Anizza was making the final adjustments to the tractor beam systems when she felt a cold chill go down her spine. Then, the loudest sense of pain, extreme pain, overwhelmed her. She felt dizzy as she knew exactly what it was. In fact, it wasn’t a what but a who.

Tate.

She turned around in her chair on the bridge and saw her husband, Jaxxon, with the same expression plastered across his face as he wiped his face with his palm. It was almost like motion sickness. It was overwhelming for them both, and in that instance, Anizza could feel her Imzadi, her soulmate, drowning in the same sensations as she was. It was too much. They locked eyes and knew what they had to do.

They had no time to waste. Their little boy, their prince, was in grave peril. Every second counted, and they had to act swiftly and decisively. 

Something was wrong, and she knew it. Straight away, she stopped what she was doing and started to scan the Caatati ship. As her scan initiated, she overheard Jaxxon get out of his seat.

“Something’s amiss with the away team,” Jaxxon observed, his voice laced with deep concern as he moved to stand between Taf at the helm and Anizza’s station. Anizza could sense his heart racing with worry about Tate, mirroring her own anxiety.

Taf looked up at him. “Sir?” She questioned, confused by what he meant.

“Tate, I’ve just sensed something,” Jaxxon replied. “He’s in trouble.”

“No, he’s in pain,” Anizza corrected her husband, her voice firm with determination. Her motherly instincts were in overdrive, and she was ready to do whatever it took to save her son. 

Everyone on the bridge turned to them, and soon, they became worried, too. 

“What can you sense, captain?” Doctor Parin asked as he moved from the aft console towards where the captain was.

“He was calling out to both Anizza and me,” Jaxxon replied before looking at his wife, whose determination to find out what was going on was now itched across her face. “But I think he reached Anizza first.”

Though she half-heartedly listened to her Imzadi, she focused more on discovering what was happening. Her scan results were now coming in.

“Anizza,” Parin called towards her. “What did you feel?”

“Jowain, no offence right now, but I want to focus on this scan,” She replied bluntly as her fingers danced across the console and the holographic display. She cursed herself as the sensors told her something was interfering with her scans. “The Caatati have put up a scrambling field around their ship; sensors are being deflected.”

Fitzgerald, who had noticed how much panic was now covering both Jaxxon and Anizza, stepped up. She had moved over from the science station to stand beside Anizza. If something had gone wrong with Tate, something could have happened to her husband, Sturok. “Formidable to Captain Levy, please respond,” she said after opening a channel to the away team.

Nothing.

She opened the channel again and called for Sturok. 

Nothing.

Anizza noticed Fitzgerald tensing from that. She didn’t stop. “Formidable to Ensign Horin, come in; this is Commander Fitzgerald.” 

Nothing. 

More panic was setting in. Taf looked at all three senior officers and spoke up. “I don’t mean to be out of line here, but all three of you are affected by whatever is happening. If you can’t make the decisions as you’re emotionally compromised, you must let me and Jowain take over.”

Noticing the anger build up in Jaxxon, Anizza shot him a mental reminder to keep calm. He was the captain; he had to keep himself in check, or no one on the station would ever follow him again if they thought he was making decisions as ‘Jaxxon the father’ and not ‘Jaxxon the captain’ when it came to Tate. Instantly, he looked at her and nodded. “Let’s find out what’s happened first, and if we need to defer, then we’ll tell the admiral and Lenara you’ll need to take command.”

They all agreed, and then Jaxxon ordered them to hail the Caatati ship. 

The hail went unanswered for a few seconds before Calhmin’s face appeared on the viewscreen. 

“Captain Horin, you infected us!” The Caatati leader said with mixed desperation, panic and distress.

“I beg your pardon?” Jaxxon replied, trying to remain calm. He stood behind Taf’s chair. “I don’t follow.”

“Your-your s-s-son,” Calhmin stuttered. 

“What about him?” Jaxxon probed. “What’s happened?”

“He’s a Borg!”

Anizza felt her heart drop into her stomach, and then Fitzgerald squeezed her shoulder gently. Had Tate’s former link with the Collective from Frontier Day re-manifested itself somehow? Had the Borg buried something deeper into him that they missed when he was treated like every other young person in Starfleet? 

“He isn’t Borg,” Jaxxon argued back. “He is a Starfleet officer.”

“Our scanners detected the remnants of Borg resequence DNA in him. He is Borg! How dare you trap us here and then try and assimilate us!” Calhmin protested. 

“We didn’t bring you here, and we have no plans to assimilate you,” Jaxxon returned. 

