minor cuts and abrasions, and not a few over-reach injuries from stretching strained muscles and tendons too far. This was precisely what happened to Thorn this time, and why he was in the medical bay. The same one Timothy Jones is in. Jones at the moment sat on a recovery cot staring alternately at his right forearm, and the wall beyond him. Thorn was sitting on a stool, while a 2-1-B medical droid examined his left shoulder. "A bacta infusion should repair the damage," droned the droid, "I know you can take your own weight on one hand unsupported. How did this happen?" The medical droid reached for a hypodermic needle containing bacta, and then pushed the needle twenty-five millimetres into Thorn's shoulder. Thorn stared at the far wall, concentrating on the details. Not only of the wall, but also of the maneuvers that got him here. Never liking injections, Thorn knew that the less he thought about the needle, the less it'd be noticed. That is not to say that an injection that deep could go completely unnoticed. The next sensation Thorn experienced was the bacta being injected, and the stabbing pain of the needle fading away. The only remaining sensation was the warm tingling sensation of the bacta doing its work. Hyposprays were fine for injecting drugs into the bloodstream, but this had to go in much deeper - into dense muscle tissue - and stay in a localised spot. "Yes, doctor," replied Thorn, somewhat distantly, "I can hang from one hand for up to half a minute in a one-gee environment. We had the gravity turned up a little higher than that though." "I would estimate at least one-point-two gravities," droned the doctor. "One-point-two-five gee," corrected Thorn. Hearing a voice other than the med-droids snatched Jones out of his trance. He then stood and walked from the recovery room. He saw a vaguely familiar person and medical droid in conversation. Then the realisation struck him. The seated person was the ship and fleet commander. In a reflex action Jones stood at attention and gave a parade-ground salute. "Ensign Timothy Jones reporting, ... sir!" He all but shouted. The outburst took Thorn by surprise. Engrossed in conversation with the med-droid, he hadn't realised that there was anyone else in the medical centre. Jones, Thorn thought. The name was familiar... something about an unusual rank..., then a meeting of a few weeks ago came back to him. "You forgot the 2nd class, Jones," acknowledged Thorn, "And careful with that arm, you might give yourself a concussion." Jones still stood at attention. "Sit down ensign," added Thorn while pointing at the 2-1-B medical droid, "before the doctor here gives you a lecture on what bad posture does to you." Jones grabbed another stool and sat down. The moves were fluid and precise. Previously Jones had been disjointed in his moves, almost clumsy. It was as though a different person was occupying the body. This was not lost on Thorn. "There are some elements within the Federation that are concerned about the FringeWorlds," stated Jones. Thorn mentally noted Jones said Federation - not StarFleet. Trying to see if the word was intentional he said, "StarFleet is used to dealing with opponents it can handle. Like the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Marquis, and Borg; the latter barely." Thorn deliberately did not mention that the FringeWorlds had the potential to oppose the Federation, and it would be a conflict that StarFleet would not be able to handle. Jones next response answered Thorn's unasked questions. "Section 31 was alarmed at the battle plan Admiral Halsey reported!" Thorn declined to answer. This fool was revealing more information than any sensible operative would. Maybe the former personality was not totally false. Thorn's lack of a response prompted Jones to continue. "Are you aware of Section 31?" asked Jones. "Yes," answered Thorn, "Section 31 is the Federation's dirty tricks department. Their mission is to deal with any threat to the Federation, quietly. They are potentially a greater threat to the Federation it tries so hard to protect." The last statement caught Jones offguard. "How can they be a threat to those they are protecting?" He asked, shocked. Thorn collected his thoughts for a second and said, "Unlike StarFleet Intelligence and the Federation Intelligence Agency, Section 31 is answerable to no-one. Fleet Intel and the FIA have senior government level oversight committees governing their actions, ensuring that events don't get out of hand." He smiled "They became more hands-on after the fiasco in the Tarantula Nebula where Fleet Intel and the FIA sponsored a proxy war with the Romulan Tal Shiar. Section 31 does not have an oversight group to query or veto any course of action." "But, there is still the threat from your capability," said Jones as he gestured to indicate the ship. "In that case Section 31's analysts have made the fundamental intelligence flaw of confusing capability with intent," replied Thorn. "Other than Admiral Halsey's incident, why would we go to war against the Federation? Not because we can. Wars are fought not for the battles, although the Klingons might, but for some strategic and, hence, political objective." "But we have an advantage," added Jones. "Warp drive will give the Federation a tactical advantage in any engagement. This ship does not have a warp drive." Again Thorn noted Jones said Federation, not StarFleet. He decided to play Jones' game, while it was still amusing. "Because the Star Destroyers don't need them. Hyperdrive is several orders of magnitude faster. To get where we are now with a warp drive would take a couple of decades at maximum warp. Anyway, warp drive is a standard technology. Everyone has it. Warp drives are fitted to our Predator-class patrol ships, and they have hyperdrives retro-fitted to them as well. The best of both worlds you could say." "Then why develop these massive ships?" asked Jones. "It's a useful defense against future Borg incursions. If we are a threat to the Federation, then our threat is more an economic one than military or political." said Thorn. "How can your economy be a threat to the Federation?" asked Jones, with an expression of disgust on his face. "The Fringe Worlds have a fifth the number of the planets claimed by Federation" said Thorn. "Not even a fifth of the population, but our gross domestic product is more than two-thirds that of the UFP. We grow through trade." "The Federation always develops the best technology. We grow through constantly pushing the technological envelope", Retorted Jones, his chest swelling with pride as he said