Dr. Lomal sighed. He ran a hand through his course, black hair and studied the tricorder some more.

“What are you up to in there?” The Bajoran’s voice, usually soothing, amounted to little more than a deep grumble. He paced around the biobed. Concerned eyes looked up from the data towards the Captain’s comatose form. He folded the tricorder closed. “Computer begin Chief Medical Officer’s log. Captain Vordenna remains in some kind of hibernation state. Induced by what, or how, I have yet to determine. Quantum-encelphalography shows massively increased brain activity, particularly within the mycelial cingulate cortex; an area unique to Argosian physiology. Since I’ve known Captain Vordenna, and in all my years working with Argosians, I have never known something to incapacitate an individual in this way. He remains in a stable condition. My only available course of action is to comb the medical databases. But this underspace corridor… Wherever it’s taking us… If I can’t find the solution in the Starfleet data, it’s going to be a long time before I can get it anywhere else. And if we need starbase facilities…” He trailed off, looking down at the Captain’s closed eyes. They twitched. Hammerhead rough green scales bunched up to deepen the creases of time. The rise and fall of his chest quickened under the thin sheet. Lomal’s eyes narrowed in turn. “Computer, end log.”

Lomal’s gaze for a moment longer before he turned towards his office. He had barely taken a step when the harsh sickbay lights dimmed. He locked eyes with a passing technician, each of them silently communicating their confusion in the few remaining seconds before the terror struck. A single vertical beam of greenish light appeared, as if it had sliced through the bulkhead in front of them. The entire medical staff froze, eyes fixed on the shimmering band as it moved towards them. Nothing escaped its reach. As the light touched his skin, Lomal’s skin bristled up in a wave of dread. He’d heard about the scans. He’d heard about what followed. But in those seconds that felt like hours, as the fear crept up his spine, he dearly wished he hadn’t.

“We are the Borg. You will lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. Resistance is futile.”

The Borg cube on the main viewer hung above them like a great weight. As the disembodied words resonated within each bridge officer’s skull, Sreyler Theb’s nails dug into the padded arms of the command chair.

“Ma’am,” came Feynn’s voice from the helm, “We’re approximately 39,000 lightyears from where we entered the underspace corridor. Which puts us in the Delta Quadrant.”

“Attack ship status?” Sreyler fired.

“The Borg have locked on to it with a tractor beam,” Steldon reported.

Sreyler’s thoughts flashed between Tursk, Lupulo and Delfino. She pictured them fending off drones, hiding in crawlspaces, waiting for rescue. That was, if they hadn’t already been assimilated. Her mind raced. She could see the tractor beam now on the viewer, pulling her friends closer to the cube. A hundred scenarios flashed in front of her. The Ahwahnee was a gnat facing a colossus, and she had a responsibility to spare the crew a fate worse than death.

“Helm, bring us about.” She ordered, “Take us straight back through to underspace.”

“Aye.” The response was muted. She knew each and every one of them would risk it all to help their friends. She also knew that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. Risk was their business, and the away team had lost their bet. She fought the images but they played out in her mind nonetheless. Three new Borg drones, ready to serve the whims of the collective for as long as their biological imperfections would allow.

“There’s nothing we can do…” She added quietly, more to herself than anyone around her.

A jolt shook through the Ahwahnee.

“Ma’am, the Borg have us in another tractor beam.” Came an increasingly nervous Steldon.

Pure ice ran through Sreyler’s veins. She bunched up the terror and swallowed it. She could not hesitate, “Target the emitter and fire with everything we’ve got.”

Orange and red tore through the space between tiny vessel and predator. Intense phased and photonic energy slammed against the unending maze of conduits and circuitry, only to be absorbed into the chasmic recesses of the cube. From the bridge it looked like a mere puff of flame, brief and impotent, rising up from the target site. The tractor beam’s grip tightened. The Ahwahnee was pulled closer.

