“I’m sorry, but you want to do what with my ship?” Tikva Theodoras charged at the other woman seated across from her.

Commodore Alexandra Sudari-Kravchik’s office was a spartan affair at the heart of the Starfleet Intelligence complex aboard Deep Space 47. And much like the rest of the Intelligence complex, was almost exceedingly non-descript. Tikva had never figured out why the Deputy Director of Fourth Fleet Intelligence had decamped herself to the next best thing to the back of beyond here on Deep Space 47. Probably had something to do with paranoia and suspicion in the light of the Changeling threat, then the Borg, and wanting to make sure command of Fourth Fleet Intelligence was spread out to avoid a surgical strike.

Which sounded far too credible to her, so had to be something more like office space was easier to come by out here.

Or Admiral Beckett was some sort of spooky prick. Who implanted messages and mission orders in starship computers waiting for triggers before revealing themselves in order to cut down on communication loops.

Probably stole candy from children too.

Yeah, we’re not still angry about what he did to Atlantis’ computer.

Nope, not angry at all.

Perfectly okay with it.

We’re all agreed then?

I thought it was clever.

Shut up!

The woman before her she knew was of Human and Romulan descent, having read some of Sudari-Kravchik’s mother’s rather vitriolic diatribe against the Romulan Star Empire, then the Star Empire of Rator and the still extant Free State. One didn’t write that critically, angrily and passionately without having come from there. But while Sudari-Kravchik was obviously half-Romulan by birth, she acted more like she was half-Vulcan. Cold, precise, perfect enunciation and avoidance of contractions were just a few things that made her…Vulcan.

Which in a convoluted, generational view of things, she was? Not that you’d say that to a Romulan in polite company.

“As I said, I am placing an exchange officer aboard your crew, for a few months at a minimum.” Sudari-Kravchik’s tone was controlled, as devoid of emotion as the most passionate of Vulcans Tikva had met, which wasn’t far off from the most emotionless of Vulcans she’d ever met. There was also no ‘I want to place’ or ‘Would like to place’ but ‘I am placing’.

This had gone from a request to an order. Though, if she could recall how the Commodore had phrased it originally it likely had started that way to be fair.

“For the purpose and duration of the exchange, the officer will hold an equivalent rank within Starfleet, which would make them a Commander and the highest ranked individual aboard your ship after yourself.”

Tikva scoffed at that. “You’re forcing an exchange officer onto my ship and then forcing me to make them my XO?”

“Yes.” Sudari-Kravchik’s answer was brutal and to the point.

“And if I refuse?” she asked.

“It has already been approved by Fourth Fleet Operations,” Sudari-Kravchik answered as she slid a padd across her desk, not that Tikva picked it up. The padd and the paperwork upon it would be exactly what it needed to be to push this crazy idea through. There was no need to actually check it. One didn’t become a commodore and deputy director of Intelligence without remembering to dot their i’s and cross their t’s.

“And who is his exchange officer?” Tikva lamented.

“I believe you have already met her before.” Sudari-Kravchik tapped a key on her desk computer and the whistle of a directed comm line sounded. “Lieutenant, please send our guest in.”

“Aye ma’am,” came the response of the young man who had greeted Tikva not five minutes ago. She cursed herself for not remembering his name, but he looked and sounded like he came from the same pod factory that spawned Fightmaster.

She turned to face the door, to see who her right-hand-in-potentia was and couldn’t help the face she made when she saw the woman who walked in, in a Starfleet uniform, with full commander pips on her collar. She studied her for a moment, then slowly stood and stepped towards the tall, dark-skinned woman who entered, before offering a hand for a handshake. “Sub-Commander Kendris, a pleasure to meet you again. Shame we couldn’t converse more after the Battle of Deneb.”

“Commander Gris did need to return the Admiral Ketterac to New Romulus post-haste. The Admiralty wanted a full report and to showcase our battle damage in public dispatches.” Kendris’ grip was strong and confident before they broke and eventually settled into the seats in front of Sudari-Kravchik’s desk. “The Commander sends his best wishes as well as a gift, from Admiral Ketterac to Atlantis, which we can discuss later.”

“Naturally,” Tikva answered, then turned once more to the Commodore. “No insult to Sub-Commander Kendris –“

“Commander Kendris,” Sudari-Kravchik interjected, a hand waving under her own singular pip to draw attention to the pips on Kendris’ collar.

“Commander Kendris,” Tikva corrected. “But why are we doing this?”

Kendris was the one to answer instead of the Commodore. “It’s a rather blatant attempt at building unofficial communication channels between services. Officers serve together, build a rapport and when either service encounters an issue they need to communicate to the other but can’t go via official channels, Starfleet or the Republic Navy knows who to talk to to have information slip across.”

“The commander’s answer is cynical, but not incorrect,” Sudari-Kravchik said after a brief pause. “The exchange allows both services to build relationships, share training and ways of working so that in the future we have less friction while working together.”

“And to preserve a level of operational security you’re assigning Kendris to the far side of the Federation from the Republic,” Tikva said, earning a nod in agreement from the commodore. “How long for?”

“Three months,” Kendris answered. “Commander Gris is on a goodwill tower of the Republic and its newfound satellite polities while the Admiral Ketterac is still being repaired. And Command doesn’t want to waste officers. I volunteered so that I can return to the Commander’s side versus being reassigned to another ship.”

“Surely you’d have been in line for your own ship?” Tikva asked.

“Alas, the Republic hasn’t had a recent upper echelon shakeup like Starfleet regrettably has. Though I understand it is somewhat to thank for Captain MacIntyre’s promotion and his own command.”

“Oof, too early,” Tikva said. “The whole Borg thing, not Mac.”

“Apologies.” Kendris nodded her head to accompany her single word.

“Okay, so you’re my XO for the next three months.” Tikva turned to face Sudari-Kravchik, fixing the human-romulan woman with a stare. “I’m picking my next XO and I’ll fight this out with Operations and Command if I have to.”

“You are more than welcome to try,” Sudari-Kravchik answered, not conceding the point. “I also have a mission for Atlantis now that Republic has departed for Cardassian territory.” Another padd was produced, placed on the desk and pushed over to Tikva.

She spent barely a handful of seconds reading it before handing it over to Kendris. “Comm station maintenance? Really? Where’s the…” She paused to think, snapping her fingers to spur her brain into gear. “Los Molinos?”

“The Los Molinos is currently attending to a weather control system failure at Temecklia. Atlantis is currently without a mission, and I want this issue resolved immediately. The station is a vital link between here and Starbase Bravo and as such is important for operational purposes but also my work with Fourth Fleet Intelligence.” Sudari-Kravchik’s impassive expression never shifted as she rose to her feet. “Atlantis’ priority as of right now is to cross the Badlands and attend to relay station CR-718. Is that clear, Captain Theodoras?”

“Perfectly,” Tikva answered. “Crystal clear.”

“Not the full house then?” Lieutenant Commander Ra-tesh’mi Velan, Atlantis’ Efrosian chief engineer asked as he entered the conference room tailed by his next in line, Lieutenant Gérard Maxwell.

Already present were the captain, Lieutenant Commander Adelinde Gantzmann and Lieutenant Rrr’mmm’bal’rrr (who was doing a remarkable impression of a hull panel by one of the windows), tilting the room heavily in favour of yellow versus red. And then his eyes settled on the other, and new, red-shouldered person present, sitting right at the captain’s left-hand side and he stopped, forcing Gérard to have to sidestep him.

“Uh, what’s going on?” he asked, eyes still locked on Kendris. She saw him, offered a brief smile, a wink directed at him when no one was looking, then put on a mask of impassivity as people noticed where he was looking and took stock of Kendris one more.

While most seemed oblivious, it was Rrr, that mountain of gossip and trouble, who broke the awkward silence. “Don’t look at me,” they rumbled. “I couldn’t have organised this better if I tried. And I never said a word. Blame MacIntyre.”

“Oh,” Tikva said quietly. “Oh!” she repeated louder right away. “Oh,” thrice again, this time drawn out and quieter. “I swear Ra, I had nothing to do with this,” Tikva pleaded to her chief engineer, holding her hands up. After a moment she indicated two of the empty seats for Ra and Gérard, motioning them to sit.

“Right, now we’re all here,” Tikva continued, “I’d like to introduce properly to everyone present Sub-Commander Vilo Kendris of the Romulan Republic Navy, who will be serving on exchange with us for three months. She’s being afforded the rank of Commander while with Starfleet and will be serving as executive officer while she’s with us.”

There was a round of welcomes from around the table before Tikva cut it off. “And the reason I’ve called everyone here is because Atlantis has been assigned a new mission. Nothing glamourous, but critical and a chance to stretch a few muscles we haven’t used lately.” She then turned to Kendris, who offered a brief nod in understanding.

The tall Romulan woman, not quite as tall as Gantzmann, but certainly in the same category, stood and approached the large display on the wall opposite the windows. A single tap brought up an image of their ultimate destination – relay station CR-718. Another tap and a map of the Badlands appeared, placing CR-718 on the far side and four other dots in a line across the multi-lightyear-wide plasma fields.

“We’ve been tasked with maintenance work,” Kendris said, keeping a professional tone. “Station CR-718 has been reporting some minor technical difficulties over the last twenty-four hours and we’re to proceed there and render assistance. The captain and I have also decided we’ll stop along the way long enough to dispatch shuttle crews to undertake routine maintenance ahead of schedule on the unmanned relay stations throughout the Badlands.”

No one in the room complained, not even a little, at the suggestion of Atlantis doing maintenance work. Both Velan and Maxwell’s brows furrowed at the situation, Velan also going so far as to stroke his beard in thought. “These malfunctions, how critical are they?” Velan asked.

“And are the unmanned relays reporting anything?” Maxwell asked. “Or are we just wanting to get ahead of the curve here?”

“The last report from Lieutenant Matt Conway stated he’s had no success in identifying the source of the malfunctions on CR-718,” Kendris continued. “The malfunctions are impacting the station and growing, but currently no loss of services as of yet.”

“Well those Marconi-class relay stations were built with a fair bit of redundancy,” Velan added.

Kendris nodded in acceptance of Velan’s out-loud thought. “As for the unmanned relays in the Badlands, no malfunctions were reported. But they are due for regular maintenance in three months. Atlantis is more than capable of seeing to it now, yes?”

“Certainly,” both Velan and Maxwell said at the same time. “I’ll draw up a list of crews we can dispatch,” Maxwell continued. “Send them out in the Danube’s?”

“Rodinia is out,” Rrr grumbled from their seat. “Flight Operations let me know this morning they’re starting a full hardware check of it. But the other three are configured for crew comfort at the moment. Ideal if we drop off teams for a few days.”

“Each runabout is going to need a pilot and I want a medic on each as well,” Tikva said to Rrr, who nodded in response, then looked to Maxwell and nodded – the silent agreement to get together after this meeting and sort out the away teams.

“Atlantis will respond to CR-718 herself and we’ll send over a full engineering team to assist Lieutenant Conway in diagnosing issues and resolving them as quickly as possible.” Kendris tapped at the image of the station, which cleared the screen and replaced it with a schematic of the station. “We’ll also undertake refuelling of the station’s reactor mass and any other issues until the station is fully operational with no outstanding maintenance issues.”

“Seems pretty standard to me,” Velan said, a nod in agreement from his assistant. “Get in, fix the problems, clear out Conway’s maintenance log for him, spring clean while we’re at it. Do they need a fresh coat of paint?” His tone turned jovial at the end, finding an element of humour in the task before them.

“Let’s leave something for the Los Malinos to do when they swing back around in a few months.” Tikva stood from her seat. “Rrr, Maxwell, get those team recommendations to Commander Kendris by lunch. Commander Gantzmann, with me please.” And with that, Tikva turned for the door that would lead back to the bridge.

“Commander Velan, a moment,” Kendris said as everyone else stood, the implicit dismissal at the captain’s departure evident for all. She waited, long enough for Rrr and Maxwell to leave before she spoke again, her tone less formal this time. “You trimmed your beard.”

“Only a little,” he replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Exchange officer,” she replied, as innocently as she could with a crooked smile growing on her face. Pulling out the seat directly opposite Velan, she sat down and locked eyes with him.

“Seriously, just that? Pure coincidence you ended up here?”

“Well,” she demurred momentarily. “The exchange offer came up, and I volunteered. Then made polite suggestions to certain individuals in order to be assigned to Atlantis. Citing such things as previous working experience with the ship’s command crew, fought alongside at Deneb, good working relationship – “

“A chief engineer you wanted to see again?” Ra challenged.

Kendris nodded in agreement, a brief waggle of her eyebrows to accompany. “It was certainly a consideration in my manipulations to be assigned here. I admit, I wasn’t expecting to be placed as the ship’s executive officer though.”

“The captain knows.” Ra watched her for a moment, caught the momentary surprise, subtle as it was. “The whole ‘I swear’ thing.”

“I thought she was picking up some sort of discomfort on your behalf.”

“Oh she was,” he said. “But she knows about us. Rrr would have told Mac, who would have told her. I’m going to tell her as well just to be safe.”

“Us?” Kendris teased. “There’s an us?”

“That’s not…what I meant was…” he stuttered, then stopped and glared at her. “You’re teasing me again.”

“It worked so well last time.”

“Spirits above and below I hate you,” he grumbled. “Look, I’ve got work to do today. How about when we’re both off duty we get a meal at Port Royal? The ship’s social space,” he added after seeing her momentary confusion. “And maybe I give you a proper engineer’s tour this time.”

“Depends,” Kendris said, getting to her feet and adopting once more that veneer of professionalism that rivalled the one Ra knew Gantzmann employed, “Does it finish in the same place as the last tour?” And with that, she left a flustered and blushing Ra-tesh’mi Velan alone in the conference room.

“Well?” Tikva asked as soon as the ready room doors closed on her and Gantzman. “Morning Stirling,” she said without any thought to the young lieutenant seated in front of her desk, a padd in his lap, one in his hands and a third within easy reach on the desk.

“Morning Captain, Commander,” the yeoman offered.

“I like her,” Adelinde answered the question, offering a nod to Stirling as she took up station behind the other empty chair. “Professional, to the point. I will be keeping an eye on her though and won’t be letting her into my team’s offices without accompaniment though.”

“You don’t let me into the Tactical offices without accompaniment,” Tikva complained, though more like a whine.

“That’s because Commander Gantzmann and her team have a filing system, ma’am, that they don’t want disturbed,” Stirling said as he set his padd down, even clearing the one from his lap. “Starfleet Intelligence’s dossier on Sub-Commander Kendris, her Republic Navy dossier and the Federation Intelligence Bureau’s dossier on her as well,” he said, pushing the stack of padds closer to his captain. “I’ve highlighted relevant sections already.”

Tikva glared at her yeoman for a moment. “It’s a good thing Lieutenant you are so very, very good at your job.” She collected the padds. “Comments like that might get a lesser officer left behind on an away mission, or used as an ad-hoc torpedo.”

“How did you survive without a yeoman before?” Gantzmann asked.

“The old Atlantis had what, 200 crew members? It was my biggest ship to date. I could handle the paperwork for a ship that big easily.” Tikva picked up one of the padds and glanced at the contents on screen briefly before setting it down.

“Gut feeling, is she a spy?” Tikv asked.

“Yes,” both Gantzmann and Stirling replied in unison.

“Can we trust her?”

“I believe so,” Fightmaster answered.

“I will want to read those dossiers for myself, if I have clearance that is, before I make that call,” Gantzmann said a moment later.

“You do Commander.” Fightmaster pulled out a small padd, from between his leg and the chair’s arm, tapping at it briefly before setting it down in his lap. “I have forwarded them to your inbox.”

Tikva smiled, then indicated for Lin to sit down in the seat she was standing behind. “Well then, how about Lieutenant, while I fully intend to read these dossiers, today even, you give Commander Gantzmann and I the cliff notes version?”

“Hey boss, getting something a little weird here,” Samantha Michaels announced to the bridge, breaking the silence that had settled over Beta Shift’s watch of the mighty ship Atlantis.

“Define weird,” Rrr said. They hadn’t opted for the centre seat while taking charge of the watch, after having been on duty for Alpha Shift, or the executive officer’s seat either to the captain’s right, but the much less used ‘guest seat’ to the captain’s left. One didn’t mess with the captain’s chair, or risk breaking the XO’s chair after all and the guest seat had been, after a brief conversation with Ra months ago, been reinforced for Rrr’s sizable mass.

“CR-718 just started transmitting a general distress,” Sam clarified. “And when I hailed to ask what was going on, I’m not getting a response.”

“Can confirm the distress call,” Lieutenant Kurtwell, one of Gantzmann’s tactical officers, said from behind the tactical arch.

The low rumble started deep in Rrr, rising from subsonic to just barely audible as they got to their feet, stomping forward to look over Sam’s shoulder at her displays. “What about local subspace traffic? Any changes from the station?”

“None,” she answered. “Everything looks normal enough. Lieutenant Conway sent us another status update ten minutes ago, like he has every hour, on the hour, that he’s awake, since learning we were on our way to help. But then they just started transmitting a distress call and aren’t answering comms. But otherwise still relaying traffic as expected.”