this. Thorn's reply was very cutting, bursting Jones' swelling pride like a pin bursting a balloon. "Then what are you doing here?" He asked rhetorically. "You are here because your Fed-tech failed you when you needed it the most. You are here because you were never prepared physically or psychologically to deal with an opponent at arm's length." The arguments continued for another hour. Every time Jones thought he could press a decisive advantage, Thorn quickly countered and destroyed it. Thankfully the argument did not turn violent. Even with the cybernetic limbs, Jones would have fatally confused intent with capability. Jones eventually conceded defeat and sulked in the recovery room. Thorn told the medical droid to clear Jones for regular crewing duties, and then left to get a drink. All the arguing had left him very thirsty. As he walked to the nearest turbolift, Thorn was trying to decide what was more futile. Hammering your head against a durasteel pressure bulkhead, or arguing with Timothy Jones. As he neared a turbolift, he made the conclusion that the former was more productive. After all, you would eventually hammer your way through given time. Chapter 11 - Interludes With the Borg now thoroughly distracted, events aboard the ships started to wind down to a regular routine. Not that there was much time for relaxation. The time was used to catch up on the more major items of maintenance, and paperwork. There was still one major item of concern. How to handle the rendezvous with Voyager. To this end, joint meetings with the Chimaera's senior crew and the Enterprise's senior crew had been scheduled. After having several successive meetings dissolve into heated off-topic arguments, Picard and Thorne decided to handle the issue on a one-on-one basis in the captain's office. Picard and Thorn over several hours discussed how to handle the rendezvous. Numerous options were discussed, some rejected immediately, others were noted with their estimated probabilities for success. Eventually, a plan of sorts was formed, supposedly simple and elegant, but the Voyager's reaction was the unknown element. After forming the plan, Thorn scribbled some notes in the margin before closing his file. Then he leaned back with a smile on his face and gave a sigh. "And what do you find amusing, Commander," queried Picard. "Murphy's laws of military operations, number sixteen," replied Thorn. Picard's reply was an expression of puzzlement on his face. Thorn took this as a cue to continue. "No OPLAN ever survives initial contact," quoted Thorn. Even Picard, normally so stiff and formal, gave a chuckle. "I would have to agree with you there," noted Picard. His tone of voice had changed from the formal one of the Starfleet officer. "Commander, I understand you've been involved in... para-military operations for a long time." Thorn nodded as his acknowledgment. "And that you've been involved with Starfleet since the early days." "Never in an official capacity, Captain," said Thorn, "I've always been hired as a consultant in various capacities, with nominal or honorary ranks ranging from Lieutenant to Commander." "Commander, this is not an interrogation, short of time travel and a meeting with the Temporal Investigation Bureau, I want to hear a first-hand account of what it was like during the First Romulan War and the Kirk era," said Picard, finally admitting his reason for the questions. The wall between the two was now broken. Thorn leaned back in his seat and placed his feet on the table. Picard noted that there were barely visible scuff marks around the edge of the table. Thorn stared at the ceiling while gathering his thoughts. "The good old days," he sighed. "With hindsight, the ships were slow, unreliable, and almost as hazardous to their users as the environment they operated in. An often repeated in-joke referred to that era as one of 'Wooden Ships and Iron Men'. But, it was exciting to be at the cutting edge of technology, exploration, and, later, combat. It was an era when a captain's word was law, and when the Prime Directive was first announced, it was often regarded as advisory instead of being carved in stone and handed down from on-high." "You're saying the Prime Directive was ignored," queried Picard. "No," replied Thorn. "It wasn't followed as closely as was expected. If the situation demanded a choice between upsetting the locals or the survival of the ship's crew, the latter option was usually taken." "And what was it like for those in command," asked Picard. "Being so far from base support, decisions had to be made with a combination of incomplete information, experience, and guess-work. With enough time, a board of inquiry could prove anything, but most of the time officers were found to have acted more-or-less properly with the information they had at hand. Another in-joke referred to the choice between disobeying the law of God and an order from your ship's captain." Picard smirked at the jokes. "And what was the response in that situation," he asked as he stood. "Are there any refreshments in here," he asked as he walked to the panelled cupboards on the port side of the room. "Centre cupboard. You'll find the cans labelled 'Liptonice' to your liking. And can you bring a can labelled 'Diet Coke' to me as well." Picard looked through the refrigerator inside the cupboard. The stylised logos made picking between the products a bit difficult at first, but once used to the logos, the selection was made easier. While Picard was searching for the drink selections, Thorn continued. "You obeyed your captain's order. God forgives, your captain won't." Picard walked over to Thorn with the cans, and handed Thorn the mostly silver coloured can. Thorn opened his can, and Picard opened his after seeing Thorn perform the operation. Picard tasted the beverage and found it to be a palatable form of iced tea. Picard then sat at a seat near Thorn. "Not bad, Commander. And what about the crews of that era." "Given a choice between a Kirk-era crew and a current batch, I'd pick the former. The technology has only been refined since then. It is still operating on the same principles. If Engineer Montgomery Scott returned, I think he'd be surprised to see that his operating manuals are still in use. BUT, then a crew's priorities and loyalties were to their captain, their crewmates, and to their ship, and, in THAT order. Today, the priorities and loyalties of StarFleet personnel, and in particular the academy graduates, are my hide, my promotion, and my career." With both commanders now having a degree of mutual respect for each other, the