Tursk felt another shudder through the cargo bay deckplates. “I think we’ve arrived…” He looked up from a partially dissembled phaser rifle, “…Wherever that is.” With a grunt, he twisted two micro-ODN fibers together and snapped the small LCARS panel back into place. Picking up the rifle by the barrel, he paced through the gloom and held it out to Delfino, “Here. Should give you a few more shots before they adapt again.”

“Thanks,” Delfino slung it over a shoulder, “He’s turning grey.”

Tursk looked over to Lupulo. More borg implants had sprouted from his neck. Blackened blood vessels spread from under his uniform as the nanoprobes wove their web of control throughout his body. “Found some cargo belting over there in the corner,” Delfino spoke quietly, “Should stop him surprising us once he’s… Gone.”

“Hmm.” Sadness flashed across Tursk’s eyes from beneath the thick Tellarite hair, “When that happens, we can’t hesitate. Better vaporise him.” He paused, hardly believing the words coming out of his own mouth, “Make it quick.”

“Sir.” Delfino looked to the ground and gritted her teeth.

Tursk took a step towards her. His hand had a great weight to it as he brought it to rest on her shoulder. “Althaia, I’m sorry.” She looked up, and for the first time she saw regret in that rugged face, “I brought us here. It was my decision to board the attack ship. It was reckless”

Althaia’s expression didn’t change, “We did what had to be done. That’s it.”

Tursk’s fangs gleamed in a grim smile, “We did.”

A choked, gurgling groan came from Lupulo. His eyes gleamed, wide and confused. Sweat poured from his brow. He tugged against his restraints for a moment, “Tursk! Althaia! What’s happening to m-eargh!”

“Easy, Lup, easy.” Tursk was by his side.

Lupulo thrashed, “I don’t wanna be one of them, Tursk.” He gasped a lungful of air, “I can feel them- under my skin. They’re moving.” There came another low groan, and he shook his head from side to side, “Urrrgh get ouuuutttt.”

“He can hear the collective.” Tursk said, shouldering his phaser rifle, “Won’t be long now.”

Just then, a massive scraping metallic crunch reverberated throughout the cavernous room. It was as if the attack ship hull was caving in, crumpling under the weight of some immense pressure from outside.

The tingling sound of a Borg transporter beam set their hearts thumping once again. Three drones materialised twenty metres ahead and immediately began to lurch towards them.

Delfino swung around but held her fire, “Those aren’t Jem’Hadar drones.”

Tursk turned away from Lupulo, swiftly putting a phaser bolt in each drone’s chest. They sparked and crumpled to the floor, tangled cybernetic limbs twitching and jerking in a haze of burning circuitry.

“This is it, then.” Tursk concluded, matter of factly, “It’s been an honour, Lieutenant.”

“Likewise, Sir.” Side by side, phasers at the ready, they stood and waited.

“You’re… Glowing…” It was Lupolo’s diminished voice that called out from behind them. Delfino looked over her shoulder to see a half-assimilated arm outstretched, Borg corruptions extending leathery tendrils from his wrist to his finger. A halo of light seemed to emanate from him, and the last shreds of his individual consciousness saw through his eyes in wonder. “I’m… Glowing…” Tiny specks floated down upon him like miniscule filaments from a cotton tree. They settled on his greying flesh and shone. The corners of his eyes, sunken and bruised, twisted into a faint smile.

Delfino’s head whipped back round. Six more drones. Then all she could see was white.

Lomal knew the cube was there and his body screamed at him. His blood ran cold. A wave of nausea churned his stomach and his heart pounded against his chest. The medical phenomenon was simple, but potent; fight or flight. His adrenal glands were dumping epinephrine into his bloodstream, raising his blood pressure, oxygenating his brain and preparing him for an encounter with a predator from deep down in Bajoran evolution. He knew the theory back to front like any Doctor, but he now wrestled with the reality. His eyes darted around the small office. Thoughts of a Bajor he’d never see again raced through his mind. Densala Province, the crimson pesh-maple branches that hung over the old stone house. His parents, weakened with age, sat with his brother at the end of the long dining table. Tears in their eyes, they read the report. Missing in action. Borg.