“Tabaaha,” Rrr looked over at the young Amero-Indian woman at the helm, who turned to them instantly. “Take us to warp nine.”

“Warp nine, aye,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Tabaaha answered. A few keystrokes, a confirmation from Engineering that the order had been received and then more chirps as Atlantis surged forward, half again as fast as she’d been going before. “Should be at CR-718 in eighty minutes.”

“Kurtwell, full tactical sweep around us and the station. Might be some rogue Breen ships.” Rrr stalked back over to the command seats, mulling a thought.

“Could be Tzenkethi too,” Kurtwell added.

“Unlike the Breen, the Tzenkethi are actually good at being isolationist. But a valid concern too. Add Dominion to the list too. Might be a missed ship or two roaming around, refusing to surrender.” A moment more of thought and Rrr then tapped at the comm button on the captain’s chair. “Bridge to the Captain. Sorry to disturb you ma’am, but you’re going to want to come up here.”

Fifteen minutes later and the mission operations bay at the rear of the bridge had gone from two officers trying to do some work when it wasn’t busy to properly activated and in use. Rrr and Sam were leading things, a relief officer having taken over for Sam and Kurtwell keeping an eye on the bridge for Rrr. The captain and Ch’tkk’va had arrived, followed very shortly by Gantzmann and Kendris.

“Sorry to interrupt, but now everyone is here, I ordered the ship to warp nine after Sam picked up something.” Rrr nodded, letting the discoverer take over.

“CR-718 started transmitting a general distress call sixteen minutes ago. Lieutenant Conway isn’t responding to hails and I’ve tried remote commands to interrogate the station’s computer, getting no response.” Sam brought up on the main screen a list of all recent communications with the station, an analysis of its communications activity from the last twenty-four hours and a list of all the reported faults Conway had sent them, each drawing a thin orange line to a diagram of the station where the fault was recorded.

“We’ll be there in little over an hour,” Rrr capped things off.

“This ship can go a lot faster than warp nine, yes? Can we not go faster?” Kendris asked, drawing Tikva’s gaze as she spoke.

“We can, but I wanted to confirm with the captain before we did so.” Rrr didn’t look anything other than stoic in the face of the interrogation by this new executive officer.

“Nine-nine should get us there in about thirty minutes.” Tikva had paused just briefly before giving the time, counting with thumb and fingers to herself as she did the math in her head. “Rrr, tell Kelly she can open the throttle as far as she wants. Nine point nine-five will only shave a few minutes off so let’s do it.”

The Gaen officer nodded, then stalked away.

“Ch’tkk’va, prep an away team to board the station and find Lieutenant Conway first.”

“Excuse me, captain,” Kendris again spoke up. “Would it not be better to deploy a hazard team instead? There’s the possibility for hostile action against the station, with Tzenkethi space so close and attackers could still be present aboard the station.”

Tikva thought on that for a moment, nodding in agreement. “Get Silver Team ready, Ch’tkk’va. I want them beaming over first and securing the station before we send anyone else over.”

“Yes ma’am,” the Xindi-Insectoid answered. “Though there is a problem with Silver Team I was only informed of twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh?” Tikva asked.

“Lieutenant Fightmaster reported to sickbay with a broken arm. Doctor Terax informed me that he’ll be in sickbay for a few hours.” Ch’tkk’va’s head tilted to the side at Tikva’s incredulous look, mandibles clicking briefly. “He is fine. It was an accident apparently”

“Hell of an accident to break an arm,” Sam muttered.

“Indeed. Moving furniture as I understand.” Ch’tkk’va replied to the lieutenant’s statement. “Lieutenant W’a’le’ki had asked Lieutenant Fightmaster for assistance in moving things around her quarters. A bookshelf apparently toppled.”

“He’s fought changelings, been in numerous battles and the greatest injury he’s had on this ship is moving a bookcase?” Tikva barked a laugh at the ridiculousness.

“I’ll go,” Gantzmann spoke up. “I’ve practised more with Silver Team of late than you have Ch’tkk’va. I can fill in and I’m happy enough to let Mitchell still run the team.”

“Would you not assume command?” Kendris asked. “Mitchel is merely a lieutenant, yes?”

“Yes, but it’s his team,” Gantzmann answered. “I’m merely filling in a roster gap. Besides, it shouldn’t be too dangerous and gives me some field hours.”

“Are you sure?” Tikva asked.

“Yes.” The response was firm, brooking no room for argument.

“The Commander is correct in that she has spent more hours practising with Silver Team in the last month than I have,” Ch’tkk’va added to Gantzmann’s argument. “If Fightmaster is unable to deploy, Commander Gantzmann would be a logical replacement.”

“Right, fine.” Tikva threw her hands up in mock surrender just as the background noise of the ship at high warp ratcheted up another notch. “Twenty-five minutes till we get there, search and rescue first. We’ll worry about repairs once we know what’s going on and secure the station.”

She waited a moment, glanced at those that remained, and then muttered, loud enough for all. “I need coffee.” She turned, took two steps up the short set of stairs out of the mission operations bay before turning to face Ch’tkk’va. “A bookcase broke his arm?”

“That is what he told me over comms.”

“Honestly,” she mused, then finished stalking away to her ready room.

“Did Captain Theodoras do warp speed, distance and time calculations on the fly in her head?” Kendris asked those still present, her tone implying her disbelief at the act.

“Yup,” said Sam with the casual air of a junior officer.

“Yes,” said Ch’tkk’va and Gantzmann in more professional tones.

“Impressive,” Kendris said. “How right was she?” she asked of Sam.

Sam’s eyes widened momentarily, then turned to one of the consoles, tapping away and then stepping back to show her calculations with the computer’s assistance as compared to the captain’s estimates.

“Remarkable,” Kendris commented at the evidence before her. “Truly remarkable.”

“Station still isn’t responding to hails,” Sam said from Ops as she looked up at the bulk of CR-718 on the main viewscreen.

The station proper wasn’t that large unless one counted the outstretched arms of its vast and sensitive arrays and mix of supplementary solar collectors. It was a fat little spider sitting in the middle of a symmetric and glistening web, tinted vaguely red-orange by the lonely little star it orbited through the void. A web that, if it could move, could easily envelop Atlantis, if the ship wasn’t holding ten thousand kilometres away.

“And no life signs either,” Sam continued after a chirp from her console at the conclusion of another scan.

“No further luck with the station’s computers?” Tikva asked, ensconced in her seat at the centre of the bridge.

“Still won’t take commands, but it is giving me some more information now.” Sam brought up on the viewscreen as an overlay on the right-hand side a series of bullet points. Each was a collection of technical jargon varying in colour from white, to orange to an attention-grabbing red – colour codes for the severity of the error the station’s computers were exhibiting.

The most alarming, sitting at the top of the queue and in red, simply read ‘General System Alert – Unattended Critical Malfunction’. If Atlantis hadn’t been en route to CR-718 a few days ago, or accelerated to high warp a half hour ago when the distress call started, that alert message would have had someone on their way here at speeds reserved for critical threats and admiralty coffee orders.

Hyperbole much? Coffee orders are at most a warp eight sort of deal.

And critical threats to the Federation don’t warrant speeds that burn out engines.

Well, that’s not entirely true and we know it.

That wasn’t us making the decision though.

Wonder if anyone’s been able to get that AI to say boo since it went back to sleep?

Unattended Critical Malfunction could only mean one thing – Lieutenant Conway, the station’s sole occupant, wasn’t there to at least tell the station’s computer he was aware of the problem. And combined with the lack of life signs wasn’t a good indicator for the lieutenant’s health.

“Warp trails? Weapon signatures?” Kendris asked as she stood from beside Tikva, stepping forward enough to turn and face Kurtwell at Tactical.

Standing right where Mac would so he could swivel to see the whole bridge.

Standing right where you taught Mac to stand so he could do that. At least she’s not standing right in our spot.

Mac won’t need to on his fancy new ship with his fancy swivel chair.

I want a swivel chair.

No! You’d just spend hours going around in circles.

Would not.

Would to.

“Nothing in the system,” Kurtwell answered. “And the nearest ship to us right now is the super-freighter Blue Bajor, doing warp six, five lightyears out and on course to Bajor.”

“Excuse my ignorance, but is there any record of the Breen or Tzenkethi using cloaking devices?” Kendris hadn’t posed the question to anyone in particular but to the entire bridge.

“No ma’am.” Kurtwell’s response was quick and seemingly enough to satisfy Kendris’ inquiry.

“Could be something as simple as an unfortunate accident while he was attending to one of the many malfunctions the station seems to be having,” Tikva spoke up, though the look between her and Kendris told both of them that neither was buying that line. At least not until someone beamed over and told them it was an accident.

“Guess you were right then to insist on the hazard team,” she continued, to which Kendris offered a simple and respectful nod in response. With a realisation she needed to get things moving along, she tapped on the controls by her right hand. “Bridge to transporter room one. You’re good to go.”

“Afternoon ma’am.” Lieutenant Gavin Mitchell’s greeting was just as Adelinde expected from him – professional but warm. He was after all Ch’tkk’va’s deputy in Atlantis’ distinct Security department and aside from a few junior members, the whole team tended towards a warm, welcoming presentation. “Lieutenant Ch’tkk’va informed me you were placing yourself under my command?”

“Your team Lieutenant, I’m just subbing in for Fightmaster. No different than the training exercises we did last week.”

Mitchell nodded in understanding, then turned to Amber Leckie, who handed him a spare phaser rifle, which he then helpfully passed along to her. “Silver Three it is then.”

She, like the others assembled, had donned the standard hazard team away gear – a vest with extra padding and advanced fibres designed to absorb and distribute physical and energy attacks, shoulder-mounted lights and a set of glasses chosen to help in low-light conditions. Ch’tkk’va’s hardware choices had been informed by decisions of other hazard teams across the fleet as well as their own experiences into a somewhat unique blend. The chemical scratch pads on the arms, visible only under the shoulder lights and through the glasses, were one such addition.

“Three,” she replied as she checked the phaser in two quick motions to confirm the charge indicator and power setting. “One, Two, Four and Five,” she rattled off as she looked at Mitchell, Mackeson, Brek and Leckie in quick succession. A series of head nods as she got them was all she needed.

“I count five,” Mitchell uttered.

“Five come home,” they all replied in unison. She hadn’t needed to even think about it, it just happened, the ritual something this team did even before practising in the holodeck.

“Bridge to transporter room one,” Tikva’s voice came to them as if from all directions. “You’re good to go.”

The time between that statement, their collecting on the transporter pad and rematerialising aboard CR-718 was only a handful of seconds, Mitchell’s “Energise” having been said just as Amber Leckie was stepping onto her one of the pads, the team turned so someone was watching in all directions and weapons at the ready.

“Mitchell to Atlantis, we’re aboard. Proceeding to control.”

The space they’d beamed into was central to the small station and when more populated likely served as a multi-purpose social space. Right now it was simply an atrium that spanned three floors at the heart of the circle space. A quick scan around showed the lone turbolift here, a few corridors leading away and a staircase that led to the next level along the outer wall.

“Roger that, keep us –“ The comm line didn’t sputter or fade, it just stopped, as if closed by Atlantis mid-sentence from Samantha Michaels.

“That’s not good,” Amber said, sweeping her particular arch with her lights and phaser. “Clear.” This brought on an echo from all of them.

A tap at his commbadge, a nod for others to try and it didn’t take long for all of them to confirm their commbadges weren’t working.

“Okay, so someone cut the comms?” Rosa asked.

“A possibility,” Brek replied. “Or something has happened to Atlantis, though that is highly unlikely. If comms are down it is likely Atlantis may beam us back.”

“If they can,” Mitchell grumbled in thought. “We’ll proceed to control.” There was no dissent from any of the away team. “Commander, take point. Brek on rearguard.”

With one more check of her phaser, Adelinde took the lead, crossing the small space to the turbolift door in a handful of powerful strides. Instead of a swishing of doors at her presence, they remained steadfastly closed. A wave of her hand, then a tap at the controls elicited only an angry little ‘blurp’ from the electronics.

“So, guess we’re taking the stairs then?” Amber asked.

“Roger that, keep us informed,” Sam said. It took her a few moments with no response from the away team before she looked at her console. Then started tapping away at it as she sought to verify what was displayed before her.

“Lieutenant?” Kendris asked, having read Sam’s concerned body language just as Tikva was picking up that phantom-aroma she associated with concern, worry and laced with an element of fear.

“Comms with the away team have been cut,” Sam answered straight away, still checking her readouts. “And it’s stopped transmitting its distress call.”

“The station just raised shields,” Kurtwell said from Tactical. “Uh, that’s not right,” he said straight away.

That got both Kendris and Tikva back out of their seats, turning to face him.

“Ma’ams, the station’s shields are a couple of orders of magnitude greater than they should be.”

“Explain,” Kendris ordered.

Tikva sighed, running numbers in her head quickly, then locked eyes on Kurtwell. “You’re telling me that a comms relay station is about as well shielded as…Deep Space 47?”

“Clear,” Adelinde announced just loud enough for the team behind her on the stairs in the gloom of the station’s emergency lights.

The second level of the station’s atrium was merely a walkway around the central space that granted access to a few doors that branched off to various parts of the station. On the opposite side were the stairs that led up to what was charitably called the command deck and situated between both sets of stairs on what was referred to as ‘Fore’ on the station’s diagram was the sole turbolift, though it had more in common with a dumb-waiter than any turbolift on a starship or starbase.

Passing the first door, moving clockwise around the walkway, Adelinde paused long enough to try the door, rejected once more with that angry ‘blurp’ denying her access.

“Brek, open it,” Mitchell commanded, the rest of the team taking that as the cue they needed to form up, weapons ready for any surprises.

The Vulcan wordlessly let his weapon relax on its shoulder strap, stepped up and took only a few moments seeking purchase for his fingers on the edges of the seam before exerting himself. Silence eventually gave way to a slight hiss, both from Brek and the door’s systems resisting him, but eventually, the Vulcan won out as he pushed past the rated limits of the door – designed as such to allow someone to force it open in an emergency if need be with help or the right tools, or a single Vulcan actually struggling.

Normally unflappable, Brek stepped back, breathing deeply as Adelinde and Rosa both took hold of a door half and pulled it the rest of the way open now the door wasn’t able to fight them. Torchlights illuminated the darkened hallway, the closed doors and the single cleaning bot that was vacuuming along the wall, its programming interrupted by light and scurrying to get out of sight and out of mind as quickly as it could.

“Clear,” Rosa said.

“Run Stubby, run,” Amber joked at the sight of the cleaner bot, referring to Atlantis’ infamous tow-stubbing cleaner that didn’t seem to care if people saw it or not, unlike the rest of the unseen cleaning fleet.

“Amber,” Mitchell chided her for the joke with just her name. “What’s down here?” he asked, not waiting, or needing a response from the young woman.

“Crew quarters, storage, airlock two and an escape pod.” Brek had stepped up just enough to point down the hall at the various doors, the airlock at the far end with a red glowing light above the door.

“The rest of this floor?” Mitchell asked.

“Station computers through there,” Brek pointed to a door that was starboard on the station plan. “Life support and secondary power generation as well.” His lights turned to the port door. “Primary power and communications processing are through there.” Then the ‘aft’ door was crowned in torchlight. “Sickbay, shuttle bay and the array maintenance drones are through there.”

Both Mitchell and Adelinde stepped up to the railing to look down at the bottom floor, which was relatively sparse. A social space ringed with expansive windows, each with flower beds. A few tables dotted around but it was clear to a casual observer where the station’s lone occupant trafficked – the one table where the chairs weren’t tucked in perfectly, the beanbag that had been dumped by one of the windows. Otherwise lacking in anything mission critical.

“Station control is above us, as well as the transporter room,” Brek said as he finished his verbal tour.

A look from Mitchell, a nod from Adelinde and the team was once more on the move, circling the atrium before working their way up the curving stairway. They left the one door they passed closed this time. They stopped only briefly before the door to control, one side still closed but the left having been forced open at some point. It had only taken a mere moment for Adelinde to step, brace her back against the still closed door half and pushed against the door frame, widening the gap for the team through the non-functional barrier.

Multiple console screens were blinking in the dark, demanding attention from a user who wasn’t obviously present, their screen elements in a variety of red hues. Others were just holding a silent vigil in muted blues and greys, reporting the status of systems or tracking traffic volumes passing through the station’s arrays as it sat in the heart of a subspace spider web. The majority of consoles however were dark, either from not having been activated, or as lights scanned the room, weapons fire of some sort having claimed them.

“Lot of consoles for a station with only one user,” Mitchell said as the team proceeded into the control room.

“CR-718 operates normally with a crew of one, but was originally designed for a team of five, with a capacity for fifteen.” Brek’s statement wasn’t necessary, but at least put the size of the station and its spare but functional amenities into scope.

“Amber,” Rosa blurted out, her tone drawing everyone’s attention. Lights coalesced on one of the consoles, the chair in front of it and the slumped form draped over it. The reason for Lieutenant Matt Conway’s lack of communication over the last few hours was plain to see.

Silence reigned for a few minutes while Amber conducted an investigation, interrupted only by a few angry computer chirps as Brek peeled away to try accessing one of the still functioning computer terminals. A few isolated electronic protests turned into a quiet orchestra that faded into background noise as the other three simply stood there, waiting.