conversation continued. While Picard and Thorn were talking, the Information Systems Officer, Nichols, was in his inner sanctum. Although his official duty station was on the bridge, he spent more time in the console room of the ship's computer systems. Here he could work as he pleased, undisturbed by unnecessary interruptions. The ship's systems usually ran without a hiccup, but being a hacker by nature, Peter has a hands-on approach. Presently he is examining the system's status reports trying to identify potential problems and fix them before they became real problems. The only item of note was a significant increase in the number if rejected commands over the last few weeks. An increase over normal numbers was expected, but instead of reducing after the StarFleet personnel were trained and experienced, the numbers continued to rise. Now his interest was aroused. Peter then queried the system to bring up a detailed list of the accounts and their rejected commands summary report. Most were in normal limits, often commented on as the "too-many-fingers-on-keyboard" syndrome. Two accounts showed a significantly higher number of rejected commands. Nichols then accessed the account holder details and the accounts' transaction log-files. "Hmm, Commander Data," he mumbled to himself, while in deep thought. "Interesting technique, but the routers and firewalls seem to be doing their job." He then gave a laughing sigh. "Interesting. . . only milli-seconds between commands. He must be using a direct connection instead of a keyboard. Even a hundred of you couldn't overwhelm the system with an input overload." Back in the captain's office, Picard and Thorn were still in discussion. The topic had shifted to the StarDestroyers. Picard was intrigued, and asked, "Why build such massive and powerful ships?" "For a number of reasons," replied Thorn. "A technological tour-de-force, for starters. A task-force command vessel. For power projection. The Predators are good as combat ships as, say, a Nebula-class, but they are only slightly smaller than an Intrepid-class. Even a battle-group of five or six doesn't mean much to some foes. But a Victory-class, more so an Imperator, is guaranteed to get some attention. Even if it stays on our side of the border, the message is clear: 'don't even think about it'". "StarFleet do use their Galaxy and Sovereign-class ships in a similar way. But there's more than that to it," commented Picard. "Even the Borg are not that much of a threat." "Moderation in war is imbecility, Clausewitz," quoted Thorn. "We've been sending hyperdrive equipped probes through Borg space for almost a year. Usually the probes find signs of Borg infrastructure. Mining. Refining. Ship yards. Communications. The sheer volume of the latter is incredible. Construction, etc. Whole planets, even systems serving the collective. Over the last few months, follow-up visits to identified systems have found nothing. They've gone." "The Borg," queried Picard. "The Planet," replied Thorn. "And any other sign of occupation. Think about that planet we raised a few days ago. Remove the planet and consider it on a scale of a few thousand-fold." "The numbers would be staggering. So the Borg may have found someone or something that is too big for them to handle," said Picard. "And certainly too big for the Alpha and Beta quadrant factions to deal with," stated Thorn. "It's probably why their efforts against us have been economic, to say the least. Perhaps the Voyager's logs can identify and give some detail to the threat." The next account was even more interesting. "Ensign Timothy Jones," he sighed. The transaction log looked almost familiar. "Most of those are not system calls," he said to no-one in particular, "but let's see what files are in your account." Peter took a look at the files within Jones' account and burst out laughing, almost hysterically. After a minute, Nichols decided to take a break and stood up, stretched, and walked to the facilities room attached to the console room. Coffee was now the priority. He had the coffee machine make a mug of coffee so thick, it almost poured like molasses. While the coffee was brewing he removed his glasses and cleaned them. "Oh Jones," he said to himself, "you think you're a hacker. You think you can break my systems. You're not even a third-rate script-kiddie." After the coffee was ready, Peter grabbed his mug, headed back to and sat at the console. He displayed a hierarchical schematic of the user accounts, and then dragged Jones' account to the lowest level. "Now let's see you do something from there," he said to himself. As he sat back smugly, Nichols had a flash of inspiration. He could do it, he had the authority, but he decided he had better talk to the boss about this one. "And the final issue, Commander," said Picard, "what can you tell me about the people, the . . . Fanrati I think they're called, who assisted in this project?" "Hmm, Section 31 has been busy. You must remember, captain, I came into the Fringe-Worlds fairly late on the scene. But I knew some of the people who participated in the original exodus." Thorn's monologue gave what details he could recollect about how the convoy arrived into a system, and detected signs of habitation and settlement throughout. The Fanrati had settled most of the planets and the moons around the gas giants. The inner system settlements were more optimised for food production, while the settlements in the asteroid belt and the outer planets were more optimised for raw materials gathering and refining. They had not moved beyond their own system, having little reason to do so. The two groups were initially cautious and guarded towards each other, especially as it was a first contact situation. Both groups, however, did exchange historical and cultural information about each other. It was the Fanrati who responded first. Their interest was raised in the video epic with the 'Big Ships'. They requested more information, which was supplied after much searching through private archives. Soon the Fanrati scientists and engineers were talking to the settler's scientists and engineers, and a group project on the background technologies started. "Sounds like a case for the Prime Directive," joked Picard. "What was their technology level?" "In some areas, the equivalent of Federation standard," replied Thorn. "In others, especially materials and zero-gravity construction, very advanced. They had their equivalent of the industrial revolution while much of Europe was covered in ice sheets and Neanderthals were the dominant human species. But, whereas