Lomal’s hand trembled as he reached across his desk for a hypospray. He fumbled with the delivery tube, stood, and selected a mild tranquiliser from the shelf behind his desk. He held it up to his neck and pushed down on the delivery trigger. A wave of calm trickled through him. Then, amongst the neat rows of pre-replicated medications, another caught his eye.

He thought of assimilation. The implants. The screams of contorted agony, and how his body would be reformed into a husk. He thought of the studies on those removed from the collective, forever changed. Throughout their assimilation, their consciousness was preserved, but locked in. With their thoughts and movement controlled by the disembodied whispers, they were forced to watch their hopes, loves, and the tapestries of their lives dissolved and reconstituted into a cancer cell. Fuel for the ever-growing metastasis. Those were the lucky ones, found and severed from their prison. Who knew how long a drone could last? Would he be aware of every passing minute as he rotted away inside an alcove?

His eyes lingered on that spot. Next to the winding Starfleet Medical pendant was printed a single word that represented his only possible escape; “Pentobarbital”. With enough of that in his bloodstream he would simply float away.

Through his office doors, he looked to the edge of the Captain’s biobed. No. He placed the hypospray back down on the desk. As long as there were patients in his sickbay, he would be there until the end.

Around the Captain, something flickered. At first, Lomal thought it must have been a lighting malfunction, but it persisted.

“All hands prepare to repel boarders. Security teams standby.” Commander Theb’s voice echoed through the ship. Almost instantly, four yellow collared security officers entered sickbay, taking up positions either side of the entrance.

Lomal stepped out of his office, brushing against Bolian ivy that formed a natural archway around the door. He approached the biobed. Another medical officer pored over the Captain’s lifesign readings. “Sir, these EEG patterns… I’ve never seen anything like it.” The Ensign’s wide eyes and dilated pupils told a story. Lomal was not the only one locked in combat with his own terror.

“How can there be this much light coming off him?” Lomal moved to inspect the biobed monitor more closely, “I’ve known bioluminescence in his lichen, but this- it’s not possible.” The glow around Vordenna only intensified, as if reacting to the Doctor’s incredulity, “There’s some kind of nonlocalised quantum activity occurring in his mycelial cingulate cortex.” A tinny alarm sound rang out from a medical tricorder. “Too much activity. It’s going to rip those neurons apart.”

Lomal focused silently, unaware of the phaser fire and screams from beyond the sickbay doors. “Prepare 10ccs of tetrovaline.” He directed the young officer, “We might be able to slow it down enough to avoid permanent tissue damage.” A few moments, more phaser blasts, and another hypospray was in his hand. He leant over Felrak’s glowing form, and Lomal felt something tickle his skin. On the back of his hand rested a filament, no bigger than a grain of rice. It floated away as he moved, carried on the currents of the ship’s air circulation systems. “A spore…” Dr. Lomal was beyond comprehension. He didn’t have time. He lowered the hypospray. The Captain moved. Felrak’s hand, with a mind of its own, shot up towards Lomal. The Argosian scales were rough and cold against the Doctor’s wrist, and the grip was like steel. Lomal, startled, simply stared down at Felrak’s sleeping body. That expression of utmost peace and contentment was all Lomal would remember as the sickbay doors exploded open and the drones thudded in. Then all he could see was white.

“USS Ahwahnee this is USS Epoch. Your impulse engines and warp core are offline and you appear to be drifting. Are you receiving?”

Silence.

“USS Ahwahnee this is USS Epoch. Are you in need of assistance? Please respond.”

Captain S’Tilek straightened her uniform and paced the deck in front of her chair. “Ma’am,” Came a voice from the conn, “Sensors indicate all crew aboard. We’re getting some strange readings from the hull; elevated neutrino levels, chronitons and some kind of organic matter. Lab says it resembles a sort of fungal mycelium covering the hull.”