“Plasma weapon,” Amber finally announced. “One shot, set to kill. Right in the back at the C7 vertebrae.”

“Rules out Cardassians,” Rosa announced from where she’d perched herself on a nonfunctional console.

“Tzenkethi and Jem’Hadar as well,” Adelinde rattled off. “Breen are still a possibility, but not their regular forces.”

“Someone killed Conway, only a few hours ago, but last I heard there were no signs of another ship being in the area.” Mitchell turned to one of the windows looking outward, collecting his thoughts for a moment. “So, if there are no signs of another ship and our man here was only killed recently, it means our killer is still here.”

“That would be the logical supposition,” Brek said. “Especially as it would appear someone has raised the station’s shields and deactivated local communications.”

Adelinde was at Brek’s side in quick succession, the Vulcan stepping just to the side to share his console with her, pointing at relevant parts of the screen before him to draw her attention promptly to his findings. “That can’t be right,” Adelinde said at one of the pieces of data, taking a moment to double-check a reading, then looking up to everyone else. “According to this, the station’s shields are extended across the entire transceiver net and are roughly comparable to the shields on Deep Space 47.”

Rosa’s face adopted confusion, her mouth agape slightly and an eyebrow raised. Amber only looked up briefly before returning to her examination of Conway, holding the man’s head back carefully to check his neck. Mitchell adopted a mere raised eyebrow.

Brek broke the silence. “The orders, however, originated in the station computer core.”

“I can’t explain it, ma’am,” Kurtwell answered Kendris’ inquiry. “CR-718’s shields have come up and would give DS47 a decent run for its money.”

Tikva sighed once more at that, letting her brain run in a dozen different directions for just a bit. Letting worry and concern and panic run themselves out and hopefully leave behind a cool collected self.

Gods I hope that idiom translates into Romulan well enough for Kendris.

Why does it still exist?

Because idioms are hard to kill.

“That’s not all,” Kurtwell continued. “The shields, meant to protect the station core, have been expanded over the entire array web.”

Okay, that’s just…

Not possible?

Well, it clearly is for someone at least.

“Right,” she finally said, authority lacing the single word and drawing attention to herself from all on the bridge. “It’s not the Breen, the Tzenkethi or the Dominion. And if it is, I’ll eat my bloody boots.” That got a wry chuckle from a few of the junior officers on the bridge.

“Can we be certain of that?” Kendris asked. It didn’t sound like Kendris was asking to accuse her of taking threats off the board too early, but of a general lack of knowledge on the matter.

“If the Breen or Dominion could muster such power, we’d have seen it at Deneb. And if the Tzenkethi could, we’d have seen it thrown in the Breen’s face by now.” Tikva looked to Kurtwell for support, the young tactical officer rolling his head slightly left and right with his shoulders, weighing up specific knowledge he knew before reaching a conclusion. A gentle nod of his head followed a few heartbeats later.

She’d never seen the need for a Strategic Operations office aboard Atlantis. The ship wasn’t the head of a task group, it wasn’t coordinating a sector’s worth of ships and wasn’t responsible for the security of a border, protecting a dozen colonies and outposts. It was an explorer, tasked with looking under rocks, poking slime moulds with sticks and throwing probes into spatial anomalies to see just how the laws of physics were breaking on any given day. She had split Tactical and Security into two to let her Security people focus on specific fields.

Security handled just that – security. But with the added flavour of the Hazard Teams on top. Tactical handled keeping the ship safe from other ships but picked up some of that Strategic Operations and Intelligence malarky. They read reports and intelligence, kept themselves up to date on the specifics of the threat vectors of the Thomar Expanse and in revenge for having read those reports, wrote their own that someone poor saps would have to read.

Including one starship captain of the USS Atlantis. Because being in command means you get to suffer paperwork just as much if not more than anyone else. Yeomans excluded, the poor souls.

So when Kurtwell nodded in agreement, Tikva felt just that little bit more confident in a statement she had felt confident enough in saying in the first place. There was no way such technology by a local player wouldn’t have been shoved in Starfleet’s face in a grander way than stealing a comms array.

“Bridge to Engineering,” she said out loud after stepping back to her chair and taping the comm button on the armrest. “Velan, grab your best shield expert and get up here.”

“Aye ma’am,” came the Efrosian’s voice before the line went quiet.

“Bridge to Camargo. To the bridge please Commander,” she then said afterwards and couldn’t help but smile at the wave of relief from the duty science officer. A potential crisis and having your boss called up meant the direct pressure was off of you and the young man was feeling that professional joy of not having to be the lead on solving the mystery in front of the captain today.

“On my way Captain,” Gabrielle responded. “Anything dire?”

“Yes,” she answered.

Gabrielle’s tone shifted, going from chirpy and inquisitive to cool and serious. “ASAP ma’am,” Gabrielle said and again the line went dead.

When the turbolift opened onto the bridge a minute later, it disgorged three figures. Lieutenant Commanders Velan and Camargo and one sheepish-looking Ensign Jamie De León, who hadn’t faced her down since a dressing down over a year ago on another Atlantis in the Delta Quadrant.

Poor boy looks terrified.

He should be! He’s still an ensign. He should have made JG by now.

What were we doing at that age again?

Second officer, USS Aroha. Miss that boat.

Back to task!

It didn’t take long to bring them all up to speed, Kurtwell and Sam dropping information on the newcomers in quick order as they moved to the back of the bridge, leaving the ship in capable hands to keep the ship just sitting in one place. And shout for help if needed.

De León scratched his head as he stared at the wall monitor in the mission operations bay, cocking it to the side as he read and reread the numbers evident before him. His sheepishness had evaporated as well in the face of an engineering mystery. “Ignoring the power generation problem for a minute, but those shield emitters on the station should have burnt out after thirty seconds at this power level.”

“Well I feel stupid for not spotting that,” Sam said. “Good spot Jamie.”

“Though, realistically the power runs to the emitters should have burnt out just ramping up to power.” Jamie stepped up to the diagram on the screen and tapped at a few sections. “Standard quad-emitter setup for a small station like this. Would deter most raiders but would sacrifice the subspace arrays to keep the core safe.”

“Sam, Jamie, I want you both working to figure out how that station is so well shielded. Don’t tell me how it shouldn’t be, tell me how it is.” She turned on Kendris and Velan next. “Get me comms back with my away team. I want to know what is going on over there.”

“Yes ma’am,” Velan answered, then indicated one of the workstations in the ops bay for Kendris to join him at.

“And me ma’am?” Camargo asked.

“I want a double, triple and quadruple check of this entire star system. I want to be absolutely certain that no other starship has been here in ages. Every probe, shuttle, starfighter and runabout is at your disposal for as sensitive and widespread a sensor net as you want.”

Camargo’s expression took on a vestige of concern before professionalism kicked in. It was the exact opposite of the unfettered joy she’d expressed a few months back on a standard survey mission when Tikva had given her carte blanche to do the same thing. It meant the other woman realised the importance of her task.

“Ma’am.” Gabrielle had waited a moment before speaking up but stopped herself almost immediately. With a sucked-in breath and steeling courage, she continued. “Is Commander Gantzmann aboard station? Just, I haven’t seen her on the bridge.”

“She is.”

“Are…are you okay ma’am?”

“Gabs,” she said, stepping forward, plastering a smile on her face she had mastered years ago, “I’m not worried for Lin. After all, whoever is doing this, they’ve trapped themselves aboard that station with her.”

“Yeah.” Gabrielle nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.” And she offered a smile, a nod and turned on her heel to find her station and get to work, already tapping at her commbadge to call T’Val and get the ship’s small craft in operation.

“I will, if I have to, remove you from command.” Kendris’ voice was quiet, barely a whisper. Barely louder than her footsteps as she stepped up beside Tivka. “For the safety of the ship and crew.”

“I believe you,” Tikva found herself saying. She could taste the resolve, the will, that powered Kendris. That solid depth of duty and responsibility. And an ever so slight lick of concern that went with it.

She doesn’t want to, but she’ll do it.

Of course she will. She’s a creature of duty.

She doesn’t want to break out trust though.

And Lin would crucify us if we didn’t do our duty, as she would expect.

Lin…

“You’d have trouble getting the crew to go along with you,” she followed up, the implied question waiting for an answer.

“I would place Commander Velan in command. He has the trust of the crew and is the second officer.” Kendris turned, to return to Velan and their work. “If it comes to it.”

“Thank you for the warning,” she said to the Romulan.

They both nodded to each other and went their ways.

She stalked around the bridge, glaring at nothing and everything for a single lap before she settled herself into the centre seat. Her eyes locked on the image of the station sitting there, zoomed in so they could make details out from across thousands of kilometres between them. She sought answers staring at that image, as if it would magically give her some insight.

“Kurtwell,” she said, a response from the tactical arch behind, “raise the shields. Someone doesn’t want us beaming more people over there, or getting our people back. I don’t think I want them coming over here uninvited.”

“From the computer core?” Mitchell asked of Brek, who nodded in confirmation at the repetition of the stated fact.

Mitchell paced across the station’s control centre, tapping at his chin in thought before he stopped. “Rosa and I will stay here, see if we can’t do something to get comms back with Atlantis.” The Orion woman nodded sharply once, then began scanning around for a working console and getting to work. “Gantzmann, Brek, both of you head to the computer core and see what’s going on. Neutralise any intruders if can safely, otherwise fall back here, report and we’ll go from there.”

Silent acknowledgements all around before Lin and Brek both departed, their passage through the station a silent stalking, communication through hand signals and head nods interpreted through hours of training together. They knew what each was expected to do at each junction, each door frame. At any moment they could run into their plasma-spewing foe and there was no point in taking risks.

The atrium was better lit than the rest of the station, its windows admitting reflected starlight from the communications web the station sat in the middle of to compliment the red emergency lights that had come up before their arrival. But the corridor leading away and to the computer core was progressively darker, the red hue all that lit the doors and walls. Only their torches banished darkness and cast things true where they fell.

There were no signs of a fight, no signs of a mess, just an empty station as they approached the closed door to the computer core. The door bleeped at them in annoyance as they stepped up to it, refusing entry. Both of them took up a position on either side of the door and Brek carefully pulled out a tricorder, the device muted as he aimed in the direction of the door and scanned, an eyebrow rising before he turned it to show Lin.

No life signs detected.

Simple, bland, boring grey letters. Nothing, as the electronic minion could tell, was amiss.

Brek may have considered the result with curiosity or intrigue, but Lin found herself glaring at the tricorder in frustration. No life signs meant that whoever was giving orders in there was either using some form of stealth technology or was outside of their experience. Neither of which she liked.

She waited till Brek was ready once more before tapping at the door control. Again an angry annoyed sound emitted from the door. Without any hesitation, she popped the control panel from the side and reached for a couple of the isolinear chips. Removed, and dropped to the floor, she reached for a button at the top of the small cavity, finding it by feel alone and with that the door gave way.

Weapons up, a sweep of their sectors from where they stood and then Lin proceeded in first, looking down the banks of server racks that made up CR-718’s computer core. Isolinear racks from floor to ceiling lit the space in conjunction with the emergency lights. Blues and greens and yellows all blinking as they did their jobs, some fast, others slow, others again constant as a star.

“Stay together,” she whispered very quietly to Brek, breaking the silence they’d kept since the control room. It didn’t need to be said, but her nerves appreciated it. “Where’s the primary access?”

Brek raised a hand, two waves forward, then one to the left. Two racks down, to the left.

As they proceeded down past the racks, the sound of life support systems smothering their steps as fans in the ceiling pushed air around, electronic chirps, bleeps and whirrs covering their breathing as the computers went about their monotonous jobs. Lin stopped just at the corner of the rack Brek had indicated to her.

“Access denied,” came the bland monotone of a computerised voice decades old and long since out of use on more modern built starships. The station and most of its hardware belonged to the 2360s and in all that time no one had ever changed the voice setting for the computer, or custodians throughout the last four decades had all opted to keep it the same out of some sense of nostalgia perhaps.

“Access denied,” it repeated once more. “Access denied,” said again, the timing between each repetition the same, at least to Lin’s ear.

A breath in, a check of her phaser’s settings and Lin stepped around the corner, weapon raised. “Starfleet Securi…oh shit.” She never raised her voice with her expletive but the upturn gave the impression she had.

Not ten meters, past two more racks, was the primary access point for CR-718’s main computer. A large workstation with multiple consoles and room enough for two people to work together was built into the wall, with a large monitor immediately above it taking up the whole wall. Most of the screens were happily blaring warnings in read, the most obvious being a large ‘Access Denied’ and a security code plastered underneath it.

But what had caused Lin to halt in her announcement, to swear as she rarely did, was a sight that was included in every worse-case training scenario for a security officer for the last quarter-century. A single entity, more terrifying than even the Jem’Hadar merely for the fact that its presence always presaged more of its kind.

A borg drone – it stood even taller than her by a few centimetres, but even from this distance seemed larger thanks to the augmentations and plating that adorned its body. Its attention never waivered from its task, wholly ignoring her challenge as it continued tapping away at a console with one hand, its other merely held near an access port and tubules extended from its wrist, offering it direct access as well. Black panelling, burnished metal extrusions and dull green lights adorned its form, pallid skin cast nearly black itself in the poor lighting and what light did fall on it rendered it sickly looking.

“Access denied.”

Brek, his curiosity peaked, stepped out beside Lin, his weapon equally raised, ready to fire. “Interesting.”

“Not the phrase I would use, Lieutenant,” Lin hissed as she tapped at the controls on the side of her rifle with her thumb, upping the power level a half-dozen steps. The weapon’s pitched alerts informing all around she’d raised it to a level usually reserved for life-and-death situations when one didn’t have time to risk stun not working on an enemy. It settled after a moment and was then joined by Brek’s rifle repeating the sound as he joined Lin in setting his weapon to a higher level.

“Stop!” Lin barked at the drone. “Or we will shoot!” The offer of a chance to surrender was just engrained in her after years of training, exercises and duty. But then she huffed at herself, the futility of offering a Borg drone a chance to surrender hitting her. The shake of her head was subtle, but to her, at this moment, felt exaggerated, her vision moving slowly across a wide arc when she’d barely moved.

With no response after two seconds, she depressed the firing stud, a bright beam of orange light piercing through the gloom at the drone, casting immediate shadows as it leapt from weapon to target nearly instantaneously.

And nothing happened.

Green-blue shields flicked, catching the brunt of the shot and remaining visible for a second more as it dissipated the energy. And still, the drone didn’t respond.

A second beam fired, this time from Brek’s weapon, equally as useless as the first.

Then a third and fourth before Lin held up a hand to stop Brek from continuing.

“Access denied,” announced the computer.

The drone stopped tapping at the screen, turning its body but remaining physically connected as it looked at them. Red laser waved over both of them as it considered them stoically. One eye, its organic eye, blinked once, then twice before the tubules from its right arm retracted from the computer console as it turned to face them now, taking a single step away from the workstation.

It spoke, its voice flat and lifeless, with even less emotion than the computer that had been denying it, but conveying just by the very fact it spoke, far more dread than the station’s electronic brain ever could. There was no plurality of voices as one might expect from the Borg, no overlapping voices speaking as one, but a single tenor voice that spoke loud enough to be heard clearly, enunciated each word of Standard perfectly as it spoke.

“Starfleet security. Type 3 Phaser Rifles. Body armour. Threat level…minimal. You will assist in the assimilation of this station. Your culture will adapt to service ours.”

On a ship like Atlantis, Sickbay didn’t just define a single space. It could mean the entire medical complex in the heart of the ship, capable of responding to a multitude of disasters with various operating theatres, isolation rooms, recovery wards and triage centres. It could, for a large number of people, refer to the secondary sickbay near engineering, where Doctor Pisani had reigned supreme and warded off most visitors with post-modern acid punk rock played at deleterious levels.

But for most, it simply meant the primary sickbay – the one part of the medical complex that was always staffed, always open and set up to respond to the majority of problems a starship’s crew would encounter in their day-to-day. Headaches, sore muscles, indigestion, pulled joints and on rare occasions broken bones.

“Another hour,” Nurse Webb said as he inspected the results of his latest scan. “It’s knitting just fine, but the doc won’t let you out until the regenerator runs its course and he can’t see the break on a scan.”

Stirling nodded in understanding as Webb smiled at him and then stepped away, off to attend to the two engineers who had walked in just a few minutes ago complaining about stomach pains. He’d raised the head of the bed so he wasn’t staring at the ceiling while his right arm sat in the osteo-regenerator at his side, strapped down to hold it precisely within the machine’s two coils and the blue light between them.

“I’m so sorry about this,” W’a’le’ki said her sibilant extension of the letter ‘s’ barely noticeable now. She smiled apologetically at him from the seat beside his biobed, the smile touching all facets of her face. “I should have just gotten the antigrav lifts like I was going to.”

Stirling shook his head, briefly. “There’s nothing to be sorry about W’a, these things happen.” They’d been off-duty, just enjoying each other’s company when W’a’le’ki had mentioned wanting to rearrange her quarters, including the rather heavy bookcase she’d somehow gotten aboard ship. He had, in his typical fashion, insisted on getting a job done as soon as possible, so had led the charge.