humanity went from the industrial revolution to early space flight in about one-hundred and fifty years, they took much longer." "Any speculation as to why?" "Up until then, their history is like many other groups. Mostly feudal warlords and some emerging nation states. After a few conflicts, some realised that war as an industrial process can be costly to all sides. Progressively they merged into a unified government. But, without war to push research-and-development and the accompanying technological envelope, their progress was proportionally slower, but they've had fifteen plus thousand years to work at it." Picard paused for a moment, reflecting on the Federation's early history. "With regard to the first Romulan war and early Klingon conflicts, you've made a point. What else is known about your partners?" "Early history, very little. It has been determined that they are not native to their homeworld. They have some myths that allude to a long journey across the stars, but nothing that can give proof. Physiology, basic humanoid: a head, two arms, five fingers, opposing thumbs, two legs. Minor differences in the location of internal organs, but otherwise similar. The only real differences are in their skin tones. Humans vary from white to black with various shades of pink and brown in between. The Fanrati skin tones vary from a pale greenish-white to a bright blue. Hair colours vary from platinum white, through grays, to black. The main difference is the eyes. Under some light conditions, they glow red." From here, the discussion centred on Thorn's activities after leaving Earth after his stay on Heard Island. Mostly freelance work. Some training of local militia and law enforcement groups. Picked up by the Klingons after the forced landing where xenomorphs had nested. After the Klingons, recruited by the Fringe-Worlds' military, commanding patrol craft, and then finally the SD project. After the discussions, Picard returned to his quarters to reflect on what had been revealed. Thorn had noted an urgent request from Nichols to see him in the central computer's console room. After passing through the most stringent security any side of a nuclear weapons storage facility, Thorn approached Nichols who was sitting at the main console. As he approached, he asked, "What's up Pete?" "Jones." "What's he got," Thorn asked as he grabbed a chair and sat down. "Shanzou Red Dragon." "What", exclaimed Thorn. "Chinese military ICE-breaker." "Yep. One the best breakers of Electronic Defences. A bit too good. Very destructive. Gave the defences such a battering that it's immediately obvious what's going on. The best use was to launch it multiple times at a target, and then slip another routine in while the defences were being shorn up for another assault." "Any threat to the ship's systems?" "None. His account has been moved to the lowest level in the hierarchy. I wondered why he asked for a server address a while ago." "And what did you tell him? One-two-seven dot zero dot zero dot one?" Nichols reply was a broad, smug grin. "Had him chasing his own tail for a while. I didn't think someone would be silly enough to try and hack their own account." "With Jones, you are dealing with a particular type of stupidity. Remember that nothing is foolproof, because fools are quite ingenious," commented Thorn. "That's why I've asked you to approve this," Nichols said as he brought up some of the altered information on the console's screen. "You remember that documentary on the Concord, and how the western security forces intercepted a tyre compound formula that was being sent to Russia for their tee-you one-four-four project." "Yes, I remember," replied Thorn. "I remember the interviewee commenting that the formula supplied was closer to chewing gum than aviation rubber, and that he pitied any unfortunate engineer that had to make it work." "Same idea," said Nichols. "It's obvious that Jones wants the information on the technologies to take back to Section 31. . ." "How did you know he was with Section 31?" "They left their calling cards through the file headers. We give them the information they want, and then stand back and watch the results." "So you're going to let Jones break out of his account, and stumble into your doctored information, which he will download and take back home?" "Got it in one, boss," replied Nichols. "Alright, do it. And, speaking of hacking, when we dock with Voyager, I want you to gain access and download their entire system. Everything. Is that going to be a problem?" "Not necessarily, boss. An Intrepid-class computer systems' entire capacity should take about a quarter of our available free resources. I'll also keep an off-line backup as well. You don't trust them to keep their side of the bargain?" "Not one-hundred percent. We'll compare it against the copy they do hand over. It should be interesting to see what they don't tell us." Chapter 12 - Rendezvous The fleet finally arrives at its destination. A large gas cloud about twice the diameter of the Sol system. The tactical officer is running sensor scans of the gas cloud. "The density of the cloud is not enough to cause gravitational attraction, so no heat/pressure build up to start stellar reactions. But, there's enough static being generated to blind sensors after a few ten thousand kilometres." The StarFleet command crew was having another meeting session, so the Chimaera's bridge crew occupied the bridge. "That's a lot of area to search, and not much time to do it in. Any ideas people," asked Thorn to his bridge officers. The CAG Commander replied, "we could use the fighters and shuttles as reconnaissance platforms." "The shuttles would probably be the best, but sending out fighter pilots on long-duration escort duty would not be good for them physically", noted Doctor Carter. The Doctors point was obvious. Of the TIE series craft, only the Advanced was equipped with a full life support system for long duration missions. Since the TIE fighter, Interceptor, and Defender were designed primarily as space-superiority fighters, such luxuries were dispensed with to save weight and improve performance. In those craft, only the pilot's flight suit was between them and hard vacuum. Because of its multi-role capability, the "Bright" was fitted with a full life-support system, but was often deactivated in short-term operations. "But a squadron of shuttles is not going to be able to search all that," said Combat Air-Group Commander Theiss. "With the shuttles from the other ships, we'll have slightly less that four squadrons worth." Another voice rose from the back of