S’Tilek raised an eyebrow, “Try again.”

“Ahwahnee, Ahwahnee, this is USS Epoch. Our sensors indicate you are adrift. Do you require-”

“Urghh, negative, Epoch.” The gruff voice of Commander Tursk crackled over the Epoch’s bridge. S’Tilek watched as the Tellarite pulled himself up into the First Officer’s chair. He looked dazed, his vision blurring in and out of focus. The command crew was there. Delfino, sprawled across the conn, began to move. Behind him at tactical, Lupulo began to haul himself off the deck. Tursk looked to the left. “Captain…” He murmured. But instead of Felrak’s hammerhead form he saw only tousled, shoulder length blonde hair. “Commander Theb…” He cast a confused glance down at his uniform sleeve. It was torn, freyed and smeared with grime. It rushed back to him. “The ship… The Jem’Hadar… Lup!” He launched himself out of the chair and whirled around. Lupulo, now stood with both hands gripping the tactical rail, stared back at him.

“They’re gone.” Lupulo’s dark stubble-dashed jaw barely moved as the words fell out. “How did we…?”

Sreyler stirred out of her slump. Her head lifted slowly, glazed eyes barely taking in her surroundings. As soon as she saw Tursk, she bolted upright. “Sit rep!” she roared. “Focus all fire and get us out of that tractor beam!” She did a double take. “Commander- SIR?!”

The mental fog began to clear. He stood for a while, studying Lupulo. Sure enough, the implants were gone. Where once was greying nanoprobe-laden flesh, there now stood a healthy, albeit grizzled, pink-skinned human. Tursk mustered everything he could to shelve his disbelief, mentally dragging himself into the present. “Computer, what’s our position?”

“The USS Ahwahnee is currently located in Sector 6834. Nearest star system: Lioh. Distance: 32.6 lightyears.”

They all listened, stunned. Delfino, who had awoken by the conn, seized the moment for a status report. “Impulse and stabilising thrusters back online. Warp drive inoperable. No Borg presence on shipwide scans. The cube is gone.”

“Good. But… How?” Sreyler leaned forward, “Does anyone remember anything?”

“USS Ahwahnee this is Captain S’Tilek of the USS Epoch. We have detected some form of organic matter that has formed an envelope around your ship. We say again: Are you in distress? We have an away team standing by.”

“Again, negative, Captain,” Tursk replied. “Situation stable here. Although we’re uhhh… Unsure how we reached our current position. Last we knew we were following a Jem’Hadar ship through an underspace corridor. We’ve somehow reached here from the Delta Quadrant.”

“Underspace?” S’Tilek looked as incredulous as a Vulcan could. “Commander, you must be mistaken. The last time an Underspace conduit opened outside the Delta Quadrant was months ago.”

“Captain S’Tilek,” Tursk gathered his thoughts. “We can’t have been gone for more than a day. What’s the current stardate?”

S’Tilek raised an eyebrow. “297793.3” As she reeled off the numbers, Tursk checked the panel on his chair.

“That’s nine months ahead of our system time.”

“Then it appears you are now time travelers, Commander.” S’Tilek concluded, matter-of-factly. “We notice your warp core is now offline. Please inform us when ready, and we will engage a tractor beam. Sector Command has ordered us to divert from our current mission and escort you back to Deep Space 17 for debrief.”

Tursk nodded with a harumph. “Understood, Captain, we’ll let you know,” the channel closed. He looked down from tactical to Sreyler. “What about our Captain? Where is he?”

Sreyler sifted through her memories. It was all there but jumbled, like a collage of holoimages all stitched together in the wrong sequence. She teased out the individual threads; the journey though Underspace, facing down the cube. Before she could form the words, a familiar voice came over the intercom.

“Lomal to bridge. It’s the Captain. He’s… Someone better get down to sickbay fast.”