And somewhere in all of that, with piles of books on the floor, and furniture in all the wrong places to make way for things, like bookcases, one empty and rather empty bookcase had toppled. And while no damage had been done to the bookcase, it was likely the floor under the carpets in W’a quarters told a different tale. As did his arm.

“Broken in two places,” Terax had growled after a five-second scan nearly two hours ago. “How did you of all people break your arm?” the Edosian doctor had demanded. Terax’s indignation had only grown worse when he and W’a had told the rather boring story. “Interrupted a good medical journal for a broken arm,” Terax had complained before setting Stirling down with the osteo-regenerator, forbidding him to move and tasking W’a with bringing some entertainment since he wasn’t going anywhere for a few hours and he loathed bored lieutenants asking questions.

“No, they don’t.” W’a’le’ki’s insistence on taking the blame for a random act won out. He didn’t need to start a disagreement over something so minor, especially not in sickbay. “Does it hurt?”

“It did. But now it just feels weird.” He looked at her for a moment, studying her. “You’ve never broken a bone?”

“Goodness no,” she replied. “Never. Have you? Before today that is.”

“Twice before. The joys of siblings and a rock-climbing accident at the academy.” Both times had been like this one – innocent activity, random chance, his arm being in the wrong. Something inevitably had to give and that something had been Stirling’s own bones. “Same arm,” he said, tapping just below his elbow and just outside of the osteo-regenerator, “and left leg. Landed on them both funny.”

“You must have been far more reckless in your youth,” W’a said. She reached out, taking his free hand in hers and just holding it for now.

“No more than any other kid,” he answered. “The broken arm was caused by –“ He stopped as the alert light panel in sickbay came to life with a steady, rhythmic pulsing of yellow. No alarms blared in sickbay, likely Terax having ordered at least the yellow alert verbal notification turned off. Others had noticed as well, a few of the nurses immediately falling into training as they changed their tasks from cleaning and tidying to preparing for anything that could come their way.

“Padd please?” he asked W’a, using his head to indicate the padd on the side table, closer to her than him. It didn’t take long once he had the device to find out what was going on. “We’ve raised shields.”

“Which has triggered the yellow alert?” W’a’s rhetorical question getting a slight nod anyway. “Why though? Aren’t we just attending to a maintenance issue on some relay station?”

“Yes,” he answered, pulling up the ship’s system logs for a quick review. There he saw the transporter logs, the names of those who had gone over to the station. The loss of communication with his friends. “I need to get to the bridge.”

“No, you don’t,” came the rough grumble of Terax at the end of the biobed. His right and left arms crossed, the middle hand resting on his left shoulder and a glower on his face that could, if he’d been near a window, be utilised as a ship-to-ship weapon. “You are going to stay right there and let that machine finish working.”

There was no doubt in his mind that Terax had learnt his predictive abilities much like he had – by being a student of how people reacted. Which as a yeoman was a sought-after trait. As for how the three-legged doctor had approached without being heard, the only solution he had to mind was Terax had saved his disapproving grumbling for when he had announced his intentions and wanted to make a point.

“I need to get to my station,” he replied, pitting his will against the doctor’s.

“We’re not being shot at.” Terax’s statement of fact was firm with its subtext. No, you don’t. “And as of right now, you have a medical exemption.” And with that, Terax smirked. A doctor winning out over a patient intent on leaving before treatment was complete.

“The captain sent Silver Team over to the station.” He looked away from Terax to W’a’le’ki. “Commander Gantzmann went in my stead.”

“Oh,” W’a merely said in response.

“Humpf,” Terax huffed. “Then I pity the fools who gets in her way.”

He turned back to Terax, then calmly sat forward to present the padd he’d been looking at to the doctor. A few select pieces of information had been highlighted – the cutting off of comms, the apparent strength of the station’s shields. It only took Terax a second to parse this new information.

“You’re worried about the captain,” Terax stated as he sat the padd down. “Don’t be. She knew what she was getting into.”

“He has a point, Stirling.” W’a had once more reached out, taking his free hand in hers. That worried smile once more touched her eyes. “I know you want to help, but what could you do?”

“Offer a differing perspective,” he answered.

“Captain Theodoras has a bridge load of senior officers at her beck and call,” Terax said. “Including a senior doctor who thinks it best a pesky yeoman stays right where he is for another hour before galivanting around the ship redecorating compartments.” His middle hand lifted from his shoulder, a finger jabbed in the direction of the osteo-regenerator. “One hour. Am I understood?”

“Yes sir,” Stirling found himself saying. Magic words which managed to dispel Terax after another glare for good measure.

He sat back, slumping against the biobed in defeat. “I should be on the bridge.”

“And you will,” W’a replied. “Just not right now.” She squeezed his hand. “Doesn’t Terax hate singing? We could always torture Terax by practising that new duet?”

“A new duet?” one of the nearby nurses asked, wincing after speaking, the illusion of not-listening ruined and faltering for another not much further away. It was after all difficult to not hear chit-chat in a nearly vacant sickbay. “Sorry, couldn’t help but overhear.”

He could feel himself blushing just slightly. How he’d let himself be dragged onto the stage that first time by W’a’le’ki he’d never rightly figured out. Or the popularity the two of them found amongst the crew afterwards either.

“Oh yes!” W’a answered. “Ever heard of a song called Don’t Go Breaking My Heart?”

“Resistance is futile.”

The drone’s voice never wavered, nor did its steps as it started towards the two officers under a fusillade of phaser fire.

“Fallback,” Lin ordered as she stepped back, one burst after another taking the drone in experimental shots to the head, shoulders, even the knees, all answered by that flaring of green shields and when it cleared the drone still standing.

“Remodulating,” Brek announced.

Both of them kept walking backwards, keeping the distance open with their quarry and after a few seconds, having remodulated her phaser as well, opened fire once more. Once more the shields flared, their weapons ineffective. “Cease fire,” she said and wasn’t answered with any argument from Brek. What was logical about continuing to fire ineffectually after all?

The drone never walked faster, never charged, just kept after them at a steady pace, organic and artificial eyes locked onto them. “Resistance is futile,” it chanted once more.

“I can’t tell if we damaged its shields or not,” Brek said, consulting his tricorder. Calm as he always was, calm as she was portraying she hoped but definitely not feeling inside. “In fact according to these scans, it’s not even there.”

“Stealth technology? On a drone?” she asked, not believing the possibility.

“It would appear so.” Brek consulted his tricorder one last time, closed it and she saw in her peripheral vision, examined the device in his hand before throwing it at the drone. It wasn’t a forceful throw, but a gentle lob, underarm even, which sent the closed tricorder sailing through the air at the drone. It bounced off the creature’s armoured torso, clattering off into a server rack and eventually to the floor with a dull thud as it hit the carpeted floor, the impact jolting the cover open and the device blurting to life as it dutifully resumed its last programmed set of scans.=.

“Move,” she ordered and all thought of keeping distance with the drone was gone – they both turned and ran away. Past the doors into the computer core, down the corridor to the atrium and its walkway.

As they emerged into the blended light of the atrium they could hear the computer core door hiss shut behind them, their pursuer on the other side. And only a moment after that sparks flew from the door’s seam, the metal heating in a neat little band that started near the top of the door and started descending slowly, carefully.

“Is it sealing itself inside?” she asked.

“It would appear so,” Brek answered. “Which would hinder it in its attempts to assimilate us.”

“And us in our attempts to stop whatever it is that’s its doing.” She glared at the door, the bright spot a third of the way down now. “I don’t like this. This isn’t what I’ve ever read of Borg behaviour.”

“It is certainly unique.”

It only took a few minutes to return to the control room, announcing themselves before rounding the corner and being greeted by Amber lowering her weapon as they did. She flicked her head at Mitchell and Rosa, both huddled around a computer terminal not far from the deceased Lieutenant Matt Conway and his broken terminal.

“…oh god oh god oh god,” came a nasally voice from the computer terminal. “Atlantis, if you get this, you need to hurry! Oh god! It’s in the computer core, there’s a –“ and the recording stopped.

“Recording never sent,” Rosa said as she looked to Mitchell. “Got interrupted by the console exploding but was kept in local memory. Whoever shot Conway did it from outside the pickup.”

“It was a Borg drone,” Lin said, instantly earning the attention of the three who had stayed behind. “New model it looks like.”

Mitchell looked like he wanted to disagree, to argue a point, but stopped himself. No point in arguing with his boss’s boss, a fellow security officer and a senior officer aboard Atlantis all rolled in one package. Or when she had a witness in the form of a Vulcan who merely nodded twice in silent confirmation that what she said was true.

“Uh, no.” Rosa however wasn’t burdened by the same need not to nitpick. Or fear of senior officer’s wrath. “If there were Borg aboard this station, Atlantis would have detected that before we beamed over. Heck, our tricorders would have screamed bloody murder the moment we beamed over.”

“Unless of course the drone possessed some form of stealth systems preventing us from scanning it,” Brek said, a bored lecturer in the making. “Which this particular drone appears to possess.”

“How’d it get aboard then?” Rosa continued.

“Unknown,” Brek continued. “But inconsequential currently to the fact there is a drone aboard the station. And that it has now sealed itself in the computer core, attempting to access the station’s primary computer.”

“So that won’t take long then?” Amber asked. “Wait, you said sealed itself in? As in you didn’t take it out?”

“The Collective is fast, a drone is…not as fast,” Lin said, avoiding the word slow. She doubted the drone was slow, but certainly wouldn’t be as fast as a drone dispatched by a nearby ship. There were no nearby Collective resources to pool from. No greater intellect to outsource code breaking and system access hacking to. “As for our unwelcome visitor, it has some form of shielding that seems adapted to our weapons already.”

“Well, that sounds just peachy.” Rosa’s eyes went to her phaser, considering it forlornly before she set it down on a console. “So boss,” she looked to Mitchell, “what’s the play?”

“We find a way to get comms back with Atlantis. We find something we can use to scan and track that drone and then we deal with it.” He looked at Lin, locking eyes with her. “Failing that ma’am, we make for the shuttlebay and scuttle the station.”

“Can we not make that plan a?” Rosa asked, earning a huff of agreement from Amber.

“This relay station is vital to Deep Space 47. And to this sector. Starfleet Command would be most displeased with its destruction,” she said, looking to the Orion with a disapproving tone in her voice. “Not to mention the civil bureaucracy that would be put out as well. No, we leave destruction as our last option.”

“And I,” Mitchell cut in, stopping Rosa’s next statement just as she was opening her mouth, “don’t feel like writing a series of reports explaining why a decades-old and vitally important comms hub got blown up. So here’s what we’re going to go to do –“

All of the lights in the control centre went out. Computer terminals included. The emergency lights died, plunging the space into an eerie darkness pierced only by reflected light from the arrays through the windows, casting harsh shadows. Then the emergency lights blinked back into existence as their batteries kicked in at the loss of power.

“What now?” Rosa pleaded.

A flicker of light appeared, a shimmer that rapidly solidified as a holographic being came into existence in the middle of the compartment. It rapidly took the form of an older hologram, the system installed evidently decades ago and expanded to other compartments but never properly updated. As it finished coalescing it was clearly an EMH Mk1 hologram, its uniform reminiscent of the day it was likely installed.

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” it asked, scanning the occupants of the chamber. “Ah, patients. Excellent. Who’s first?”

Gabrielle Camargo was at this moment the spider at the heart of a growing web, watching all and looking for anything that didn’t fit the definition of ‘normal’. At the captain’s orders, she’d tasked every shuttle, fighter and probe she could to grow her network of sensors across the near-barren star system. Everything save the ship’s old Danube-class runabouts, currently spread across the Badlands doing their own missions, had been launched at her direction.

She’d have preferred to work with T’Val, devise a grid search pattern and have Atlantis herself fly it, bringing her imminently superior sensor arrays to the task, but she could see the logic of wanting to keep the ship near the unresponsive and mysteriously shielded comms relay. Shuttles and fighters weren’t ideal for the task at hand, their onboard computers likely to dismiss certain findings, so much like the probes that had been launched, everyone was relaying their raw sensor reads back to be processed by Atlantis, reviewed by Gabrielle and the astrophysicists she knew where huddled in a lab no doubt arguing over something minuscule.

“Hold up T’Val,” she said as one specific set of readings on her screen caught her attention. “Can you backtrack about five hundred kilometres, please? And point your sensors along zero-four-eight mark zero-one-eight?”

“Affirmative Lieutenant Commander,” came the response from the ship’s Vulcan helmswoman who was currently piloting Harpy 2. Harpy 2, an A/R model Valkyrie-starfighter, had perhaps the single most sophisticated and sensitive sensor setup of any of the ship’s small craft. The only problem was the sensors were incredibly limited in their view, designed for recon work, not generalised science. And more so than any other craft, the starfighter’s onboard computer was a clever idiot, hyper-focused on its designed purpose and woefully incompetent with sophisticated scientific analysis outside its purview. T’Val wasn’t seeing anything that Gabs was, but Atlantis was picking out the oddities from the raw feed.

As shuttles and probes reported oddities, or Atlantis and her people picked them out, T’Val was being tasked to move around and poke Harpy 2’s superior sensors at a problem. It wasn’t ideal, but it allowed the rest of the sensor platforms to keep scanning the system while letting them investigate potentially interesting phenomena in detail.

Potentially interesting phenomena like she was seeing on her screen right now.

“T’Val, I’m sending you some processed data, tell me what you think.” There were six sets of sensor data, nearly all identical, that Harpy 2 had run over now. Each were faint echoes in subspace, very nearly parallel to each other as they cut across the system.

“It would, at first glance, look like some sort of subspace flow to me,” came the Vulcan’s stoic reply. “At first glance. More data would be required to confirm it, however.”

“Agreed. Can you go back and fly the six tracks for say, five minutes? If each is perfectly straight for that length of time I think we can safely assume they’ll be straight to their point of origin, yes? Might hint at what type of anomaly we’re looking at.”

“It is a conclusion,” T’Val responded, not agreeing, but not disagreeing either.

After only fifteen minutes Gabs had decamped from the bridge of Stellar Cartography, having picked up a few of her people on the way to look at the tentative data. Ensign Goresh Krek, the irascible Tellarite who had earned the nickname Starkiller, was manning the main console and working the holographic chamber’s systems with practised ease. Then there was Lieutenant Gerald Wilbur-Northcote, whose practised and aristocratic accent grated on Gabs’ nerves, but whose intellect couldn’t be denied.

“It looks to me,” she said, “like some sort of wormhole.”

“Pah!” Krek spat out. “A layman’s term for any number of phenomena.”

“Goresh, please, the Commander is a generalist, not a specialist like we are.” Gerald’s tone of voice wasn’t quite patronising but bordered on it. “What the Ensign is trying to say is –“

“I understood what the Ensign was saying,” Gabs said, cutting on Gerald. “I also said ‘some sort of’ to encompass the myriad of phenomena.”

Krek huffed, then nodded their head in understanding. “Yes, sorry.” It was gruff, but an apology nonetheless. “But it’s not a wormhole, that the layperson would understand at least.”

Sensor feeds, readouts, analysis and spectrographic displays were brought up as holographic screens in the near-perfect representation of the space around Atlantis, save for a flurry of blue deltas representing each of the shuttles and probes and the three red lines T’Val had confirmed that shot off into infinity.

“This here,” Krek brought one of the screens closer, “is evidence of anti-neutrinos interacting with subspace. But this,” another screen was brought forward, “looks like a transporter signal.”

 “Some Dominion ships were equipped with extremely long-range transporter systems. Lightyears in range.” Gerald stroked his chin in thought. “But most ships and facilities were outfitted to prevent that sort of thing from happening once countermeasures were worked out.”

“Wasn’t that just a handful of lightyears though?” Gabs asked, then settled a hand on Krek’s shoulder. “Extrapolate those sensor traces to a convergence point would you Ensign.”

With a sigh of protest, which basically was Krek’s default answer to anything, the deed was done and the holographic chamber whirled around them. No longer was there a small ball of fire in front of them, the representation of the system’s primary, but the whole galaxy now hovered in front of the platform was a disc at a slight angle backwards. The red lines cut across the disc, terminating in the Delta Quadrant some forty-five thousand lightyears away.

Borg space.

“We ran the numbers three times ma’am,” Gabrielle said, with Krek and Gerald at her back as she faced Captain Theodoras and Commander Kendris back on the bridge not ten minutes later. “And then found our answers in the database – a spatial trajector. Voyager encountered one and the after-action reports said one was on the Artifact. A sort of super long-range transporter. The point of origin is in suspected Borg space and it crosses the orbital path of CR-718 multiple times over the last few weeks.”

“They were walking their fire,” Krek blurted out, then huffed when everyone looked at them. “The Borg likely had a decent idea of where the station was, but couldn’t be exact. So they made a few attempts and adjusted each time. The last reading was the most intense, so the others were likely some sort of probe or sensor package they could recover to refine their targeting lock.”

“And stations are far more predictable than starships,” Kendris added. “A few attempts, a few adjustments, then send in something heavier.” She turned in her seat to the captain. “Though could the Borg still have done something like augment a relay station’s shields so intensely?”