“Sir, let me explain to you that Ensign Horin and many others in the Federation were infected several months ago by a Borg virus that caused a temporary partial assimilation of them, but Starfleet stopped the Borg from assimilating us all, and we found a cure to that virus,” Taf explained in her calm counselling voice. She looked over at Parin and gave him a quick look before focusing back on Calhmin. “Doctor Parin, our chief medical officer, is transmitting that cure to you now so you can compare it to Ensign Horin’s current DNA. As you said, you’ll see that whatever your scanners picked up are remnants. Ensign Horin, I promise you, has never been fully assimilated by the Borg. We don’t want to assimilate you or cause you any harm. We just want to help!”

“Lies!” Calhmin replied as he pointed his finger at them. “We won’t allow this abomination and those who brought it to us to remain!” He then cut the channel. 

“My god,” Fitzgerald said the moment the Caatati leader was gone. 

Anizza couldn’t keep the tears back. “Jaxx, we can’t let them kill Tate, Sturok or Dawn.”

“Agreed,” Jaxxon said after taking a deep breath and mouthing a thank you to Taf for trying to provide a neutral response to Calhmin. “Suggestions, people?”

“We need to get our people back,” Fitzgerald said, determined as she returned to the holographic display to look at the scattering field further. “But this isn’t going to be easy. That field is stopping us from beaming our people back.”

“There’s over five hundred Caatati over there. Can we distinguish Betazoid, Vulcan and Human life signs?” Parin asked. 

“Yes!” Anizza said instantly. “It looks like Tate is at one end of the ship while the other two are on a deck below him at the other end. Their life signs aren’t stable, though.”

There was a slight pause from everyone as they considered their options. Anizza wanted to arm the ship’s forward pulse-phasers, target the power source of that scrambling field, and beam her son and the away team back. However, the same thought she shared with her Imzadi came to the forefront of her own thoughts. She couldn’t act like that. She was a Starfleet officer, but on the other hand, she was a mother. Anizza just knew she couldn’t stand going through the same trauma they went through as a family, like what happened on Frontier Day. She wouldn’t cope. She just knew it. Taking a breath, she knew she had to stop, or she would drown in her worries.  

“If we can’t beam them out, can we beam in?” Jaxxon questioned.

Hearing her husband consider their options aloud kicked started a thought in her own mind. Anizza knew she could make something work. She had to. “If we narrow the confinement beam, I think we can get three people over there,” Anizza said, her tone becoming more positive as she weighed up their options. Knowing that she had to get over there, her eagerness now took over her train of thought. “I’ll lead the away team,” she offered, standing up eagerly.

“No, Anizza, we can’t go,” Jaxxon said, emphasising that neither she nor him could go. 

Deflated at hearing that cold splash of verbal water, Anizza sat down. She knew her Imzadi was right. 

“That rules me out, too,” Fitzgerald added. “Plus, Sturok would kill me with logic if he saw me there.”

“We’ll go,” Parin volunteered as he pointed towards him and Taf.

“Absolutely,” Taf agreed. She looked at the helm. “Also, Tom is still on the runabout near to us. He can join us as he knows the layout better than us.” She looked up at the others with confidence she could do this. With so many life experiences behind her, Taf knew how to undertake this mission correctly and could be more professional with it than the others. 

“How’d you get back?” Jaxxon asked.

“If we all use emergency transporter units, will that be enough to cut through the scattering field?” Parin asked.

Anizza checked her scans one more time before smiling. “Yes!” She was so pleased a plan was quickly forming.

“Then I suggest we use some holographic trickery to disguise ourselves as some Caatati, get ourselves over there and get our people out of there. We don’t want to cause any more trauma to the Caatati,” Taf advised. 

“Lenara’s right; they’re so traumatised from their experiences with the Borg and the Hirogen that they see enemies everywhere,” Fitzgerald stated. “We need to de-escalate the situation.”

“Then get going,” Jaxxon ordered them. “I’ll inform the admiral of what’s happened.” 

Anizza looked at him and knew that she trusted the others to bring her son back to her. “I’ll start working on modifying the transporter.”

“I’ll get the portable holographic mask emitters sorted,” Fitzgerald offered.

“Jowain, let’s get Tom over here and get our clothing sorted,” Taf suggested. 

“Oh, Tom is going to love that he gets to go back over there!” Parin said as he and Taf made their way off the bridge. 

Jaxxon looked at Anizza and, without hesitation, pulled her into a hug. It was all that was needed to get them through this. “I’ll start work on the transporters,” she said one more time before leaving the bridge. 

She was going to get her little boy back.