The trio burst into Main Engineering, phasers drawn, expecting a sea of Borg drones at the heart of the ship. Instead, they found Commander Groll pounding her fists against a console. “Commander, are you okay?” Jerok asked as they approached deeper into Engineering. “No drones?”

“They don’t seem interested in Engineering. Why would they be? They already control the ship,” Groll sighed in exhaustion as she slapped the console for good measure. “It’s that damned Fleet Formation Mode software Shelby had us install that we’ve been screaming about for months. It had some sort of Borg malware in it. I can’t seem to purge it out.”

“Yeah, the bridge locked out. Looks like the command authorization system is locked out and we have no control over the self-destruct,” Commander Sul placed his phaser down on an adjacent console as he began punching commands in. “Looks like some of the shuttles and escape pods have launched. Thankfully some people are making it off the ship.”

“What about comms? Can we warn anyone else to abandon ship?” Zemess asked.

“Comms are down, but it looks like I can activate the abandon ship alert,” Sul responded.

“Do it,” the Captain directly instructed as he moved towards the ship’s warp core. He began punching some commands into the console seeing the state of the ship’s engines. As expected with Commander Groll’s workmanship they were in perfect working order.

“What are you planning, Captain?” the engineer asked.

“Destroy the magnetic constrictors by cutting through the casing and cause a matter-antimatter breach. The Borg cannot have this ship.”

“Captain… while that is a noble thing to sacrifice oneself, how about I force them out of alignment until a breach occurs? Should give us at least 5 minutes to get off the ship. By the time the Borg realize what is happening, they won’t be able to get past my lockout before it goes.”

“Do it, and let’s get the hell to the shuttlebay,” Jerok exclaimed. He watched as Commander Groll unhatched the access to the magnetic constrictors and began working on them with her tool kit. 

The remaining trio stood guard, vigilant, and slightly surprised that the Borg were not attempting to take Engineering. ‘Maybe they think the bridge is enough,’ Jerok thought to himself. The entire thing came out of nowhere. Starfleet had barely encountered the Borg in the past 20 years, and certainly no outright aggression. In the fires of chaos, the entire situation seemed like a disjointed mess for the Romulan. First, his first officer was a Changeling, then over half his crew was somehow assimilated during what was supposed to be one of the biggest celebrations in Starfleet history.

“Done,” Groll yelled, breaking the Captain’s focus on the day’s events. “We have about five minutes, maybe six until the warp core begins to breach. After that, it’ll be about sixty seconds until the ship is destroyed.

“Shuttlebay is a straight shot, let’s go,” the Captain ordered as the team picked up their phasers and began the sprint toward the shuttlebay. The corridors were lined with bodies and bloodshed, but no assimilated crew were in sight. It was eerily quiet with the exception of the light hum of the abandon ship klaxon. With every slight curve in the corridor, Jerok expected to run into Borg, but as they entered the shuttlebay there had been none. Jerok scoffed to himself at the arrogance of the Borg. 

“Oh good, someone left the Armstrong,” the Romulan said as the team approached the Delta-class runabout. As the team boarded and took their seats, Jerok took the helm directly. He would be the one responsible for getting them off of the Yorktown alive. “Time?”

“The core had to of breached by now. Could be any second,” Groll shouted.

Without a response, Jerok punched the console to full impulse, blasting out of the shuttlebay at full speed.

“Sir, it looks like thirty five escape pods have cleared the Yorktown as well as multiple shuttles and runabouts. All are clear of the expected blast radius except for one,” Sul reported.

“Are the Yorktown’s shields still down?” Jerok asked.

“Aye sir,” Zemess quickly reported.

‘I guess the Borg were more worried about what was inside the ship not outside,’ the Captain thought to himself. As the Armstrong swooped back around towards the Yorktown, Jerok ordered, “When I make a pass for the escape pod, Zemess lock a tractor beam on it so we can get it out of here. Sul, Groll, I want you to lock onto as many non-Borg life signs as you can and beam them into the aft section. Hell, beam them into the front section, hold them in the pattern buffer. Beam them into escape pods, beam them onto other shuttles. Whatever it takes.”

No one responded verbally. No one had to. The Captain gave an order and they were going to carry it out. As the Armstrong swooped in to grab the escape pods, the cabin of the runabout filled with a blue hue as multiple crew members were being beamed on board. Jerok could hear the sound of Commanders Groll and Sul punching commands into their consoles as they activated the Armstrong’s transporters to their max.

“Reading explosions in the engineering section,” Zemess yelled above the increasingly loud cockpit section of the runabout with all of the cross-talk of the survivors that now occupied the runabout to its maximum capacity and beyond.

“Hold on…” Jerok again pushed the impulse engines to full speed. He activated the Armstrong’s rear visual sensor just in time to watch the Yorktown explode into a fireball before the bright flash of the matter-antimatter detonation filled the screen. Not a sight any starship captain wants to see, but there was a bigger problem… how did this even happen? Changeling infiltrators? Borg malware and assimilation of Starfleet crews without stepping a single drone on board? How was the rest of Starfleet faring?

Jerok pressed a few commands into the helm console before clearing his throat, “This is Captain Jerok of the USS Yorktown calling Starfleet Command…”