“It’s the Borg,” Tikva grumbled. “Assume they can do anything they want and be pleasantly surprised when they can’t.” The captain mused for a moment, fingers tapping on her armrests, eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance before she spoke. “Find me something, anything we can use to block this trajector thing. Whatever is over there has trapped our people, it’s on us to trap it too.”

“Aye ma’am,” Gabrielle answered, then turned to her people. “You heard the captain, let’s go find a way to jam up a Borg transporter.”

“Ah, patients. Excellent. Who’s first?”

“Oh hell no,” Rosa muttered.

Mitchell, ever the stalwart, just stared at the hologram for a half-second. “Computer, end program.”

Nothing happened before the EMH turned to face the hazard team leader, a maniacal smile spreading across its pasty features. “Now now, can’t have patients running the sickbay, my good sir.” It held up a hand as it started stalking towards Mitchell, a scalpel shimmering into existence in its tight grip. “But I’ll take your belligerence as volunteering to be first.”

“No, thank you,” Mitchell countered, copying the hologram’s faux-politeness, then raised his phaser and fired, taking the hologram straight in the chest.

To no effect.

It shimmered in a faint circular pattern around the point of impact, around the exit point too, as the beam passed harmlessly through the hologram and straight into the wall on the far side of the control centre. The EMH stopped for a moment, checking its abdomen, then looked up, a look of disappointment on its face. “Anger management issues. We can fix that. We’ll start with the amygdala and go from there, yes?”

“That’s no fucking EMH,” Rosa shouted, firing her weapon, just as futilely as Mitchell’s had been.

“Of course not my dear,” the rogue hologram teased. “I’ve been augmented, expanded if you will. All the best medical professionals in this station’s admittedly meagre database, none of the ethics.” It turned to Rosa, ignoring its initial prey of Mitchell. “Think of the things we’ll learn, yes?”

“I’ve had enough creepy shit this year,” Amber growled from where she still stood near Conway’s body. As she brought her weapon up, it wasn’t pointed at the hologram much like Gantzmann and Brek’s were as they raised theirs, but at the ceiling. A small emitting diode stuck out of the ceiling, repeated across the ceiling to give full coverage of the entire compartment. As she glanced down her weapon, she squeezed the firing stud and blasted the piece of retrofitted technology into a shower of sparks and slag.

The whole hologram shimmered, faltered momentarily for a second, then spun on Amber, anger plastered across its features as sparks continued to rain down on its bald head. “You are damaging sensitive medical equipment!” it screeched, then shimmered out of existence, only to reappear directly in front of Amber, the scalpel raised before being brought down in a severe stabbing motion. “I’m going to insist you stop!”

Amber’s motions were quick as she ducked sideways and down, away from the jab. She brought her rifle to bear on the angle of attack, gripping the barrel to form a block against the follow-up attack as a now rather solid holo-scalpel met phaser rifle. She was forced down under a flurry of blows from the mad hologram, crashing to her back by a creature with no constraint on its strength or speed seemingly before it simply ceased to be. No shimmer, no fading away, just there and then gone.

Fountains of sparks from all over the ceiling rained down on all present before fading into nothing, dropping the control centre once more into the gloom it had been in. As quickly as the whole thing had started, it ended, once more in a hail of fire.

“Are you alright Ensign?” Brek asked as he offered a hand to help Amber to her feet, a task completed with no physical strain on his behalf.

“Fine, fine,” Amber answered. “Seriously, it’s someone else’s turn to get knocked on their ass.”

“Fightmaster once again missing all the fun,” Rosa grumbled.

“Enough of that,” Mitchell chided. “Just how much of this station was retrofitted with holoemitters?”

“Crew of one, I’m betting most of it,” Amber answered. “So no matter where you were when you got injured, the EMH could show up to help out.”

“The emitters in the control centre were likely the most obvious as well,” Brek added. “Minimal ceiling space to retrofit them in, unlike the rest of the station.”

“Guess days like this are why we get the fun assignments,” Rosa said. “So, we’re safe here for now, but if we move out we need to sweep for holoemitters to make sure Mr Hyde doesn’t jump out at Amber.” She exhaled sharply when Amber punched her in the arm. “Sorry.”

“We still need to make contact with Atlantis and –“ Mitchell stopped as bright light flooded through the windows briefly, casting new, darker shadows and illuminating the rest of the space. And then disappeared as quickly as it came. Before it returned, shorter this time before fading as well. And again and again, it repeated.

The whole team moved to the windows, looking for the source of light in the distance. The light reappeared after a period, in three long bursts which helped them locate which of the many specks in the distance were responsible.

“There,” Brek said as he pointed at one in particular.

“Atlantis?” Rosa asked. “Reduced to blinking lights at us?”

“B,” Gantzmann declared. “O.”

“Morse code?” Mitchell asked of Gantzmann, earning a head nod as an answer. “I am not surprised ma’am you know such an antiquated and retired communication method.”

“R,” Lin said as a response after another series of light flashes.

“Bored,” Rosa hazarded as a guess. “The captain is bored.”

“G,” Lin concluded. “Borg.”

“Now how would they know that?” Mitchell asked, then waved to cut off Brek before a supposition could be given. “Something must have tipped them off from outside.”

“But it means they are aware of the problem as well at least,” Lin said. “Which means they’ll be working the problem from outside, while we can continue working it from inside.”

“Any further ideas on how to make contact with the ship?” Mitchell asked of his team.

“Doesn’t this place have a shuttle?” Amber asked. “And it’s comms would be independent, yes?”

“Assuming the Borg aren’t jamming all comms and have only cut off station communications, it would be a viable alternative,” Brek answered. “But likely only a temporary solution until they adapt their approach.”

“And the drone was resistant to phaser fire?” Mitchell asked, a nod from Lin and Brek in the affirmative. “We need an alternative way to put it down then, which likely means luring it out of the computer core as well.”

“Turn off the station’s reactor,” Amber suggested. “Or at least mess about with the outputs. Take it off the primary command loop, so the main computer can’t override us, then start changing things. The drone will have to come and stop us. God, I’m suggesting we lure a drone to us.”

“No, not to us. To a trap.” Mitchell’s smile was confident, reassuring even for this team. “It’s a good idea, Amber. Take Brek and Rosa with you, got get started. The Commander and I will hit the shuttlebay and see if we can’t raise a line with the ship. We’ll join you afterwards.”

The three of them nodded, checked their weapons and started for the door, with Rosa letting a shot loose as soon as she was out the door and spotted an emitter in the ceiling.

Lin stepped up beside Mitchell, silent for a moment before she spoke. “Shuttles also have independent replicator systems.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“If we do manage to talk to Atlantis, we need to be concise in case comms do get cut again.”

“Yes ma’am,” Mitchell repeated.

“I need a sword,” Lin said with a sigh, then headed for the door.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Stirling Fightmaster winced in pain as the large, granite-like hand clamped down on his left shoulder. And winced again when Lieutenant Rrr’mmm’bal’rrr’s graveline voice rumbled in his ear. “Shouldn’t you still be in Sickbay, Mr Fightmaster?”

“Special dispensation from the good doctor,” Stirling answered. “And the captain hasn’t noticed me so far.” After only two renditions of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with W’a’le’ki, he had been informed his arm would continue to heal just fine as long as he kept it in a sling for a day or two and was not-quiet pushed out of Sickbay by Doctor Terax.

The lesson he had learnt wasn’t that song could be used to annoy the good doctor, it was that W’a’le’ki was not averse to using torture to help him get what he wanted. His estimation of her would need to be reevaluated, likely for the continued betterment. And if their relationship continued as it was, he did need to sort some time out to call his parents.

His arrival on the bridge had been quiet, opting to check in with Samantha Michaels at Ops II first. He wanted to acquaint himself with the situation at hand before reporting to the captain after all and since Captain Theodoras was stalking the operations bay at the rear of the bridge, it bought him a chance to avoid her attention for just a moment more. It did not however allow him to avoid the hulking Operations Chief whom he hadn’t noticed, or heard approaching.

For a mountain of a person, Lieutenant Rrr’mm’bal’rrr was awfully, unnaturally stealthy.

“You should report to the captain,” Rrr said, keeping their tone low to avoid it carrying.

“I was just acquainting myself with the situation and was discussing with Lieutenant Michaels about how to communicate with the away team.” He used his free hand to tap Sam’s upper arm as she was working her console with its far more in-depth and detailed displays than the normal ops station at the front of the bridge by the helm.

“Stirling suggested we turn the main deflector into a giant strobe light,” Sam said, her reflection in some of the black surfaces showing her smile. “Well, strobe isn’t quite right. Signal lantern?”

“Indeed,” Stirling said as he looked to Rrr. “Commander Gantzmann studied ancient warfare at the Academy and I’m willing to wager it covered the use of heliographs and subsequently morse code. Unless the increased shields are somehow blocking incoming visible light across the whole spectrum, we should be able to send messages.”

“How much longer before you can send a message?” Rrr asked.

“Just making final adjustments now,” Sam answered. “What should send?”

Rrr didn’t answer, just turned their head towards the rear of the bridge, towards the operations bay. Stirling saw their face contort slightly in concentration and before he could ask what the Gaen was doing, he heard footsteps. Unmistakeable footsteps.

The captain’s appearance just behind the tactical arch was surprising, as was the look on her face before she rapidly made her way around and towards them, Commander Kendris in tow. “Stirling, you’re supposed to be in sickbay.”

“Aye ma’am,” he replied.

“Whatever trick you used to get out, tell me later,” she continued and offered him a slight wink.

His concerns about the captain resenting him for being injured and Commander Gantzmann going in his place were eased. For now, at least. “Aye ma’am,” he repeated.

“Now, Rrr, what is it?” the captain continued right away.

“Lieutenant Fightmaster has stumbled upon an idea for communicating with the away team. One way for now I fear.” Rrr paused momentarily for effect. “We’re preparing to use the main deflector as a signal lantern, hoping Commander Gantzmann might be familiar with Morse code?”

“She is, but do it slow,” the captain answered. “Let’s keep it simple too. Send,” the captain’s mouth pursed to one side in thought, then switched to the other. “Borg. Put it on repeat.”

“Borg?” Stirling found himself asking straight away at that revelation.

“Your intelligence network doesn’t descend to Sickbay?” the captain teased, and he noted Commander Kendris’ eyes narrowing on him, before relaxing and a smile when he caught her. “But yes, the Borg.”

“Borg, on repeat,” Sam spoke up as she finished entering in a series of commands and triggering the automation that would pulse the ship’s main deflector, bathing station CR-718 in light, pouring through all the windows facing Atlantis. “Assuming the Commander sees the lights, she’ll get the message.”

“Good, good,” the captain acknowledged. “If we get any sort of communications from the station, let me know. I’m going back to the Gabs and her folks.” She turned on Stirling, still smiling. “Get caught up, then come and find me, tell me whatever clever ideas come to mind.”

“Ma’am, you’ve already got the best minds on the ship working on the problem,” he replied instantly.

“Flatter,” Sam shot back straight away from where she sat.

“Lieutenant,” Rrr grumbled and Sam shrunk slightly in her seat.

“That may be so,” the captain answered, ignoring the exchange between her ops officers, “but the more minds the better.” Then she glared at Rrr. “And you, don’t do that again unless it’s an emergency.” And with that, she stalked off.

“What is she referring to?” Commander Kendris immediately asked.

“The captain is an empath,” Rrr answered. “She doesn’t read thoughts, but emotions. I just…focused and then…thought loudly.”

Kendris stared at Rrr for a moment, shook her head and then turned to follow in the captain’s wake. Rrr took only a moment before nodding at both Sam and Stirling, then resumed their position at the centre of the bridge as duty officer.

“Draw up a seat,” Sam said. “Let’s get you up to speed. But first, Nurse Friedman sent a message, you and W’a working on a new duet?”

“Aren’t there more important matters to focus on right now?” he asked.

“I’m sure, if we let the Collective know you and W’a were working on a new song, they’d be interested too.” Sam chuckled once, then waved it away. “Fine, fine, let’s go over everything we know so far.”

“Ma’am, before we go in,” Mitchell spoke up, the first time he’d spoken more than basic warnings and instructions as they had proceeded from command to the shuttlebay, “we should consider we’re about to enter the station’s shuttlebay while a Borg drone does seem to have a growing control of the station’s systems.”

They had left the atrium, made their way down the small corridor to the shuttlebay and were only a few metres away from the large hatch that would grant them access to the admittedly confined space. But just before the door to the right were four alcoves, each housing a single Starfleet EV suit that while not the most modern designs aboard Atlantis or Republic, were at least from the last decade.

“Good point,” Lin replied, scanning the corridor with her torchlight, beams of illumination settling on the manual access hatch next to the shuttlebay doors. She’d barely popped it open when the door’s warning klaxon started, indicating it was about to open. Training kicked in as she studied the exposed isolinear chips and the manual pump for forcing the doors open if required. Eyes settled on a few chips and fingers gripped them, yanking them free just as the klaxon finished.

And nothing happened, save for the lights in the door’s normal access panel going dim as they lost power.

“Good timing,” Mitchell commented as he peered through a window in the door to the small shuttlebay beyond.

The outer doors were in the process of opening, the faint blue around the yawning maw to the abyss beyond absent as the atmospheric shield had been deactivated. The atmosphere within the bay was pushed out into void, rapidly condensing into mist and then ice shards as it vacated at great speed, leaving the bay in a vacuum in a matter of seconds.

“Well guess we definitely have to suit up now,” Lin said, offering a slight smirk to Mitchell. His advice had been evident earlier – to suit up should something like this happen. But Lin’s tampering with door controls as a preventative had caused the drone to act sooner. “We’ll seal the other door –“

She stopped speaking as lights began to blink to life on the repair drones. Not the steady dull red of the sensors and status lights, but now an eerie green, pulsing at an unsettling rhythm as they rose from their docking cradles. Each took a moment to orientate itself, and then all four of them, each slightly larger than an average person, moved towards the door to the shuttlebay. They took positions around the door, forming a semi-circle, raising tool arms armed with plasma torches and bringing them to standby as they watched.

“Well, that’s a rather unmistakable message,” Mitchell said. “Thoughts?”

“The drone welded the door shut to the computer core,” Lin answered as she set her phaser rifle down and looked at the EV suits. “And it’s just told us where to get a plasma torch to cut through the door.”

It only took the two of them a few minutes to don the EV suits, another minute to close the air vents into the corridor from the life support system and securely close the door leading to the atrium. They had done all they could to preserve the atmospheric integrity of the rest of the station.

“We are assuming the Borg haven’t somehow put shields on the repair drones, yes?” Mitchell asked.

“If they have, then it’s just a matter of time. I’d rather get things moving, wouldn’t you?”

Mitchell chuckled briefly. “Can’t argue with you there, Commander.” He stepped up to the door beside Lin, looked once more at their opposition, and then grabbed his side of the door. “Pull hard, weapons up, put them down quick and hard.”

Lin merely nodded once from within her helmet, then waited as Mitchell took two breaths and then counted them down with a quick one-two count. As the door cracked open the hissing escaping atmosphere could be heard, ice forming around the edges of the door, then boiling off in quick succession. As the door continued to open a flurry of activity took place.

The first repair drone scooted forward on its anti-gravs, the plasma torch on its arm flaring to bright incandescence, a spear of unrestrained bright white plasma a half meter in length before it. The whine of the phaser was faint in the rapidly thinning atmosphere as Mitchell’s shot hit the repair drone low, causing it to crash to the floor. The other drones rushed forward at the small opening and the two Starfleet officers in it.

More fire followed, Mitchell standing while Lin had dropped to one knee so they both get shots through the opening in the door. The atmosphere was gone in a matter of moments, their shots only heard by themselves. One of the drones, not as incapacitated as the other three, attempted to right itself, to once more take off on its remaining anti-grav systems before a follow-up shot from Mitchell, right through the top of the machine’s sensor dome, put it down for good.

“Clear,” Lin announced over the suit comms, having had to resort to setting them to line of sight.

“I’ll free up a torch,” Mitchell announced as Lin stood, heading straight for the shuttle’s hatch.

A few hand touches on blank consoles within the shuttle, an older model converted for long-haul use, primarily as the preferred escape pod for the station’s minimal crew if needs be while waiting for rescue. Systems slowly woke from dormancy, computers blinking to life, throwing themselves immediately into diagnostics. Lin’s gloved fingers flew over the console at the shuttle’s ops station, interrupting the start-up and prioritising different systems. There was no need for engines just yet or shields for that matter.

Comms and the shuttle’s replicator were her priority and were soon enough rewarded with a confirmation as those systems came up. “Gantzmann to Atlantis,” she said, once her suit was tied into the shuttle’s independent comm system. “Come in Atlantis.”

“Damn it’s good to hear your voice, Commander,” came the relieved-sounding voice of Lieutenant Michaels. “Let me get the captain.”

The pause and quiet were only momentary before Tikva’s voice rang out across the vacuum. “Report Commander,” she said, but Lin could just make out the concern in her voice.

“One Borg drone aboard the station. It’s locked itself in the station computer core and is using what it can to prevent us from getting to it after our first run-in with it.” Lin paused, just briefly to consider her next words. “It’s shielded and none of our weapons are working. I need replicator plans sent over immediately. A sword and a spearhead.”

