“Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.”

Malcolm Gladwell, (2013)

The ship was dying.

Six knew this more keenly than the desperate warbling of competing damage control alerts that clarinet throughout the sparse main – engineering space by virtue of her intimate connection to the rapid cascade of failing systems that made up the USS Kirk’s technical arcology.

The attack of the mysterious Romulan Free States Warbird had been as sudden as it was devastating.

Despite the Kirk already being at Yellow Alert, with its shields already at a standby 50% acuity, the element of surprise and massed ferocity of twinned assault by disruptor fire and torpedoes had already signaled the Shran – class escort’s imminent demise, even as the bridge crew went to Red Alert.

In scant seconds it had taken to raise the powerful enshrouding layers of Multiphasic Shielding, the ravaging assault had already found its mark with pinpoint accuracy and the shield generator sustained near – catastrophic damage and began to fail – denying the Kirk her first and best line of defence and the harried craft cavorted and arced through the scattered debris field that mantled high above the ‘Hellworld’’ Hecate#7b as the unknown Romulan Commander did their best to consign the Starfleet crew a permanent berth in that Hell.

With her Borg implants physically tethered to the ships main – systems processor, Six of Eleven was able to experience each cascade of damage sustained under fire as a ‘little – death’, physically and mentally suffered in symbiotic sympathy as each salvo from the Free States ship took away something vital from the escort and made it that little more ‘less’ as the aggregate damage accreted and the ship went through its death throes.

The Borg part of her mourned this gradual death. The ultimate empathy from one machine in sympathy to the destruction of another.

The part of her that had previously been Vanya Anouska Petronova could not help but think back to the events of over 50 years ago, when in an engineering space very similar (but much larger) to this one) that the one that was failing around her now, the USS Agincourt went through a similar process of destruction and demise as the Borg methodically stripped her systems from active use as a prelude to assimilation.

But she had no time to dwell in the unwelcome memory.

As Six desperately attempted to re – route EPS power to the remaining starboard impulse manifold in an attempt to maintain the ships ability to flee her pursuer, away from the wreckage that used to constitute the port array, she grimly determined that there would be no 11^th hour reprieve from the finality of this fate – as there had been when she had been ‘liberated’ by the altruism of the Borg Reclamation Project.

This time oblivion would be both inevitable and permanent.

Hostile fire raked again across the beleaguered port side of the hull; Six felt the shield generator finally give way – even as the screens aboard the bridge would be delivering  Lieutenant Commander Hanley and the crew the same ominous news. Lacking the advantages of her predecessor’s carapace of ablative hull armor tiles, the USS Kirk’s final moments must now surely be counted out in seconds, rather than minutes.

The opening salvo had removed any chance of escape, the raptors ‘talons’ had dug deep along the port nacelle, devastating the dorsal banks of war- coils almost all the way to the Bussard – collectors that nestled at the tip of the long engine that flanked the bridge of the Kirk. It was only Six’s symbiotic reflex – relationship with the damage control protocols that managed to isolate the worst effects of the damage from spreading to the warp propulsion power – system, avoiding having to ‘scram’ the Warp – core before the singularity lost containment and obliterated the ship.

Whilst she had managed to retain some power to feed what systems still remained, it was a diminishing victory that could have only one outcome. The USS Kirk was unlikely to be able to sustain a viable subspace displacement field again, with only one nacelle serviceable and with a single failing impulse drive emitter operable, the Warbird was destined to close and deliver the coup – de – grace to her quarry.

=^= “Bridge to Engineering!” =^= came Hanley’s urgent voice across the comm – channel, the background whine of the Red – Alert from the Bridge dopplering suddenly with its twin in engineering, before the ships computer wasted precious power in automatically equalizing the reverberating echo – effect.

With a subconscious thought, Six shut down that insignificant protocol to farm power and the echoing sound return returned.

“Engineering, go ahead.” Six replied as her mind multitasked between a language of pure machine logic and the untidy clamor of the organic world.

=^= Lieutenant. We’ve lost both rearward launch tubes to enemy fire and helm reports that impulse is failing and severe damage to inertial stabilizers. We can’t unrun this hostile, I mean to come about and give it everything we have in a forward salvo. It’s time for miracles, so give me everything you’ve got!”=^=.

Despite the clamor of alarms, the choking haze of smoke and smell of burning insulation, Six of Eleven shut out these distractions and her mind swam in unity with the ships systems, seeking an elusive set of options that could deliver the Captain the miracle she sought.

With habitual calmness, the Chief Engineer made her reply back to the CO in a Russian – tinged voice that could have been reporting on the current cargo consignment manifest on self – sealing stem bolts.

“I can give you the edge you need Captain, but there will be a cost.” Six warned the CO. The only option left open to her would irreparably wreck the systems involved to the point where only full overhaul and replacement at a full spacedock facility would ever see the ship restored.

=^= “Do what you have to do, Lieutenant.”=^= Came Commander Hanley’s tight response. She had the sound of a woman resolved to commit to one desperate roll of the dice, regardless of the results. =^= “But do it fast, we’re out of options.”=^=

Six of Eleven nodded to herself.

At times like this, resistance wasn’t futile – if that was all you had left.

“Aye Captain. Standby to make your turn Starboard in 6 seconds from my mark and brace for High – G.” Six confirmed as she re – routed necessary power from vital systems to the remaining Starboard nacelle. This robbed certain sections of the portside accommodation wing on Deck#3 of vital life support, but the ships systems confirmed that those spaces had been either evacuated or those who remained were already dead.

“Mark!” Six of Eleven suddenly called out over the comm – channel and willed her mind to reconfigure the remaining warp coils to activate and create a broad-spectrum warp field.