Lupulo and Tursk made straight for the turbolift. “You have the bridge, Commander,” Tursk growled to Sreyler over his shoulder. “Find out what’s covering the hull!”

Light blasted through the sickbay doors with such intensity and Tursk and Lupulo had to squint. Dr. Lomal didn’t turn. They simply joined him, speechless. Above the biobed, limbs outstretched, rose the body of Captain Felrak Vordenna. His skin pulsated. A white glow rippled around him, thin luminescent strands lashed up and down, surrounding him with what looked almost like a textured cocoon. From his hands and feet extended fibrous tubules that stretched from nodes where the light shone brightest. They linked him with his surroundings along bulkheads, ceiling and deck plates.

“It’s his exoflora,” Lomal spoke in awe without looking away. “I’ve never seen this kind of cellular restructuring before. Here,” he handed Tursk his medical tricorder. “There’s over 300 species of lichen and moss growing on him. I’ve catalogued some of their more unique properties, but this…” he gestured to the display.

Tursk glanced down but immediately bore his teeth in a quiet snarl, “You’re gonna have to to explain, Doc. All I see is a bunch of cells.”

“The rate of division, Commander!” Lomal cried, exasperated, “Cyanobacteria simply don’t do this. Not at this rate. Fixing nitrogen gas to ammonium to amino acids and protein. But the energy required. I don’t know how it- how he’s pulling it in!”

Lupulo pointed up at one of the fibres, “They’re like the orbosh vines. He’s connected to the plants.”

Tursk snarled again, louder this time, “How is all this going to help us get him back?”

“Just look.” Lupulo stepped towards the spot where one fibre connected to the deck, “Sickbay is on deck six. Underneath us is the liberna tree in science lab three. This thing hits the deck right above it.”

Tursk’s growl turned into an indignant hmph as he listened.

“And there.” Lupulo jabbed a finger up, “That one runs through to the clematis wall on the deck eight corridor.”

“Didn’t realise you knew the plant-life so well.” Tursk’s jibe belied the fact that he was now all ears.

Lupulo knew the Commander’s contrarian ways well enough, “Gardening is still starship operations, Sir.” He moved over to another fibre. It was fused directly to the branching stem of a large bird of paradise plant growing beside an equipment cabinet. “See this? There’s thousands of microfibres coming out of the plant. It’s like a web.” He pushed the leaves aside, peering closer. “Give me the tricorder,” he hurried Tursk, who complied. Flipping it open, Lupulo scanned the device in one smooth motion over the wall, “The plant fibres… It’s like they’ve joined with the hull. This isn’t duranium alloy anymore, Sir. It reads more like a biocomposite.”

Tursk looked over Lupulo’s shoulder at the section of wall, “You’re saying the Captain’s changed the physical structure of the ship.” He couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth.

“Yes, Sir. Somehow.” Lupulo reached out a hand to touch the newly formed material. His fingertips brushed against the smooth, machined metal until, “Argh!” The tricorder clattered to the deck, and he staggered back, clutching at his neck. The pain was short and sharp, lasting only a second before fading quickly. He stood, dazed for a moment.

“Commander, are you alright?” Dr. Lomal rushed over to him, brandishing a medical scanner. “Take a seat.”

“Yeah…” Lupulo brought a hand to his neck, massaging it. “It’s just, that was the spot. It’s where the implant… Erupted.”

“A Borg implant?” Lomal’s blood ran cold, “You were assimilated?”

“Nearly.” Lupulo shuddered, “I… remember feeling it moving under my skin. Then my thoughts were just one amongst thousands… Millions.” His eyes away, unfocused.

“By the Prophets.” Lomal said quietly, placing a hand gently on Lupolo’s shoulder, “Alex, few could comprehend what you’ve been through.”

Tursk gave a sympathetic grunt, “Then we woke up back here. When I saw him on the bridge there was no sign of anything Borg.”

“My scans aren’t reading any nanoprobe signatures.” Lomal scratched his head, looking Lupulo up and down, “It’s as if whatever brought you back here also purged any Borg influence from your body.”