the crowd. "Between the Chimaera and the Iron Fist, we can field a squadron of A-wings and two squadrons of X-wings." Thorn turned to the new voice. "Your point, Litton," he asked. "They are sitting unassigned and unused in the hangars, moved into the corners because of their awkward deck handling. Both of those craft are hyperdrive capable. And the X-wing can be refitted to recon configuration within a few hours..." "Six hours minimum for the first half-squadron of X-wings," interjected Theiss, "and the same again for the rest. And, another few hours again for the A-wings. All of our flight operations were designed around the TIE series. The X and A-wings were dumped on us as the ships were nearing completion. Other than occasional check flights and Aggressor-training, they 're unused." Thorn now turned to face Thiess. "And what exactly will it take to have the X-wings converted over to recon duties" Thiess thought for a moment and said, "The forward torpedo launchers and their magazines need to be removed, and the space filled with the recon electronics fit. The pilot's storage bay has to be used for another part of the electronics. And two under-fuselage hard-points are needed for the sensor pods and cable and winch mechanisms. The sensor pods give them the same active scanning ability as a Predator-class patrol ship. The X-wing retains its protective shields and the four wing laser-cannons for self-protection. After that, all they need is a pilot." "So you need pilots," asked Thorn, trying to get to end of the matter. "Yes." "Then what about the TIE Interceptor pilots?" The CAG tried to find a way out of the verbal trap he found himself in. "Fel and one-eight-one group are dedicated TIE pilots. They will not like flying anything else." "Thiess," said Thorn, "they don't have to like it, they just have to do it. A TIE Interceptor just doesn't have the capability for this mission. We have eighteen craft, and twenty-four pilots available. Issue orders. One. Get the X-wings altered to reconnaissance configuration. Two. Get the squint pilots into the simulators for refresher and mission training. And Three. Use the A-wings for free roving reconnaissance. With their sublight speed and hyperdrives, they should be able to outrun anything unfriendly that might be encountered. Anything else?" "LCs", replied Litton. After a pause he added "The Assault Landing Craft. Although mostly used for sub-orbital flight, they are fully rated for spaceflight and are hyperdrive equipped. Also they have a fairly comprehensive sensor fit and a full uplink capable comms system. Their interior layout is more cramped than the shuttles but we can use them in the same way." ------ The hangar bays became a hive of activity. The X-wings and A-wings were moved to service bays to begin their readiness checks and, for the X-wings, their temporary conversion to their new role. The Interceptor pilots were performing check flights and mission practice in the simulators. The ship's shuttles and LCs were also getting an enhanced pre-flight check for their operations. Owing to a shortage of available pilots, some of Litton's ground-pounders and Gurney's security that had any flying aptitude or experience were run through the shuttle and LC simulators for copilot training. The situation was desperate enough for the StarFleet personnel who had any shuttle flying experience were asked to volunteer, for extra pay bonuses of course. The differences between a shuttle and a LC could not be starker. The Lambda-class shuttle looked everything like a shuttle should. Sleek, pleasant lines that belied their performance. They also mounted some fairly heavy weapons and heavy-duty shield generators to turn them into a fairly effective combat craft if required. The main notable feature of the shuttle was the tri-wing design, with the two lower wings folded upwards when the shuttle was on a landing platform or in a hangar. The third wing was attached to the fuselage roof in the dorsal position. Once the repulsorlift engines had lifted the craft a minimum distance, the two outer wings would fold down to their flight position. The Lambda was a popular craft and sold well on the civilian market. Of course the civilian models had downgraded shields, strictly defensive-only weapons, and the military-grade armour plate removed. But the lighter weight gave the civilian models a better performance profile. The interior section had a two-seat cockpit in the nose. Immediately aft were a small galley on one side, and a toilet on the other. For hygiene reasons, the latter had a sealed door. Between the galley and refresher and the bulkhead that separated the front section from the main cabin was a small bunk storage area. This area was used to store the crew's personal effects and the fold-down bunks were used by the crew to rest between shifts. The bulkhead was much thicker than normal because it was also a pressure bulkhead. The main cabin could be used as an airlock. The cabin fit out was in normal military style. Down the port and starboard sides were a row of seats. And another two back-to-back rows were down the centre. Just below the ceiling and in line with the centre of the two aisles were taut steel cables that ran from the centre bulkhead to the rear access ramp/hatch. It was the first time the Starfleet personnel had seen a static-line for parachute drops. Many of them refused to believe it. Their argument was that a transporter could do the same job with far less risk. The counter argument was that the broad-spectrum energy spike of the transporter that advertised the location to anyone in the area. Not a good idea for covert insertions. In the rear corners, behind pressure-doors were the positions where the tractor/beams and rear weapons were operated. The rear door also formed an access ramp and an additional standard airlock door was in the centre of the rear door. The Landing Craft, or LC as it was more commonly known, was a complete contrast. Designed with purely utilitarian function in mind, to call them ugly would be considered a complement. Basically they were a rectangular shape, blocky in appearance, and had all the aesthetics of a local council public convenience. The outer hull of the LC had quite a covering of pods, bumps, blisters, apertures and attachment points. Normally these would have disfigured the looks of most ships, but in this case that was impossible. In the nose was a standard two-seat cockpit. Immediately aft was the command module. Two rows of acceleration couches, a fold-out table, the upper cornices consisted of display screens, separate, but