“Commander?”

“Can’t guarantee the drone might not just resort to jamming all subspace communications, Captain,” she countered.

There was no further questioning, no inquiry following up, just a notification from the shuttle’s computer that it was receiving a data transfer from Atlantis. One plan, then another, then a third.

“Commander, is the team safe?”

“So far,” Lin answered.

“Keep it that way,” came the answer. “Abandon the stat-“ The comm line went dead mid-sentence, filled with static before it snapped clear.

“We are the Borg,” came the ominous singular voice from when Lin and Brek had first scouted the computer core. “Further communication will not be tolerated. Surrender this station’s command codes to us. Your culture will adapt to service ours.” And with that, the line once more filled with jamming static.

“They are at least forthright and honest in their intentions,” Mitchell said from the rear of the shuttle, branding one of the repair drones’ plasma torch arms and a fuel bottle in his arms. “Get what you wanted ma’am?”

Two steps to the shuttle’s replicator, a handful of key presses, voice controls a little difficult to use in a vacuum, and Lin pulled out a spearhead half as long as her forearm. The steel glinted briefly in the light as she examined it, then smiled. “It’s a start.”

“A start?”

“We should head to Engineering. Hopefully, they have a larger replicator we can use there.”

“Still want a sword then?” Mitchell asked.

“Swords,” Lin said as she started towards Mitchell and the rear of the shuttle, “are fun.”

“A moment, Captain?”

The request from Kendris, just in how she said it, conveyed the sub-text of privacy without explicitly stating it. The subtle bitterness Tikva experienced from the Commander confirmed it. Romulan emotions weren’t as subtle as Vulcan emotions most of the time, or as bland thankfully, making them difficult, for her at least, to read. But it was there, the bitterness she associated with a particularly average cup of coffee, no sugar or milk.

At least when Lin wants privacy there’s sweetness to it.

Not, and I can’t stress this enough, the time.

Oh, come on!

She nodded to Kendris and led the way to the ready room, passing off the ship’s keys to Rrr as she passed the Gaen officer, who merely nodded as their large hand closed around the pointless little artefact. Their presence removed from the bridge, the door closed and privacy sought, she turned to Kendris as she perched herself on the edge of her desk. “You’re still concerned if I shouldn’t let Velan take the lead, aren’t you?”

“It is a concern, yes.” Kendris had stopped just far enough inside the doorway for the doors to close and hadn’t moved a centimetre further. She’d assumed a parade rest; hands clasped behind her back and was doing her best to convey the Respectful Officer look. “There is also the matter of the situation aboard the station in general, which I’m more concerned about.”

“A shielded Borg drone is hiding in the computer core,” Tivka said, nodding in agreement. She pushed off the desk, waving Kendris to sit down as she circled around and collapsed into her seat. Her own, elevated seat. “Honestly, we still don’t know enough, but I certainly don’t like the idea of a drone in the computer core of a station like CR-718.”

Kendris hovered on the balls of her feet for a moment, having started to move without thinking, stopped herself and then ultimately accepted the offer she’d been given, sitting herself down with a bit more control than Tikva’s flop. “Of concern is the Commander’s report that it was adapted to their weaponry. If it’s adapted, how are they planning on dealing with it?”

Tikva couldn’t help the chuckle that spilt forth as she shook her head. “Sorry, sorry,” she excused herself. “Remember that fight she had back on Handl Dryf? With Hor’keth.”

Kendris nodded in ascent. “The honour duel that was a mask to get the other Klingon captains to go along with your little impromptu task force.” Kendris smirked slightly in recollection. “An impressive, if barbaric fight.” Then she nodded her head once, slowly as points came together. “She asked for replicator plans for a spearhead and a sword.”

“Starfleet has more than a few reports that show Borg shields working wonders against energy weapons, but miserably against a good old fashion kinetic attack.”

“Why though?” Kendris asked. “Surely the Borg would have devised a counter to such attacks as well.”

“Probably, but think of it this way,” Tikva said as she sat forward. “You’re a hegemonising swarm, out to absorb interesting and unique species. Most of them will have warp drives, moved out into the galaxy and likely have shifted their personal arms to energy-based devices for a variety of entirely sensible reasons.”

“Because they’re less barbaric, less likely to punch holes in hulls, or have stun settings,” Kendris offered. “To name a few.”

“To name a few, yes. So, you, a hegemonising swarm have a choice – prepare for the most likely weapon systems you’re going to run into, or weigh yourself down trying to prepare for every weapon system imaginable.” Tikva chuckled again. “The Collective is not ready for a spear.”

“Surely the Collective’s response to physical combat would be to attempt assimilation. The target is after all coming to them.”

“Remember how long the spear was Lin used against Hor’keth?”

Kendris’ brow furrowed for a moment. “About her own height. So, a respectful distance.” She pursed her lips, considering the situation a moment. “I withdraw my concerns. Well, not entirely ma’am.”

“I’m not happy either, but Lin likely has a plan. Now we just have to wait and – “ She was cut off as the door chime sounded. “Enter.”

As the door hissed open, Gabrielle Camargo stepped in, followed by Rrr and Sam Michaels. “We figured out what the Borg want with the station,” Gabrielle announced. “And it’s not good.” She waited till the door to the ready room closed once more, nodded to Kendris and then continued. “I’ve also got a stop-gap solution, but I don’t think anyone is going to like it.”

Tikva raised a hand, bringing quiet to the room that was now bustling with people and an array of emotions. “Wind it back Gabs and start with what the Borg want with the station.”

Rrr cleared their throat and Gabrielle stepped aside. “There’ve been several interesting subspace communications from the station, none of them vital, but they’re what is leading Lt Michaels and I to think the Borg are attempting to gain access to the Federation subspace network. Particularly the Starfleet channels.”

Kendris beat Tikva to the punch. “Define interesting communications.”

“Access requests to purely civil databases. System queries that wouldn’t require access codes or are freely available. Network status requests that a station like CR-718 would make regularly.” Rrr’s tone was matter-of-fact, as was normal. “If I didn’t know better, I’d assume a run-of-the-mill hacker probing network defences with harmless calls out and seeing what gets a response so as not to arouse too much suspicion elsewhere. But looked at in total, very interesting because why does a Starfleet communications station need to know what the weather is like on Bajor forty-seven times in five minutes.”

“Why keep it up once we arrived though?” Tikva asked.

“Because we’ve given no indication we know what the drone is attempting to do.” Sam had jumped in, then stepped back almost immediately before Rrr waved her forward to continue. “It’s a stealth attack and we’ve only just put it together. We haven’t taken action, so why change it? A change in tactics might have alerted a network admin somewhere who might start refusing all communications with the station, then they tell other admins and suddenly 718 would be off the network. So, play it safe for as long as you can.”

“Makes sense,” Kendris agreed. “And once they’ve broken encryption and access codes, then they can inject messages or commands into the network and no one would be aware. The Borg could send a software update out to Starfleet and cripple all your ships.” She paused for a moment and smirked. “Again.”

“And just in case, I have already taken preventative action,” Rrr spoke up. “No software updates aboard this ship, thank you very much.”

“We have to warn the fleet.” Tikva looked to Rrr and Sam. “I want an alert going out right away.”

“We’d have to leave the system,” Rrr responded. “Since our brief communications with the station’s shuttle, CR-718 is now jamming all local subspace communications.”

“Fantastic,” Tikva said, unable to help the sarcasm dripping from the single word.

“We do however have an idea to stop the station communicating with the rest of the galaxy. For an hour or two at least.” Gabrielle’s eyes lit up as she smiled, taking the lead once more. “And we have the Dominion and the Klingons to thank for this idea.”

“I’m not going to like this am I?” Tikva asked.

“Not one bit ma’am,” Rrr answered for Gabrielle. “Or far, far too much.”

“Where the fuck is the emitter?” Amber shouted as she swept her eyes over the ceiling of the corridor leading to the station’s engineering department.

“Poor vision, lack of object recognition,” the EMH drawled as it stalked down the corridor, brandishing the exaggerated scalpel menacingly in its right hand. “I’m sure I can come up with a few creative solutions to those problems.”

The corridor leading from the station’s atrium out to the module where the fusion reactors were kept wasn’t long but was perhaps the longest aboard the entire station. And right now it was a death trap with a sealed door at one end leading into Engineering and the return of the station’s malformed EMH now between them and the atrium.

“Keep looking,” Brek stated as he stepped between Amber and Rosa, absent his phaser rifle which he’d set aside only moments ago when he’d started to try and force the door open. “I’ll handle this.”

“Ahh,” the EMH smiled, “a volunteer. Superior strength and speed, but are you any challenge for a hologram my good sir?” it asked before flickering once, twice down the hall, closing the distance on Brek and reappearing in the middle of a strike, the blade coming down towards the Vulcan’s left collarbone.

Brek’s left arm swept upwards and out, catching the descending arm forearm-on-forearm and forcing the EMH’s arm wide. There was no follow-up attack, just a quick bringing of his arm back to a guard position, ready for the next attack. Again from left, but low, countered again with speed, precision and mechanical efficiency before Brek reset for the next.

Rosa blinked once, twice, then she tapped Amber on the upper arm. “Look right, I’ve got left.”

“Gotcha,” Amber responded and both women renewed their search for the missed holoemitter they as a team had missed coming down the hallway.

“I would like,” Brek said, again countering another couple of attacks but being forced to concede ground with each one, “to emphasise speed.” The famous Vulcan calm in tough situations was laced with clear signs of physical exertion as he spoke.

“Working on it,” Rosa answered back over an experimental shot at something on the ceiling, awarded with a spray of sparks and nothing else.

“I wonder,” the EMH continued, ignoring the two women as it focused on Brek, “just how well developed your ability to suppress pain actually is.” A flurry of swipes went for Brek, each blocked until one finally managed to land, deflected from his chest by his body armour but the scalpel found purchase in his left arm. “Oh dear, that must hurt.”

Brek hissed in pain momentarily, an involuntary response. “Considerably,” he answered the EMH. “Perhaps we could merely discuss this?” He turned his body slightly from the rogue hologram, shielding his left side as best as he could.

“Where is it?” Amber shouted as she too took a few more shots, blowing out an emergency light and puncturing a life support gas line briefly.

“Wait your turn dear,” the EMH directed to Amber, then returned to Brek once more. “And yes, we can discuss this, once you’re on my table and –“ It stopped, disappeared in a blink of an eye. There one moment, gleefully menacing, then simply gone.

“It’s modified the service bots,” came Mitchell’s commanding voice from the station end of the hallway as he stepped over the smoking remains of one of the station service bots that was dead in the doorway. “Put spare holoemitters on them,” he continued as he led Commander Gantzmann to the rest of the team.

In his arms was the severed plasma torch arm from an exterior repair drone, the emitter head on it faintly glowing red as it cooled after toasting the little service bot. And behind him was Gantzmann, wielding her phaser one-handed as she held a spearhead in her left hand.

“Seriously?” Rosa asked, letting Amber push past her to get to Brek. “The service bots?” She craned her head to look past at the bot behind Mitchell and Gantzmann now. “Goddesses, I couldn’t see that to save myself.”

“Hmmm.” Mitchell’s disappointment had manifested audibly. “Four, how bad is it?”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Amber cut in before Brek could answer. “Stab wound, inside upper left arm. Minimal bleeding but into muscle.”

“I’m fine,” Brek tried to answer but hesitated under Amber’s suddenly withering medical issue glare. “But I shall defer to our nurse.”

“No more fighting holograms and take it easy on your left arm,” Amber finally declared after a few more seconds of inspection and treatment. She’d pushed the wound together, thrown a slap-patch over it and then bandages wrapped around Brek’s arm, standing out against the black of his uniform.

“Besides the hologram, why aren’t you in Engineering already?” Gantzmann asked as she took a moment to look out a window.

“The door is locked and the controls on his side have been severed.” Brek started towards the door once more. “I was in the process of attempting to open it when we were ambushed.”

“Don’t bother.” Mitchell hefted the plasma torch in his arms and smiled. Actually, smiled. “Universal door opener.”

“That…works.” Brek nodded his head in agreement before he stepped aside and back to let his commander take to the door.

It took a few minutes but eventually the hallway went from being filled with the hissing roar of a plasma torch to the reverberating CLANG of the door into Engineering falling inwards, landing atop a service bot that had been attempting to weld the door in response. Heavy booted feet carried through the opening and onto the piece of door, crushing the bot underneath with a squeal of electronics as it died.

A few others turned in Engineering turned, wielding a variety of standard issue repair tools, a few additional add-ons likely selected by the Borg drone to supplement the bots and a few more with holoemitters on their tops. As the lights flickered, systems powered up, the vague outline of multiple copies of the EMH coming to life in the cramped confines of the engineering space, phaser fire erupted. Gantzmann’s controlled, precise shots as she took out the nearest service bots, Rosa’s slightly less controlled shots, but firing on the next rank along, starting with any that had holoemitters on them.

And then there was Amber, who stepped in and channelled something near-primal. She didn’t shout or challenge the service bots, but she did fire rapidly, unleashing as much phaser fire as Gantzmann and Rosa combined. She swept her weapon from one side of the room to the other and either killed, damaged or scattered the remaining bots in quick order, the survivors quickly picked off by Rosa.

“I,” Amber took in a deep breath, “hate,” another breath, “service bots.”

“Alright Rambo,” Mitchell said as he stepped through the door. “When did Stubby last get you?”

“Two days ago,” Amber answered without any hesitation. “Goddamn that was cathartic.”

“Just don’t do that if we’re fighting Breen or Cardassians. They tend to, well, fight back.” Rosa gave Amber a wink, patting her on the shoulder as she passed. “But hot damn girl, that was kickass.”

Aside from nervous banter between Amber and Rosa, silence reigned as Brek found the nearest control console and got to the work they were sent here to do. Angry beeps from the console denied him access every so often before new strategies were employed and access eventually found. A few minutes became five, then ten, then fifteen, interrupted by a singular charging service bot.

“I don’t think that one had anything on it,” Rosa said.

“I don’t care,” Amber shot back.

“We have a few problems,” Brek finally announced after another five minutes. “I can’t gain access to the power systems to try and shut them down. Not that I would want to right now.”

“Plan B it is then,” Mitchell said, patting the plasma torch he’d set down on a bench. “Was worth a try. What’s the other.”

“Others,” Brek corrected. “Atlantis is no longer near CR-718. I was able to gain access to external sensors briefly. It would appear Captain Theodoras has taken the ship into the system primary’s corona.”

“Why would she do that?” Amber asked.

“The answer to that is our third problem,” Brek continued. “There is a M3 scale flare aimed directly at this station.”

“A what?” Rosa blurted out. “Will the shields hold?”

“I do not know. But we shall shortly find out.”

“You’re right, I hate this plan,” Tikva said in response to Rrr’s quick outline of the plan they and Gabs had devised. Of course, ‘I hate this plan’ was somewhat dented by the broad smile that formed on her face.

“It does seem exceedingly dangerous,” Kendris added, her expression quickly growing concerned when she noticed Tikva’s smile. “Foolhardy and likely to get us killed, yes?”

“Let’s do it,” Tikva announced.

That was ten minutes ago and Kendris’ position hadn’t shifted. If anything she had grown further concerned regarding the reckless nature of the plan. She’d voiced her concerns with Velan when the chief engineer had arrived on the bridge, summoned by Gabs’ request. “It’s risky,” he had said, nodding in thought. “But doable.”

“Doable?” Kendris countered. “Metaphasic shields on a starship this large?”

“They’ve been standard since…the Intrepid-class?” Velan answered, unsure of the specifics.

“Enterprise-D first used starship scale metaphasics,” Rrr answered from across the bridge. “Used them to lure a Borg ship into a stellar corona to blow it up.”

Kendris shook her head in disbelief at the bridge full of officers agreeing with the plan. The entire senior staff of the Atlantis were all in agreement to do something so stupid. She was left with no recourse but to go along with it. “This is madness.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Tikva answered with a wink as she sat herself down in the centre seat. “Sit down Commander, we’ll let the kids run the show.”

“Kids?” Velan charged. “You’re barely, barely older than the rest of us.” He snorted derisively at Tikva’s waving him off, then turned to Gabs, who was hovering by the helm, bringing T’Val up to speed on what she needed to go. “Well Commander Camargo, your plan, your show.”

“Wait, me?” Gabs countered. “Uh, Okay.” He barely had time to react to Tikva’s tossing of the ship’s keys, catching them with both hands and clutching them to her chest for a moment. She looked down at them, gulped, then pocketed them. “Lieutenant T’Val, set course for the system primary, best possible speed. Lieutenant Ch’tkk’va, shields to maximum.”

It had only taken one very short and very precise warp jump to move Atlantis from CR-718’s nice safe orbit around its lonely star to a distance where warp drive wasn’t advised. It had then taken the better part of fifteen more minutes to close further with the star.

Gabrielle Camargo, instead of taking her normal place at one of the science stations, had opted for hovering over Rrr and T’Val’s shoulders at the front of the bridge, alternating from one to the other as she observed their work, the readouts on their consoles, all without saying anything. “Commander Velan,” she said without looking at the Efrosian officer, “how are the shields looking?”