Lupulo stretched his hands out in front of him, flexed his fingers, then gave a soft laugh, “Actually Doc, I’m beginning to think it’s whoever brought us back here.”

They all looked up at Felrak’s body, still suspended above the biobed by the thickening vine-like tendrils.

“So how do we get him back?” Tursk mused quietly. A few seconds passed, a deep breath, and clarity surged through him, “Doctor, get Lieutenant Steldon down here. Do what you can to get him out of that trance. Get DS17 on coms if you have to. I’ll inform the Epoch that we’re ready to get underway. Lup, you’re with me.”

“Aye, Sir.” the two senior officers replied in unison. Tursk and Lupulo turned and the sickbay doors parted. They didn’t close. Tursk hesitated, pondering mid-step.

“Sir?” Lupulo, already in the corridor a few steps ahead, looked back.

“I wonder.” Tursk shot a quick glance to Lupulo, then about faced back towards Felrak, “I just want to try one thing, Doc,” he called out to Lomal, “Just a hunch.”

Wordlessly, Lomal ceded the floor. Though his eyes were closed, the Captain seemed to survey them from his lofty nest amongst the vines. Tursk took a breath, then projected his voice up, “Captain! Captain Vordenna!” he shifted awkwardly, “Captain, I don’t know if you can hear me. I guess you’re probably resting. It’s just… I think there’s something you need to hear,” he stuck out his hairy hands, almost in plea, “I think you brought us back. From the Dominion ship. There was no way out, but somehow we got back here. We were ready to go, Sir. Me, Althaia, Lup. We all knew. And it was,” he inhaled again, pushing past everything he’d internalised as a boy, all the arguments he’d ever dug his heels in for. He heaved himself up against the famed Tellarite stubborness, “My fault. I led them in there. Straight into the Borg. And they nearly died because of me.”

Lupulo looked on, unable to process what he was hearing. It was a strange feeling. The great Benthar ox himself, apologising. He’d barely even imagined it. Perhaps he’d pictured himself making some sort of wisecrack, basking a little in the First Officer’s humbling. Yet here it was, happening right before his eyes, and all he could feel was a twinge of sadness laced with sympathy.

“Then you brought us back,” Tursk continued, “I don’t know how. I don’t think anyone does. But Captain, you should know now that we’re safe.”

He waited a while, and his head tilted down. There was something that resembled a groan, but it was deeper. His head shot back up again. The sound lowered, resonating through sickbay, now more like a heavy rumbling.

Felrak’s mouth did not move, yet still the sound came from him,

“MMMMMH… VOR… DENN… A.”

Tursk, Lupulo and Lomal were rooted to the deck, mouths agape.

“I SPEAK.”

“Who speaks?” Tursk’s voice felt feeble in contrast to the boom.

“MMMMMNH… B’GYR’TYN… B’GYR’TYN OF GRENEWYR.”

Tursk glanced to each side, unsure of what to say, “I am Commander Tursk of the United Federation of Planets. You are aboard the starship USS Ahwahnee. We… I believe that you are occupying the body of our Captain, Felrak Vordenna.”

“VOR… DENNA. VORDENNA HAS FOUND ME.”

“Found you? How?”

“MMMMMM… ON THE SPORES.”

“The mycelial network? Is that how we got back here?”

“TURSK. DELFINO. LUPULO… YOU HAVE RETURNED.”

“Yes…”

“GOOD.”

Felrak’s head slumped forward and his limbs went limp. Slowly, the fibrous vines lowered his scaled form to the biobed below. One by one they fell away from his body, and the room fell still.

They rushed to him. Lomal flipped open a tricorder, “He appears unharmed. Neurological scans read normal.”

Felrak’s large, glassy eyes blinked once, then twice, taking all three of them in.

“Tursk,” a rough grip fell upon the Tellarite’s forearm, “You’re all safe.”

END