This modification inverted the Warp Field that suddenly came into being for a fraction of picoseconds. Without the opposing port nacelle in operation, this inverse warp field became analogous to the effect experienced when a ship making headway suddenly dropped anchor.

With a torturous, oscillating groan that seemed to shudder and resonate throughout the entire superstructure of the Kirk, Six braced herself as the entire vessel suddenly ceased it’s forward flight and pivoted in space around it’s central axis, suddenly coming about to face the onrushing D’deridex – class Warbird with a crush of negative – g  – forces that would have made most human’s unconscious  out from ‘red – out’.

But as the blood in her body was compressed into her brain, the nanites still extant within that same blood stream ensures that her plasma was flooded with a cocktail of beta – blockers and adrenaline that kept her conscious enough to register the forward torpedo tubes unleashing an alpha strike of the remaining quantum torpedoes and the fizzle and inevitable drain of the remaining Type-XII phaser – arrays that could still fire forward along with the more percussive thudding of the Type-XII pulse – phaser cannons punching into the forward shields of the Romulan craft.

In her heart, Six knew that this action was as heroic as it was ultimately futile.

The problem did not lie in technology. If that were so then the Shran – class, with its much newer and able weapons systems and technology would surely stand as the clear victor. No, their defeat would be decided by economies of scale.

Despite being some fifty – years the Kirk’s senior, the Romulan Warbird, was considerably larger that the escort by several magnitudes of scale. Her weapons larger and more powerful, the singularity that fed her systems infinitely more able to sustain a withering level of fire for far longer than even the Kirk’s powerful Metaphasic Shielding could resist.

Her shield emitters would be able to soak up everything Lieutenant Commander Hanley chose to throw at them and still be able to operate all day.

This was the end.

Six closed her eyes, thankful for the reassuring proximity of the ship in her consciousness. At least she would die connected to a mind of purity and order when her end came, even if such a connection was a pale shadow to the magnificent unity that came from being at one with the Collective.

A subroutine activated and piqued her interest.

Focusing in on that logic pathway through the hybrid processing, Six was intrigued to note that the Tactical station on the bridge had activated the two dorsal and ventral hexagonal hatches that remained undamaged on the starboard side of the hull.

The hatches that led to the mission – configurable payload bays.

A spark of hope sprang into being within Six’s heart, unlooked for, as the former Borg – Drone quickly pushed her consciousness deeper and deeper into the ships attendant systems, expanding her view via what functioning subsystems still operated – giving her a real-time perspective on the crippled vessels status and actions that no one organic – crewmember could ever hope to achieve.

Commander Hanley had launched the Gravtic Mines.

Knowing that it was impossible to best the D’deridex, the CO had banked upon the last – ditch alpha – strike from the USS Kirk’s massed forward armaments having just enough power to force the Romulan commander to rotate more power to the Warbird’s forward shields.

Weakening the acuity of the shield matrix over other portions of the network for precious seconds.

Banking on this and the fact that no rational person could fail to be distracted when facing a Starfleet Escort unleashing everything it had at once, the USS Kirk flashed towards the portside of the D’deridex, forcing her helmsman to instinctively veer all 1353 meters of the jade – green hull to starboard to avoid the apparent suicide rush of the hurtling escort and inevitable collision.

With her ruined impulse engines driving themselves to destruction, under the sure hand of Ensign Hunter, the Kirk rotated churningly around her central axis and used the slight angle of deflection to ‘bounce’ of the underside of the D’deridex’ flashing shields.

The impact drove Six to her knees.

The forward momentum of the hulking Romulan ship carried her forward and over the plummeting Shran as, still turning, it ploughed onward through the debris field.

Into the path of the Gravtic Mines.

Activated by the inertial bulk and mass of the approaching Free State warship, the rough necklace of mines were drawn to the ponderous progress of the vessel and denotated against her portside shielding in scattered unison.

Weakened by the USS Kirk’s broadside and blinded to their true intent, the shielding around the portside nacelle was overcome by the massed energetic – discharge and failed just long enough for considerable damage to be sustained by the Warbird which, trailing debris and plasma, became to transcribe a wounded arc up and away from the surface of Hecate#7b.

Six could not quite countenance the audacity with which this desperate gambit had been deployed. Facing almost certain death, the CO have pulled a last – minute ploy that was perhaps worthy of the Kirk’s famously mercurial, eponymous namesake and showed the galaxy that she was undoubtedly the daughter of the late Vice – Admiral “Bull” Hanley.

Yet Six of Eleven had no time to celebrate or congratulate the CO, the cost of this audacious tactic persisted back at her from the chaos of damage control reports being received from all desperate parts of the highly damaged ship.

Her clever ploy with the remaining Starboard Nacelle had overstressed the antimatter injectors to a point beyond failure. Now both Nacelles were effectively useless. The EPS system powering the weapons systems had drained the primary and reserve capacitors and with the labyrinthine – level of damaged systems, it would take many long hours to painstakingly restore even part of their offensive function.

Similarly, her torpedo magazines were either offline, destroyed or empty. With her shield generator slagged, she was just about able to bleed enough power from the navigational deflector to maintain the emergency structural forcefield that held her penetrated hull together.

And then her impulse drive finally gave up the ghost.

The ship was dying.

As if to certify this death – proclamation, through what remained of the ships sensor pallets and avionics, Six could feel the irresistible pull of the gravity well of Hectate#7b as it ensnared the failing craft and compelled her through the buffeting gauzy layers of the Hellworld’s tainted thermosphere, the steadily thickening atmospheric particles beginning to interact with the hull of the plummeting vessel as it entered the upper layers some 600km over the long dead – world, the temperature quickly rising to the region of 3,600F.

So, it came as no surprise to Six at all when Hanley’s grim voice sounded over the ship wide comm – channel.

“All hands! Brace for re-entry & impact!”