networked, comms for tactical and command channels, holographic display projectors, drinks dispenser - by default set to high energy and caffeine mixtures, and more of what is required to run terrestrial civil and military operations. It has been noted that some field commanders have spent days and even weeks inside their LCs without seeing the outside. The next section contained a refresher unit and an electronics bay. Then forward cabin, mid-entranceway (airlock capable), aft cabin, and then rear ramp access door. The forward cabin had two rows of acceleration couches on the sides while the aft cabin added the back-to-back rows down the centre. The middle rows could be reconfigured for medivac purposes. All the internal bulkheads were designed to act as pressure bulkheads. The fuel, power generation, engines, and most other systems were either under the floor. The rest were either in the hull sides or in the roof. It was a multi-function dropship, armoured personnel carrier, and command vehicle. Despite it's appearance, the LC has a similar flight profile to the shuttle but is more optimised for suborbital-to-ground operations. The Chimaera and the Iron Fist's hangar bays were equally as busy. As were the simulators and the volunteering. This activity did not go unnoticed. Picard, Riker, Worf, LaForge, Data, Doctor Crusher, and Councillor Troi were standing in a group near one of the hangar bay turbolifts. Near the lifts were large plastic bins containing cold-weather survival jackets. In the interests of efficiency, they were one-size-fits-all. On Picard and LaForge, they fitted fairly well. On Riker and Worf, they were a bit snug, but had enough stretch designed into them to stop them from tearing. On Crusher and Troi, even with the designed-in drawstrings, belts, and load-carrying harness fully tightened, the jackets hung off them like they were wearing a tent. Data declined the offer of the jacket. "Data, don't you realise how cold it is in here," asked Doctor Crusher. "Yes, precisely two-hundred and seventy-five degrees on the Kelvin scale, with an ambient humidity of five percent. This temperature is well within my operating specifications." "The hangar's magnetic atmospheric containment field is a poor thermal insulator," noted LaForge. The chill in the air caused the others to shiver involuntarily. While the jackets kept most of their bodies warm, their legs only had the StarFleet issue jumpsuit, for what little thermal protection they gave. The noise in the hangar bay was like that of a heavy foundry. The whines of repulsorlifts as various craft were moved about. The sounds of heavy-duty industrial tools being used. The shouts of people trying to make themselves heard over the din. Worf was fascinated. He wondered off from the group to take a closer look. He'd seen the craft in displays and reference materials, as well as the combat sensor logs. It's not the same as seeing one up close, and being able run your hands over the surface, to look inside and maybe, to sit inside and see the pilot's eye view. He moved around the hangar bay, being careful to avoid moving craft, and to stay out of the mechanics' way. Finally he arrived at one of the corners where the X-wings were stored. Worf then took the opportunity to walk around one up close. It didn't take much to guess what the long things on the ends of the wings were for. And the two ports on the port and starboard ventral corners. He had observed the techs removing the torpedo launchers. The hatch was open and the boarding ladder was extended. He walked up to it and paused. A voice shouted out over the noise. "Do you want to take a look inside?" Worf turned to see a senior maintenance technician a few metres behind him. "It's no trouble sir, all the maintenance crews are busy with the others." Worf climbed the ladder and sat in the pilot's couch. The seat was semi-reclined. The unnamed tech climbed the ladder and started to point out the controls. "You right hand uses the central stick for pitch and roll control. The pedals under your feet control the yaw axis. The latter more effective in atmosphere than vacuum, but when used together, they can make the ship fly in incredible manoeuvres." The tech's hands pointed to the control stick. "The buttons on the stick control weapon selection and fire mode. Single and double fire for the torpedo launcher. Single, Double, and Quad fire for the laser cannons. Sensor range and, obviously, weapon firing are handled by the other buttons and the forward trigger." The tech then motioned to the left-side control panel. "Engine throttle, repulsorlift, and hyperdrive controls are here, and on the other side are your communication controls. The forward left panel controls your discretionary energy distribution, between shields, engines, and weapons. The centre panel has the sensor screens and flight information, and on the right is the screen for your astromech to communicate to you." This was a bit overwhelming. "What's an astromech," Worf asked. The tech motioned to a group of cylindrical shaped droids. Some had a hemispherical dome shaped head while others had a head shaped like an inverted bucket. "Those are astromechs. They handle hyperspace navigation, sensor operation, and even minor repairs. Takes a big workload off the pilot. Allows the pilot to think more about flying and combat than the little things." Worf had one last question. "Why is the seat reclined back so far? I'm almost lying down in here" "Helps reduce the effects of gee-lock." Worf's response was of incomprehension. The tech elaborated. "Gravity induced Loss Of Consciousness. The ship's inertial compensator removes most of it. But some manoeuvres can overwhelm it. Hence the seating position." Worf then stood. The tech climbed down the boarding ladder and allowed Worf to do so as well. "Is there any objection to me taking a look from on top of one of those overhead walkways." "No sir," replied the tech. "Those are the one-eight-one's birds. Feel free to look, but don't do anything else unless you're invited to." Worf gave the tech some thanks for the unexpected surprise and took a turbolift to the top of one of the overhead gantry. From above, the view was breathtaking. He then walked to one of the one-eight-one's Interceptors and then crouched to look into the cockpit through the open roof hatch. It looked impossibly small and cramped. From his all-too-brief familiarisation with the X-wing, he was able to identify most of the controls and instrumentation. A deep voice spoke from behind Worf. "Probably as tight for you as it is for me." Worf straightened