Tom materialised on the pad alone and was immediately stunned by a flash of light in his peripheral vision as a conduit overloaded. He stumbled, dazed and confused.

“Transporter room to bridge, that last hit threw the targeting scanners out of alignment. I lost the lock on Commander Sarik,” the transporter operator bawled.

Tom scurried to his feet, his EVA suit feeling heavy and restricting. He removed the helmet and discarded it like a piece of trash. “Move out of the way,” he yelled, shouldering the crewman at his post.

The commander’s fingers danced across the console with furious pace. Narrowing the anular confinement beam and reinitialising the sensors. Sweat began beading on his forehead as he poured all his concentration into trying to establish a lock, but it was futile. Just as he felt he was about to capture the Vulcan’s signal, he reached over with his other hand and hovered over the energiser. The signal suddenly vanished.

Tom froze in shock, overwhelmed with a gutwrenching feeling he couldnt yet process.

“He’s gone, Sir,”

Tom didn’t react; it had all happened within thirty seconds, and his brain was still catching up. He just stood there in a sort of stupor.

“Sir?”

‘Five more seconds,’ Tom thought to himself, ‘If I only had five more seconds.’

The crewman tapped the commander on the shoulder, causing him to jerk as he’d just been hit with a cattle prod. “Sir, you did everything you could.”

Tom was about to say something, but was interrupted by another quake running through the ship, accompanied by more equipment overloading with showers of sparks.

“Commander Rourke to the bridge!”

Naomi’s voice reverberated through the comm system, her voice sounding stressed. Tom wanted nothing more than to take a few more minutes to reflect, but he summoned all his resilience to set aside his feelings and made his way to the turbolift.

“Bridge.”

As the car began to travel, he fell back against the wall and sobbed. He couldn’t interpret his loss for the moment; all he could do was command his mind elsewhere and focus on his job. He wiped his nose and face on his sleeve as the car slowed to its destination, and the doors opened to a scene of chaos and frantic bellowing. Naomi clung to one of the bannisters, barking orders as the rest of the crew implemented them without question.

“What happened?” Tom projected over the noise.
“See for yourself,” Naomi responded, nodding at the viewscreen.

For Tom, it felt as though his grief took a step back, opened an imaginary door and flooded the room with anxiety, fear and dread. He fixated on the object being displayed on the viewer; it was malevolent and infamously recognisable, requiring no explanation; a massive cybernetic cube.

“WE ARE THE BORG. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED, YOUR TECHNOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENES WILL BE ADDED TO OUR OWN, YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US…. RESISTANCE….IS FUTILE.”

As unwelcome as it was sinister, the chorus-like battle cry of their greatest enemy echoed across all communication channels, every deck, every com-badge and every display with an audio feed; thousands of voices speaking with one mind.

“They showed up just a minute ago, without warning,” Naomi explained. She then glanced at tactical, noting Sarik’s absence. She made the connection and bowed her head; a mixture of sorrow and frustration focused her resolve.
“I’m not losing anyone else today. Helm, evasive pattern delta-six. Tactical, focus fire on grid twenty-one-gamma, cycle phaser modulations, random frequencies every half second and launch a full spread of quantum torpedoes,” She stepped back and sat calmly in her chair. “Assimilate this!”

With the ferocity of an angered wasp, Surveyor launched a barrage of fire at their foe while turning about and inverting in an impressive display of aerobatics.
The cube absorbed every hit, barely flinching.

“Minimal damage, the cube is pursuing, Captain,” the officer at tactical cried out.

“Go to warp.”

Darbok initiated the jump sequence. He registered the nacelle pylons travelling and prepared to engage when he was thrown forward against the console, as if he’d just driven them into a wall. “Shaka! They’ve got us in a tractor beam.”

Surveyor was caught like a fly in a web; no matter how hard she struggled, she was at the mercy of the cube.

The malevolent cube prepared its attack, seemingly more a force of nature than a sentient being. The cutting beam erupted from the hull and got to work punching through the insignificantly small Intrepid-class’s shields.

Naomi was out of options; she’d never seen the Borg this determined for a single ship before, but she was not about to allow her crew to suffer. She leaned over to her command console and began keying in her authorisation for the self-destruct sequence.

“Captain, Incoming warp signatures!”

She physically restrained her own hand from entering the final confirmation; if there was any chance they were friendly, she had to know.

Like a swarm of hornets, a flotilla of vessels emerged from the glare of the sun, and loose hellfire in the form of phasers and torpedoes slammed into the cube’s tractor emitter, overwhelming it with new potential threats.

The tactical display became littered with deltas, emblems of Kahless, and Romulan raptors- the flotilla was as diverse as they were courageous, with several signals being extinguished no sooner had they made their attack run; the cube was fighting back.

“We’re being hailed,” Fal reported.

Naomi suddenly felt her feelings of isolation dissolve; a fighting chance was all they needed. “Onscreen.”

The feed of the battle outside instantly changed to that of a dishevelled human being, standing on the bridge of a broken ship. His maroon uniform was scorched and torn, with signs of hasty repair; it was like this person’s last talisman of hope that he was not prepared to let fall apart. “This is Captain Hollister of the ‘Marie Antoinette’, we picked up your distress call.”

Naomi rose to her feet as a mark of respect. “Captain Naomi Ashford, U.S.S. Surveyor, your timing is —”

“Dont have time to talk,” Hollister interrupted, “We’re sending you co-ordinates, you are to proceed at maximum warp while we keep the cube distracted. Dont delay!” The transmission cut abruptly.

“Co-ordinates received,” Darbok confirmed.

Naomi hesitated; it wasn’t in her nature to abandon allies for her own self-preservation, but she could see from the battle viewscreen that the borg were too powerful; any engagement was surely suicide at this point. “Engage.”

The cube’s weapons were formidable; an excelsior-class was all but vaporised in a single shot, while other smaller vessels, Miranda’s, Oberth’s and Klingon birds of prey managed to evade the cutting beams with their agility, only to find their weapons having little effect against the unstoppable force.

With the fury of the battle waging, Surveyor quietly slipped away, but this did not go unnoticed.