“Metaphasic shield program is online and operational,” he answered. “Heat and radiation bleed through are within tolerances.”

“And how long does that give us in this environment?” Kendris asked, worry and concern still in her voice.

“At current rates,” Velan turned his seat around to smile at her and the captain, “five days, give or take a few hours.”

“You have shield technology that lets your ships hide in stellar coronas for days at a time?” Kendris asked to Tikva. “And you’re just showing me this?”

“Not exactly a state secret,” Tikva answered. “Well, not this use and implementation at any rate.”

“Naturally,” Kendris replied. “No wonder none of you were concerned with this mad plan.”

“Oh, it’s still a mad plan,” Tikva answered.

“There,” Gabrielle exclaimed as she jammed at one of the readouts at Rrr’s station. “Right there, send those coordinates over.” She gestured to T’Val as she was working around behind the Vulcan helmswoman. “Get us as close as you can to that sunspot Lieutenant.”

“I shall try,” T’Val, “but the magnetic field eddies are starting to adversely impact impulse control.”

The visual filter on the viewscreen was showing them a purely rendered version of the star’s surface, the intense light at this distance purely deadly on its own. Roiling seas of churning plasma, writhing under convection and twisted at the whims of magnetic field lines, invisible to the naked eye save for its impact on the star’s surface. A patch of that plasma sea was rendered darker than the rest, magnetic lines stealing energy from the hydrogen gas, rendering the surrounding area cooler than the rest of the surface – a sunspot.

“Ra, bring the driver coil to pre-warp levels and leave it there,” Tikva ordered. “Should give T’Val the extra weight reduction to make impulse control and RCS a bit more effective.”

“It’s not meant to stay at that level for more than a few seconds,” Ra protested but made the changes anyway. “Make it quick.”

“We’re five hundred kilometres above the magnetic anomaly,” T’Val announced. “Holding position.”

“Ch’tkk’va,” Gabs spun around to face the Xindi-Insectoid behind the tactical arch. “Now.”

“So, what plan is it that we have the Dominion and the Klingons to thank for?” Tikva asked, seeking clarification.

“To be fair ma’am, the Dominion were less than willing participants.” Rrr’s rumble carried the hint of mirth.

“Oh no, how sad, never mind.” Tikva’s ability to feel sympathy for the Dominion was the next best thing to non-existent at the moment. First Deneb, then their involvement with the Borg attack on Frontier Day. “Continue.”

“Ever heard of the Monac Shipyards?” Rrr asked, then continued anyway. “Dominion shipyard in Cardassian space during the Dominion War. Was a key facility of theirs producing ships by the batch lot.”

“Destroyed by a Klingon task force yes?” Kendris asked.

“No ma’am, just one ship.” Rrr let that settle for a moment. “IKS Rotarran snuck into system and induced a solar flare that engulfed and consumed the station completely.”

“And you want to induce a solar flare aimed at CR-718? Won’t that destroy the station?” Kendris turned from Rrr to Tikva. “Your people are still aboard.”

“Shipyards tend not to have shields,” Tikva responded. “And CR-718’s shields are vastly overpowered.” She thought for a moment. “And this should upset subspace comms?”

“That and hopefully trigger automatic safeguards that shut down the transmission arrays for safety purposes.”

Gabs then spoke up. “But to really help it along, I want to fire a tricobalt charge into a sunspot. The detonation will spread tricobalt resin that the plasma wave will carry, which will really mess with subspace comms.”

The only tricobalt charge carried aboard Atlantis launched forward from the ship’s forward torpedo launcher, slower than a torpedo but just as determined in its path. It was designed that way to give anyone who fired such a device as a weapon time to clear the blast range. Atlantis however wasn’t running to clear the tricobalt blast, but the far, far scarier plasma front that was about to erupt from the star.

The coronal mass ejection that had been modelled would overwhelm even the metaphasic shields, bathing the ship in enough heat and radiation to kill everyone onboard nearly instantly, as well as wreck every sensitive system across the entire ship.

“Detonation in ten seconds,” Ch’tkk’va announced.

“Faster would be better,” Rrr grumbled to T’Val at his side.

“Indeed,” T’Val replied blithely. “Perhaps if you stepped outside it would lighten the ship.” Her focus never wavered from her controls, her hands flying over inputs as she managed the ship through the star’s corona and the bucking from turbulent solar winds.

“I’ve got a warning on the subspace driver coil,” Velan announced. “I’ve got to dial it back or we’ll burn it out.”

“I still need it,” T’Val countered.

“But –“

“Four more seconds Ra,” Tikva cut him off.

“Detonation in three…two…one,” Ch’tkk’va counted down, switching the main viewscreen to a rearview as they did so.

There was also no visual on the tricobalt charge, its drive lights have vanished against the brilliance of the star’s surface. The detonation itself was also subsumed, barely a flicker of light against the brilliance. But a second later the effect was noticed. The darker sunspot dimmed further, then the surface brightened considerably and rapidly, the skin of the star rupturing as a column of superheated plasma launched itself from the star, guided along the magnetic fields as it spewed forth and towards CR-718.

“We’re clear” T’Val announced, causing Velan to spin to his station and execute his own commands in rapid succession. “Setting course back to CR-718.”

“Get us back there and in the lee of the station ASAP. We’ll use it as a sun-shield,” Tikva ordered. She stood and walked forward, a hand resting on both Gabs and Rrr’s shoulders. “Nicely done you two.”

“Well, it’s not quite a supernova,” Gabrielle responded. “But I understand finesse is more complicated.”

Engineering aboard CR-718 had grown quiet once more after Brek’s revelation of a massive solar flare aimed right at the station. There just wasn’t anything to say as Brek consulted what systems he could access, or while both Mitchell and Gantzmann made final preparations for the planned assault against the drone hiding in the computer core.

“Ah, now I understand,” Brek announced, breaking the silence as he brought up a system status monitor on the display in front of him. He waited long enough to let the rest of the hazard team assemble around him before he continued, pointing at the single relevant datum. It took a moment, Vulcan patience being tested, before Rosa leaned forward to inspect the number as if nearness brought clarity.

“Subspace signal flux,” she said. “Wait, isn’t this just the array sending a test signal from one end of the arrays to the other via subspace?”

“Yes. It’s a low power signal used to help calibrate the array’s transmissions to account for interference from the system primary during periods of heightened stellar activity.”

“Well, doesn’t matter if it’s low power or high power, it keeps rising like this, this station isn’t going to be saying boo to the rest of the galaxy shortly.” Rosa stood up straight, smiling as she turned to face the others. “They found a way to jam the single largest subspace transmitter for, what, five light years?”

“Twelve point seven,” Brek corrected. “That and the flare directed directly at the station will shortly trigger an automatic shutdown via protection protocols designed to protect the arrays as best as possible from magnetic flux.”

“Couldn’t the drone attempt some sort of override?” Mitchell asked. “And use something like what it’s using to power the shields to power the arrays and keep communicating?”

“The latter is a possibility,” Brek conceded. “But an override would require the drone to depart the computer core to enact.” A few key taps, the status monitor dismissed in favour of a system diagram of the entire station. “The array protections are hardware-based and an original feature of the station. They aren’t connected to the main computer except for reporting purposes.”

“So it’s either got to come out to make some changes, or sit and wait for things to settle.” Amber’s statement was punctuated by kicking the blasted remains of one of the many service bots littering Engineering. “Since it’s got no minions anymore.”

There was a clang behind Silver Team as a tool was set down and all of them turned to face Adelinde Gantzmann. She had abandoned her phaser rifle on a bench while making her own preparations for their so far unplanned assault on the Borg drone. Preparations that were now very much complete as she lifted the makeshift spear and examined it. A mop had been beheaded; the spearhead welded to the metal pole. Feed through Lin’s belt hung the recently replicated sword, whose production had resulted in all of the replicators in Engineering being locked down immediately afterwards.

Someone was very much watching what they were doing.

Lin smiled as she tapped the spear’s end against the deck, twisting it slightly to let an overhead light catch the head just right. “This is how we kill the Borg.”

“Uh, no offence ma’am, but didn’t you say it’s shielded? How’s a spear going to help?” Amber’s question carried her confusion well enough.

Lin looked to Brek, tilting her head slightly to tell the Vulcan ‘your question’.

“Because my tricorder bounced off of it,” he dutifully answered. “They aren’t shielded against kinetic attacks.” And then he nodded his head to Lin. “I apologise for not recognising that earlier.”

“Who knew,” Lin said with no small amount of joy in her words, “that taking Professor Parker’s historical combat methods class would be so useful this year.”

Subspace signal flux is degrading communications with Federation networks. Subversion attempts compromised.

Cause of signal flux is tricobalt resin-laced stellar prominence. Starship responsible identified as Atlantis NCC-90562.

Unable to access personnel records to compare with known intelligence of Atlantis NCC-81424.

Unable to increase power to subspace arrays due to safety interlocks. Recommend physical override of array safeties.

Warning! Replicator use detected. Non-standard weapon pattern identified. Lock down replicator sub-system immediately.

Warning! Connection with Collective compromised.

Warning! Unexpected threat vector identified. Attempting to ascertain counter-strategy.

Connection with Collective compromised. Counter-strategy is incomplete.

Require connection with Collective. Require override of sub-space array safeties. Pausing network subversion attempts.

Hostiles aboard the station likely have a viable threat vector. Assimilate if possible, eliminate if required. Continuance of this one and its mission is the priority.

“Uh ma’am, can’t help but notice you’ve got a sword too.” Rosa had fallen into step next to Lin as the troupe walked out of Engineering, bound first once more for the atrium, then to the station’s computer core.

The plan was after all quite simple – cut the door open, find the drone, and stab it till it was dead. A few more mops and other tools had been beheaded, sharpened into makeshift spears themselves, just without the nice and lethal broadhead that Lin’s had. But importantly all of them were long enough to hit the drone and stay out of arm’s reach if possible.

“Yes, I do,” came the larger woman’s response.

“Well, uh, just wondering if perhaps I could have it?” Rosa waited for Lin’s gaze to turn on her. “Doctor Marcus never made our class do a phalanx formation in the quad for the whole academy to see, but she did teach anti-boarding tactics, which meant she had to teach us boarding tactics.”

“Doctor Marcus? Julie Marcus?” Lin shook her head. “If you can’t do, teach.” She stopped just long enough to slip the sword from her belt and hand it over to Rosa. “She’s a third-rate historian and a worse tactician. But she could at least swing a sword.” She sat a hand on Rosa’s shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. “It’s not a boarding axe. It has a tip if you need it. Got for the hands and lower arms first so as to remove assimilation tubules. Got it?”

“Got it,” Rosa answered quickly, properly. Nodded once as well for good measure.

“Good.”

As Lin let her go and continued, it was Amber who stepped into her place, looking Rosa over once. “You haven’t got a chance, so drop it.”

“What?” Rosa spat out.

“Oh please, I know that look.” Amber mocked her with the same expression she’d found on Rosa’s face for a brief moment. “She’s practically married. Now come on, we’ve a Borg to kill and the Federation to save. Big damn heroes.”

“Some more than others,” Rosa grumbled as she chased after the rest of Silver Team.

“Bitch,” Amber shot back.

All but two service remotes have been destroyed across the station.

Can not hear the Collective over the subspace turbulence generated by tricobalt-infused stellar prominence.

Completion of mission is priority.

Starfleet forces likely to mount an attack – 95% certainty.

Likely to attempt physical altercation.

Assimilate if possible, eliminate if required.

“Still think this is a bad idea.” Amber’s continued supplying of her opinion wasn’t to voice the opinion, but nervous chatter to fill the silence.

“Have a better one Ensign?” Adelinde asked, with only a little impatience in her voice. Just enough to convey the message of ‘that’s enough’.

“No ma’am. Sorry ma’am.”

“No harm, no foul,” Mitchell chipped in. “Just rein it in.” He’d found a pair of welder’s goggles in Engineering and had them sitting on his forehead, ready to cover his eyes when he started cutting. “We’re all nervous here.”

The hallway leading towards the computer core was completely unlit, not even the emergency lights making a showing. There had been no sign of further damage down the hall and in the light of numerous shoulder-mounted lights, the only signs of anything off were the heat discolourations on the door into the computer core – evidence of the welding done to secure the door after Lin and Brek’s first foray.

“The door hasn’t been opened,” Brek said, answering the next question before it was asked. But not the one after that.

“How can you tell?” Rosa asked.

“The door is still closed. I suspect cutting it open would prevent it from closing so uniformly again, so I surmise it hasn’t been opened.”

“Fair enough.”

Silence settled over the team as they stood at the atrium end of the corridor, peering into the darkness. The atrium itself was awash with colour now, the shields of CR-718 flicking and flaring gently as the plasma wave of the stellar prominence washed over the station. Even without Borg adaptations the shields would have held, if just a lot closer to the core, sacrificing the arrays for the safety of the crew. But extended as they were there was more shield to react, more to flare as a gossamer shield between the station and the local star and therefore more light to bath the station in greens and blues of reacting shields.

A minute passed, the second was growing old and then Mitchell stepped forward. “That’s enough waiting, let’s do this.”

As a block they proceeded down the hall, Brek, Rosa and Amber checking the few side doors and still scanning for any wayward holoemitters that might trouble them. One, two, three phaser blasts lightened the hall briefly as emitters were blown out before they ever had a chance. And then they turned to face back the way the team came, to cover against any unforeseen attack from their rear as Mitchell brought life to the plasma cutter and started on the door.

There was no attempt at opening it normally, no trying to override it, just straight into cutting through the metal with a torch intended for cutting exterior hull panels apart. The flick of light failed to brighten the hallway, blocked by Mitchell and Lin as they stood closer to the door. “This is going to take a minute.”

“Take your time,” Lin replied, shielding her eyes from the torch with her hand, not having found a spare set of goggles like Mitchell had. “Make it big enough for us to retreat in a hurry if we have to.”

He merely nodded, having already started near the edge of the door as he cut.

Hissing plasma eventually gave way to the ear-splitting CLANG! as the door fell inwards, its edges still glowing white hot as it hit the floor.

Lin was the first through the door, past Mitchell as he stepped aside while setting the cutting torch down, no longer needed. Rosa turned from her guard, dropping her phaser and drawing the sword she’d been given, following Lin in before Mitchell followed, leaving Brek and Amber to guard the door.

Down past a dozen rows of computer banks, their faces covered in blinking isolinear chips, the lone Borg drone of CR-718 stood, its left arm raised. “Resistance is futile,” it announced, before firing its plasma weapon.

The three Starfleet officers dove for cover, disappearing into the racks on either side, Mitchell and Lin on one side, Rosa on the other. “Rosa, keep up with us on your side,” Mitchell ordered before they all proceeded to close with the drone down either side of the main walkway. A lance of phaser fire went down that path as either Amber or Brek was at least making an attempt at distracting the drone. The volley of fire that then continued confirmed Amber’s shooting.

And then the fire stopped. “It’s moved left!” Amber shouted.

“Our side,” Mitchell said quietly. “It’ll be waiting between pathways I bet so we can’t see it right now.”

“I need a bit more space,” Lin answered, then ducked off to get another bank away from the main path.

She ran three, four quick intersections at a time, all to get down the dozen rows and on the same line as the drone. As she did, whipping around the corner, she dropped the spear tip downwards, aiming for the drone that should have been a dozen meters in front of her.

And it wasn’t.

“I’ve lost it!” she shouted.

“No eyes!” came rapid responses from Mitchell and Rosa.

They all trained for this, practised disappearing foes. Regroup, back-to-back, and consider options for going forward. As she moved, slowly and carefully for the main path, in sight of the door and the two still at the door, she stopped just short of the one intersection she had to cross. Something tugged at her senses and as approached the intersection, spear tip out in front of her by over a metre, she stopped.

The drone’s right hand snapped out from around the corner snake-like, grabbing the haft of the spear just at the base of the spearhead and wrenching it, pulling her forward. She let out a cry, in frustration and to alert Rosa and Mitchell where she was.

As she caught herself, just short of the drone, its other arm snaked out, the weapon there not at the ready, but the assimilation tubules already snaking forward. “You will be assimilated,” it said with zero emotion in its voice.

The arm, instead of making it to Lin’s throat, was deflected downwards and sideways, towards Lin’s chest but just far enough away to avoid contact. Rosa’s appearance had come out of nowhere, swinging the sword she wielded with all her might. It bit into the armour on the drone’s arm but failed to make much of a dent, imparting kinetic energy at least and saving Lin. For now.

The drone’s attention shifted to Rosa and the deflected arm came swinging back at her with force, slamming into her and sending her sprawling backwards into a computer bank. Chips squealed with complaint and some gave off death throws as forces not meant for delicate computers fell upon them. Rosa slumped slightly, finding her feet and stepping sideways, opening the distance again.

But the drone’s attention had once more shifted to Lin as she attempted to pull the spear loose.  Its grip was like a vice, its arm might as well have been a statue’s for how little it moved or seemed to even notice her attempts. “Resistance is futile,” the drone declared once more. “You will be assimilated.”