and turned, and found himself eye-to-eye with a human as tall, muscled, and broad as himself. Because of his stature, Worf normally looks down on most humans. This was an exception. His dark hair was cut very close to his skull. A small beard and moustache framed his mouth. He was wearing a black close fitting jumpsuit with what could be guessed as a life support module strapped to his chest, and the hoses then trailed over his shoulders to the helmet hanging on his back. The black suited man extended a hand and said, "Fel". Worf took this as a greeting. "Worf. I have heard of you. Your exploits are legendary." Fel replied, "I do what I enjoy doing." Fel then pointed a ship on the hangar floor. It looked impossibly small, almost half the size of an X-Wing. "I'll be taking out one of the A-wings to conduct the search. As much as I like the Interceptor, its lack of a hyperdrive renders it useless in this case." "What is the A-wing like compared to the Interceptor," asked Worf. "Smaller, almost as manoeuvrable, and much faster. Probably the fastest sublight powered craft available. It will do until we get our Defenders," he said as he gestured to the tri-winged TIEs on the other side of the hangar. Fel then excused himself citing ".operational matters". Worf then made his way back to Picard and the rest the StarFleet command crew. "Find anything interesting, Commander Worf," asked Picard as Worf rejoined the group. "Yes captain, very interesting," he replied as the group moved to a waiting turbolift to go to warmer and quieter parts of the ship. ------ In the console room of the ship's computer system, Nichols noticed with interest that Jones had taken the bait. The download volume Jones was generating was very high. One of the clerks in one of the many stores, that sold everything else that couldn't be requisitioned, told him that Jones was buying high-capacity datapads in bulk, and was trying to volunteer for extra duties to buy more. Out of interest, he called up a profile of the rest of the material being downloaded. "Now they've sampled the forbidden fruit," he mumbled to himself. Most of the material being grabbed was of the period covering 1910 to 2050. The current official Federation histories tended to be a bit biased towards that era. The biggest concentration of files was from the era spanning 1960 to 2020. Despite the eugenics wars, just before the turn of the century was the biggest surge in human creativity. In the realms of art, literature, theatre, film, entertainment, and so on. The opening of a worldwide computer network, previously restricted to defence and industry, had accelerated that creativity, with virtual groups sharing common interests and hobbies spanning the globe. Nichols wrote up a small report on his analysis of the accessed material and had it transmitted to Thorn's datapad. It might make interesting reading he thought to himself. ------ The Search-And-Rescue operation was well under way. The pilots of the single-seat craft usually flew a four to six hour mission. The first reaction of the pilots after landing, especially when exposed to the temperature of the hangar bay was to run for the refresher, and the hangar crew made sure NOT to get in their way. The shuttles and LCs were flown by double-crews of at least three each with a six-on six-off rotation. Their missions could, and did go for twenty-four to forty-eight standard hours. Also their more powerful comms allowed the coordinators on board the Imperators to monitor the results of the sensor sweeps in near real time. Also they would use their datalink facilities to transfer sensor data from the fighters and recon-X-wings directly to the ISDs for instant assessment. Even with all this, it did take about ten standard days for the Voyager to be located. ------ Voyager has been at Yellow and Red Alerts constantly for the last month. The constant tension has the crew on edge. The brig cells are not only full, but the occupants have had to double up because of the number of disciplinary breaches. Because his shift replacement tried to drown Nelix in a pot of his own almost inedible stew, and thereby improving not only the flavour but also the morale of the crew as well, Harry Kim is in the middle of a triple shift. Almost totally physically and mentally burnt out, he is running on pure caffeine and adrenaline. Over the last few days, the number of 'sensor anomolies' has gone off the scale. The crew knows something is out there, but they don't know what. One rule of battle is to stay mobile. Voyager is moving across one of the clearings between some clusters of clouds in the nebula. From the cloud in front of them emerge the bows of two ships. As the seconds pass, more of the ships emerge, and more, and more, and more. A third ship emerges, between the other two. Similar in design, except for the bulbous spheres that break up the distinctive dagger shape. The two large ships still haven't fully emerged from the clouds. The superstructure of the bigger ships is getting higher and higher, finally culminating in a distinctive tower. As the aft end of the ships finally emerges, the flare of the ion-drive sublight engines lights up the clouds behind them. The majesty of the moment was broken by Captain Janeway's voice. "Helm, turn-about, maximum impulse, and then go to warp. Tactical, fire a spread of photon torpedoes from the aft tubes..." "Captain," said Harry Kim, "they're n..." "Not now Harry," snapped Janeway. ------ Tycho Jones reported first. "Torpedoes inbound, five spread, no pings, they' re on dead-run mode." >From the command station Thorn replied, "OK, gunnery, point defence cannons only, engagement range ten thousand metres." He then glanced at Picard with an I-told-you-so expression. Picard's reply was equally cryptic to the remaining Starfleet and any bridge crew in earshot. "Rule sixteen, Commander Thorn," he said with a smile. As the pursuit continued, five brief points of light flared and then faded out. The torpedoes were intercepted. "Picard, would you please take your position. And comms, maintain standard hailing codes," directed Thorn. ------ "Torpedoes destroyed," said Tuvok in his usual Vulcan deadpan manner. "Destroyed?" queried Captain Janeway. "According to sensor readout, the photon torpedoes were intercepted by plasma-type weapons. It means that their targeting systems can track and intercept small fast-moving targets," replied Tuvok. "Captain, we could try comm..." said Harry Kim. "Harry, we're in a tactical situation," snapped Captain Janeway. "Helm, go to warp, it's time we're out of here". Tom Paris, the