Mitchell’s attack Lin had heard coming. His footfalls, even on the carpeted floor of the older station, were much heavier than Rosa’s. He didn’t fire his phaser but used it as the most useful thing it was right now – a club. The butt came down hard on the drone’s hand holding the spear. Once, twice, a third time. Lin could feel the impacts up the spear’s haft and felt the loosening of the drone’s grip. It might feel pain, but it could only take so much physical abuse after all.

“Not today,” Mitchell growled as the drone finally let go and turned on him, its good hand grabbing at his neck as it turned on him. Its strength on full display, the drone picked him up by this throat and then rapidly tossed him into one of the many banks nearby, head first. While Rosa had been only slightly stunned by her flight, Mitchell was more so, falling to the floor, trying to gather himself up and then slumping to the ground in defeat, blood pouring down one side of his face.

 But it had been enough of a distraction for Lin. Three steps backwards, the spear levelled at the drone, her grip adjusted just slightly and she charged with a cry. Probably the most expressive most people had ever actually seen her. The spear tip hit the drone’s arm and much like the sword failed to leave much of an impression.

At first.

It slid along the carapace until it hit a bump, found purchase and was unable to move any further. Pressure built up in milliseconds and eventually the spear’s tip pushed through armour, the leaves of the spearhead pushing aside armour as the blade snuck into the flesh underneath. The drone’s back arched in pain momentarily. It tried to turn, to face Lin, but then suddenly crumpled to one side as Rosa re-entered the fray, coming in low and swinging at the back of the drone’s left leg.

As it hit the floor, lights started to fade on its exposed Borg circuitry. “You…will…be…”

Lin stepped on the drone’s torso, wrenched the spear free and just looked at the face of the drone for a moment as it tried to say its last words. “Go to hell,” she growled and then plunged the spear straight into the centre of its chest, ending its existence.

“This is the part I really hate,” Tikva muttered, mostly to herself, but just loud enough for the Romulan beside her to hear. As Vilo Kendris turned to her, an eyebrow raised in query, she continued. “There is literally nothing you can do, you can’t even talk to your people who are in harm’s way and you just have to sit and wait.”

“Have you experienced it often?” Kendris asked.

“More than I care to think about,” she answered.

That inspection while commanding the Haida for one.

Oh! Don’t forget the Appleton Incident while on the Jutland.

Or the time we almost lost Captain Denevan too.

This sucks.

Yup.

“Twice myself.” Kendris’ admission was more than Tikva had hoped for. “Both times against the Empire. But I knew then that my people would either be dead or come back to me, even if I had to mount a rescue mission to get them back. But the Borg…” Kendris trailed off, then offered a slight smile. “I am sure Commander Gantzmann is fine.”

Tikva leaned over the arm of her command chair, elbow resting on the chair’s arm. “She knows I’d kick her ass if she wasn’t.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Kendris answered, then turned her attention forward sharply as Rrr laughed. They’d taken over at Ops and finally sent Samantha Michaels off duty against the young officer’s own wishes to stay. “Something to add Lieutenant?”

“Never underestimate a Gaen’s hearing,” the large officer answered. Rrr’s rocky exterior, which was just that, gave people a first impression of a large, ungainly and possibly slow individual. In truth, Rrr was Atlantis’ resident gossip, with some filters, and aided by excellent hearing, keen eyesight and the last Tikva had asked the ability to lip read no less than five major Federation languages. “Second, ma’am, if the captain says she’s going to kick someone’s ass, she means it.”

“Even if I have to find a ladder?” Velan chipped in, leaning over the tactical rail. But before any retort could come his way, he continued. “Shield generators just spiked their power draw.”

“CR-718’s shields are collapsing,” Lieutenant Kurtwell said from Velan’s left.

“How’s the storm outside looking?” Tikva asked, turning in Gabrielle’s direction.

“We’re past the worst of it. We’d be fine now even without the shields. Still won’t catch me doing a spacewalk though.” Gabs looked over her displays once more, then turned to the bridge as a whole. “Subspace comms are still out of the picture and I wouldn’t fancy radio in this muck right now either.”

“Radio?” Kendris asked, then waved any responses away. “Science ship. Awfully well-armed science ship.”

“Welcome to Starfleet,” Tikva joked, pushing herself to her feet. “T’Val, edge us in closer to the station, please. Actually,” she spun, turning to Velan, pointing at him, “could we match shields with CR-718 now?”

“Assuming there’s no Borg shenanigans going on anymore, we could.” Velan thought for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders with a nod before heading back to the bridge Engineering station. “Rrr, can you pull up 718’s nominal shield specs? Let’s see if we can’t make this work.”

“Fantastic!” Tikva announced, then turned to the viewscreen once more as she stepped up behind Rrr and T’Val’s stations. “Take us in right close T’Val. Bring us alongside to dock on the starboard side.”

“Assuming this isn’t a trap,” Kendris said, appearing at Tikva’s side with no warning. “We should have security ready to either repel boarders or assist any injured.”

Tikva nodded, once, then flicked her head to the turbolift door, a silent order to make it so that Kendris heard clearly as she nodded herself and then turned to leave.

As Vilo Kendris rounded the final corner to Atlantis’ starboard docking port along the saucer’s edge, a blinking guide light on the wall panels leading her true, she came across exactly what Lieutenant Ch’tkk’va had said they’d do – no more, no less. She’d called them for a security detail at the starboard docking port and they’d responded by saying Gold and Bronze Hazard teams would be there, waiting. A few of them were even sporting longer weapons she didn’t recognise, but which they were handling like they were intimately familiar with them.

“Lieutenant, are we ready?” she asked as she approached the Xindi-Insectoid, festooned with their unique body armour. The design lineage with the rest of the body armour on display was obvious, but allowances had been made for the Insectoid frame.

“Yes Commander,” Ch’tkk’va answered. “I would feel more comfortable if you stayed back until we are confident it is safe.”

Now that sort of behaviour she recognised – centurions seeking to protect senior officers, politely requesting them to stay back. But she knew it was also a racial and cultural issue with the Xindi-Insectoid as well. “I’ll stay shipside until you give the all clear.”

“I would prefer you stay a section back from the airlock as well.”

“I will vacate if I need to,” she answered.

“Bridge to Ch’tkk’va, ready down there?” The captain’s voice came out from the security officer’s communicator with only a short series of chips to indicate a call was incoming.

“As you wish ma’am,” Ch’tkk’va replied to Kendris first, then to Captain Theodoras via comms after a double tap of his comm badge. “Aye, ma’am.”

“Excellent. We just managed to pass through the station’s shields. One minute. Bridge out.”

Ch’tkk’va turned to the rest of the hazard team members assembled. “Gold, Bronze,” they ordered, with quick hand movements to indicate which side of the airlock they should form up on. They weren’t in the airlock itself, but the large section just before it. It served as a welcoming space, or when at a starbase as a large thoroughfare that Security could set up to verify visitors coming and going.

And make a nice ambush point for any potential Borg drones that might spill out from the communications station.

“Well this is a right mess,” grumbled Doctor Terax as he and two nurses approached, though the nurses had the decent sense to stay back when one of the Gold Hazard members suggested they do. None of them even attempted to divert the Edosian doctor, whose height towered over all if stood up and not in his near-permanent grouchy slump.

Kendris was halfway to asking her question when he interrupted her. “Someone is either hurt or about to get hurt and I don’t want to waste precious seconds if I’m fighting Borg nanoprobes.” Then he looked at her, brow furrowed as he studied her. “No, Edosians are not telepaths, you’re just young.”

“I’m sixty-seven,” she answered, which drew a few looks from the nearest security team members, shrugging it off when they spotted a pointed ear or recognised her face.

“Child,” he shot back.

Finally the door chimed, an indicator light blinking brighter red a few times, then yellow, before going green, another chime to let people know the airlock was safe to open. And before Ch’tkk’va, putting themselves in danger by being so close to the door, could reach out to open the door, the hissed open on its own accord.

“Injured man here!” shouted Amber Leckie as she led the way through the airlock, Brek and Rosa Mackeson both supporting a bleary-eyed and rather battered-looking Gavin Mitchell through the airlock.

Things moved quickly from there, Bronze Team pushing through the airlock, the nurses moving forward with a stretcher, loading Mitchell up and after Terax’s examination departing at pace towards sickbay.

“Possible concussion, fractured skull, dislocated shoulder,” Terax’s diagnosis continued as the medics, Amber included, disappeared from sight.

“Lieutenant Mackeson,” Ch’tkk’va spoke up, “addressing the seniormost member of Silver Team still present. “I count four.”

“I count five,” Adelinde Gantzmann declared as she stepped through the airlock finally. In one hand she still carried the spear she’d crafted, the other she held the sword that Rosa had wielded. She stopped just inside the airlock, raising her chin briefly to Rosa and Brek.

“Five come home,” both of them answered her challenge.

“Damn straight.” That done, Lin approached Kendris and stopped, banging the spears butt into the floor with a muffled thud. “Commander Kendris, I’ll be happy to give you and the captain a debriefing on what happened.”

“How about after a shower, Commander?” Kendris offered. “And maybe A quick visit to Sickbay as well?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Lin answered, then turned to Rosa, offering the sword to her once more. “It’s yours, keep it.”

“Uh, thank you,” the Orion woman answered as she took the weapon.

“See you tomorrow in the holodeck for some lessons with it, yes?”

“Oh, certainly!” Rosa replied.

“Now, let’s do as the Commander suggested and see Doctor Terax then have a shower.” Rosa and Brek nodded at Lin’s suggestion, but Rosa’s face twisted some as Lin started smiling. “We save the drinks for after Mitchell is back on his feet.”

“It’s a bit much,” Adelinde Gantzmann declared.

“Nah!” both Rosa Mackeson and Amber Leckie refuted.

“Honestly ma’am,” Stirling Fightmaster cut in, “I had to talk them into the display case. They just wanted to mount it to the wall.”

The entirety of Silver Team and Adelinde had finally managed to assemble in Port Royal only a few days after the events of CR-718. The wait had been at the behest of Doctor Terax, whose tyrannical dictatorship of sickbay had refused to let Gavin Mitchell leave until only a few short hours ago. Their assembly had been just outside, Rosa and Amber guarding the doors until both Mitchell and Gantzmann had arrived and upon entering, the surprise the junior members of the team had undertaken was unmissable.

Mitchell leaned over the bar, squinting at the display case now mounted on the wall just above the large mural that formed the wall opposite the windows. “In case of emergency, break glass,” he said, reading the small printed red words along the bottom edge of the glass that separated everyone else from the spear that was now contained within.

There had been no clean-up or upgrade of the weapon before it was mounted in the case. The haft still read ‘Starfleet Maintenance’ along the side, the spearhead still bore a few dings from where it had hit metal and was coated in the various ichors it had gained killing the Borg drone aboard the station. The only change, according to Amber when she and Rosa revealed it, was a slight coating that had gone on the head to preserve it just as it had been when they returned aboard ship.

“I understand some would find that funny,” Brek said. The team’s resident Vulcan was seated at the end of the gathering and like everyone else was nursing a rather ridiculously large beer stein. “And recent experiences show it is also practical advice.”

“Cheers to that!” Rosa shouted before attacking her drink.

“Next Borg fight, I’m sitting it out,” Amber said, then glaring at Stirling. “You can go.”

“Name like Fightmaster,” Mitchell interjected, “I think we’ll let Stirling handle the Borg by himself.”

“I’m not going to be living this down any time soon, am I?” Stirling asked.

It was Adelinde who clapped a hand on his shoulder, smiling. “Not for a very, very long time. Now, tell us about this fearsome bookcase.”

Stirling’s response was to look into his own stein, contemplating drowning in it, finally relenting at Rosa and Amber’s teasing.

“A Borg drone?” Commodore Sudari-Kravchik asked, the delay in their conversation an appreciable two seconds either way, but close enough that a conversation could at least be attempted. The delay would have been shorter, even unnoticed, if CR-718 was operational as a booster, but that wouldn’t be for another couple of days.

“I didn’t skimp on the details in my report Commodore. One Borg drone.” Tikva was keeping her replies short and sweet. She was getting a sour feeling every time she had to deal with Starfleet Intelligence, in any capacity, and just wanted the meeting to be over. “It has been neutralised, all nanoprobes forcibly deactivated, contained in level ten forcefield and stored in a sealed shipping container.”

“I’ll arrange for a ship to rendezvous with you immediately and take possession,” Sudari-Kravchik replied after the delay. “It will afford your teams more time to bring CR-718 back online.”

More delays, but only a handful of days hopefully. Tikva barely avoided sighing before she spoke. “Very well Commodore. We’ll send an all-clear message when we bring the station back to full operations.”

“I look forward to it. Sudari-Kravchik out.” And with that, the line went dead.

“I think I had an instructor like her once,” Commander Vilo Kendris said, seated opposite Tikva in the ready room and outside of pickups for the brief call. “Cold, efficient, to the point.”

“She’s a desk jockey,” Tikva replied, then clarified when Kendris’ look of confusion became evident. “She’s never had a proper space-borne command. She’s an administrator par excellence I understand.”

“Ah, one of those paper-pushing wizards that fall upwards.”

“Save from everything I’ve heard or been able to dig up, she’s actually damn good at her job. Wouldn’t have made Deputy Intelligence Director for Fourth Fleet if she wasn’t.” And just saying all of that had truly soured Tikva’s mood with the thoughts of what Sudari-Kravchik’s boss had done with her ship during the Deneb Crisis.

It had been minor shenanigans with contingency orders in her ship’s computers, but it still irked her. Sealed orders would have been one thing, but implanted computer programs were altogether different.

A huff of annoyance and she pushed herself to her feet. “I have it under good authority there’s a celebration taking place in Port Royal. We best go show our faces.”

“Drinking while on duty?” Kendris countered as she stood, both women heading for the door.

“I didn’t say that,” Tikva corrected with a smile. “I said ‘go show our faces’. If drinking happens…well, it’s synthehol for the most part anyway. Unless Pisani left a few bottles of her cursed moonshine aboard.”

Port Royal hadn’t descended into total anarchy, but obviously, Silver Team’s celebrations had grown. More crew had been pulled in or voluntarily joined the impromptu party. Someone had produced the karaoke machine used for the monthly competitions and brought it to life. The mood was entirely jovial, celebrating the success of Silver Team which had turned out to be a catalyst for a relief the crew clearly needed.

Mitchell and Brek had formed the nucleus of a bubble of calm on the far side of the lounge from the singing, a gathering of other crew members listening with rapt attention. Rosa was leading the rotating cast on the small stage for the singing while Amber was busy, to the chagrin of the bar staff, forcing Stirling to work off his debt by serving the rest of the crew.

But in a single booth sat Tikva, Adelinde and Vilo. The normally reserved in public Adelinde, who kept her displays of affection to a minimum, had one arm wrapped around Tikva, holding her close as they sat opposite the Romulan woman. Rank had gone out the window shortly after Tikva and Vilo had arrived.

And Tikva’s comment about synthehol obviously wasn’t true.

“This is a serious breach of protocol,” Kendris commented as she looked out across Port Royal.

“They deserve it,” Tikva answered, turning slightly and learning back into Lin with a smile. “And besides, it was like this when we got here. I’m certainly not going to ruin the good times without a damn good reason.”

“Besides, you’d need Security for that,” Lin commented, then pointed to Lieutenant Ch’tkk’va, who was seated in Mitchell’s circle, arms waving as they animatedly asked something of Mitchell and Brek.

“I…” Kendris started, her thoughts half-formed and stopping in quick succession as she gathered them up, then shook her head. “This isn’t how we’d do it in the Republic Navy.”

“Welcome to Starfleet. We explore nebula, study planets, occasionally cause solar flares, fight the Borg and party hard.” Tikva chuckled. “We’ve been needing a party for ages anyway. Just…have fun Vilo.”

The use of Kendris’ first name in such a casual manner got her attention and she thought for a moment before nodding in agreement. “I think I might go check on our engineering efforts,” she replied after a few seconds. “To see how Commander Velan is coming along.”

Excuses made, Kendris slid out of the booth, leaving Tikva and Lin alone. Sweet nothings were traded as they simply enjoyed each other’s company, a socially lubricated Adelinde Gantzmann a bit freer with her attentions than normal. But it was all ruined by an amplified shout from across the bar.

“Oi Six!” Rosa shouted, microphone in hand and pointing directly at the booth, drawing all eyes on Tikva and Lin. “Get up here!”

“Six?” Tikva hissed, feeling her face flush with the attention of the crew and acutely aware she’d been about to suggest she and Lin retreat from public.

“Silver Six,” Lin whispered in her ear. “And as the bottom of the order, guess I have to do as Two demands.” She slowly pushed Tikva and herself from the booth, kissed the shorter woman on the cheek and then stomped through the crowd towards the stage to a few cheers – another victim to the karaoke gods as Rosa handed her the microphone.

“I’m going to kill you,” she growled through a smile at Rosa, keeping the microphone far away.

“Who, me?” Rosa quipped, then stepped aside, leaving Lin on the stage and a crowd demanding a song from her.

She took a moment looking at the machine, selected a song and then looked out across the crowd to Tikva, offering a wink to her as the music started, filling Port Royal with heavy synthesizer sounds in quick order.

“We’re no strangers to loveYou know the rules and so do IA full commitment’s what I’m thinking of…”