pilot, quickly and efficiently performs the procedure for warp drive, but the system refuses to engage. "Tom, what's the problem?" asked Janeway. To her the situation is rapidly getting out of hand. Three large ships right behind them, in a relative sense because they were actually several tens of kilometres away, with the capability to shoot down photon torpedoes as if they were merely swatting flies. "Ah, the navigation system is refusing to initiate the warp drive because the warp field is not forming," said Tom after checking the navigation console. "There is very strong subspace jamming that is stopping the warp field from forming," stated Tuvok. >From her console in the engineering section B'Elanna Torres asked "Could we re-modulate the warp field?" Tuvok's response was just as brusque as previously. "Negative for two reasons. First the jamming is broad-spectrum. Second, we would have to retune the entire warp drive system." "What about maintaining high sublight speed," asked Janeway. "There must be another option." "Nope," replied Tom. "The throttles are against the stops. They slipped back a little when the acceleration was applied, but they regained the lost distance and have been maintaining their position ever since." "Can they be outmanoeuvred," asked Janeway, desperately seeking options. "Normally maybe," said Tom, "but not now. The controls feel like they're in treacle or something. Control response is very sluggish." "There is also a very strong graviton field that is limiting the performance of the impulse drive system," stated Tuvok. "We could open a channel and..." said Harry, desperately trying to get a word in edgeways. He knows that the ships are not hostile. They are broadcasting standard hailing calls and the transponders are squawking Federation Commercial codes. "Quiet Harry," snapped Janeway. "Seven, any idea on our attackers." Over the ship's internal communication system came another deadpan voice. "Sensor readings cannot get through the jamming. However, it is NOT Borg, Kazon, or Species 8472." There was a distinct emphasis on the not. Harry smiles to himself. He has realised that the other members of the crew have overlooked the obvious. "What's the status of our attackers," asked Commander Chakotay. His perception of the situation was similar Captain Janeway's. But there was something familiar about the pursuing ships. Not their design, but their tactics. Seven of Nine was the first to respond. "They are maintaining their position at thirty kilometres aft of our position, flying in a line-abreast formation with five kilometres of separation between them. Approximate sizes for the outer ships are about sixteen hundred metres in length and about six hundred metres in length for the centre ship." "How did you get this information," asked Tuvok. "Trigonometry," replied Seven of Nine. The silence after her reply prompted her to continue. "I used the optical scanners. The distance between them is known. All that was required for an estimation were the angles to various points." "Tom, could we make a sudden perpendicular course change," asked Chakotay. The familiarity of the tactic was still gnawing at his thoughts. Paris briefly checked the controls for their responsiveness. "No on two accounts. First, with the controls the way they are, any course changes are not going to be very sudden. Roll, pitch, and yaw response has been reduced by more than ninety percent. And the seconds reason why not is that those ships will just cut the corner and gain on us." The tactic had just dawned on Chakotay. "We're being driven like game to the hunters," he exclaimed. "Driven to what," wondered Janeway. Paris then turned the main view screen to the forward view and increased the magnification. "To those." He said as he pointed to the three triangular ships in the centre of the viewer. "They're still several thousand kilometres away, but at our current speed, we'll be on top of them in a few minutes. Either way, it's the end of the line." "Any ideas about those ships," asked Janeway. Seven of Nine replied, "The three ships are identical. Size, approximately nine hundred metres each. Similar design and composition the other three." "How did you work that one out," asked Chakotay. Before Seven of Nine could reply, Tuvok answered "Spectrographic analysis. Many hull elements appear to be unknown, but after allowing for the Doppler red shift, their spectra match. It still gives us no idea about who they are." "Does anyone have any suggestions," asked Captain Janeway. "Yes Captain," said Harry Kim. "What is it Harry?" "Open a communication channel." "And why will that work?" "Because, the only frequency ranges not being jammed are the ones for standard communication and transponder codes." That piece of information sent everyone checking his or her consoles. "Ensign Kim is correct," stated Tuvok. "And the transponder code is..." "An old but still current Federation Commercial code," interjected Kim. "All the Starfleet transponder codes we have would have time expired a long time a go, but the newer commercial codes are still current." This had everyone eager with anticipation. "So there's the possibility that the crew on those ships have had contact with the Federation," said Chakotay. "This is an opportunity not to pass up." "What if it's a Kazon trick," asked Torres from the engineering section. "They're the only people we know who had ships of that size." Tuvok calmly replied, "The Kazon craft were converted freighters. The jamming output of these ships alone exceeds the total power output of the Kazon ships. Their hull profile does not suggest that these ships are freighters." "Tom, all stop," ordered Janeway. Paris commanded the engines to revert to standby mode. The field of the Interdictor's gravity well projectors eased the Voyager to zero forward motion. The Star Destroyer fleet then took up holding positions ten kilometres away from the Voyager's position. "Harry, open a communication channel." "Channel open," replied Ensign Kim. "The jamming and the graviton field have been powered down, and their shields are down too," noted Commander Chakotay. "I wonder if we can get a good scan of them." Seven of Nine answered Chakotay's query. "Negative, Commander. The hulls are composed of very thick layers of an ultra dense material. We cannot scan the internal sections of those ships." "Harry, have the channel displayed on the main viewscreen," said Captain Janeway. The face that appeared was the last one they would have expected to see. The bridge of the Voyager was silent. "Captain Picard?" whispered Janeway.