“I don’t understand,” Admiral Reyes said as she stared at her old friend. The phasers trained on her barely mattered in comparison to the betrayal before her. Aria Edir had fought and bled on the line for decades. Even in retirement, her convictions had never wavered. How had it come to this? How had they gotten to her? How had they convinced her to give up her oath?

“No, I don’t figure you would,” the retired read admiral replied bluntly as she looked down at the timepiece on her arm. “But soon you will.”

“Our next demonstration is the summation of decades of technological advances…”

It seemed almost surreal, the juxtaposition between the scene on the Sol Station promenade and the celebration transpiring beyond the station’s walls.

“So what comes next?” Admiral Reyes asked.

But before Rear Admiral Edir could reply, Admiral Reyes heard the sound of something metallic landing on the deck nearby. She looked over and caught sight of a small metallic cylinder right before it went off. She smiled, realizing what was about to happen.

Bang.

The flashbang went off, and then there was chaos. Over the ringing in her ears, Admiral Reyes could hear the sound of phaser fire. As her retinas recovered from the flash, she could see the officers around her falling. In the distance, she could just barely make out two operators in tactical gear advancing down the promenade as they unloaded a rapid, precise barrage in her direction. 

But Admiral Reyes and Dr. Hall weren’t their target. The security officers that apprehended them were, and a half dozen were dropped before they even realized what was happening. The only mercy Commander Lewis and Ensign Rel showed was that they’d set their rifles to stun.

As the security officers faltered and fell, one of the men who’d been restraining Dr. Hall managed to get a shot off. Unfortunately for him, the afterimage burned onto his photoreceptors caused it to go way wide, and in letting go of Dr. Hall, he’d given her the opportunity she needed. Before he could get another shot off, she was on top of him, wrestling his phaser from him. Dr. Hall got control of the phaser, pressing it against his sternum. She didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger and watched the life leave his eyes as he crumpled to the ground.

Really? Set to kill? Served him right, she thought to herself. That was not appropriate for being on the central promenade of Starfleet’s greatest starbase. She flipped it to stun and turned it upon those who had not yet been dropped by Lewis and Rel.

The brawl was over as swiftly as it began, a dozen security officers lying motionless on the ground, one dead and the rest unconscious. Everyone turned towards the table, where Admiral Reyes had drawn her phaser from its ankle holster and leveled it on her old friend.

“What happened to you Aria?” Admiral Reyes demanded in a voice that carried equal parts fury and regret. “Your duty! Your oath!”

Aria Edir just sat their motionless.

“The Rear Admiral Edir I knew would have died before giving those up!”

Aria Edir said nothing.

“What the hell is going on?” Admiral Reyes screamed angrily. Even in the most desperate of battles, Admiral Reyes had always maintained her cool, but this was personal, a betrayal of the highest order. “I’ve had enough of this shit! Tell me now!”

But still Aria Edir said nothing.

“She’s not going to answer your questions because she’s not Rear Admiral Edir,” Commander Lewis explained as he stepped alongside his old friend. “She’s a Changeling.” He raised his rifle at her and flipped it from stun to its highest power setting. “Isn’t that right?”

“You’re too late,” Aria Edir smiled sadistically as she turned to flee. Commander Lewis was ready for it though. He knew how fast a Changeling could move, and without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger instantly. The Changeling began to lose its form as the high energy phaser blast disintegrated the creature.

For a moment, the everyone just stood there, stunned at the abrupt turn of events as Fleet Admiral Shelby’s voice continued to speak over the PA. But then suddenly, a new voice cut in, interrupting the Commander-in-Chief in the middle of her speech.

“This is Admiral Jean-Luc Picard. I come to you with a warning. Changeling infiltration of Starfleet…”

Admiral Reyes breathed a sigh of relief as she heard Jean-Luc’s voice. They weren’t crazy, and they weren’t alone. Picard had figured it out too. If Picard knew too, maybe there was still hope.

“…has made us vulnerable to our greatest enemy, the Borg.” 

Admiral Reyes glanced over at Commander Lewis. Sure, there was a conspiracy amok, and it smelled rich of Dominion machinations, but the Borg? How were they involved?

They didn’t have to wait for an answer though as an impossibly powerful signal overtook every carrier wave in the system, a loud screech ripping across the PA causing everyone to flinch as the lights flickered and distortions rippled across every terminal on the promenade.

“What the hell was that?” asked Commander Lewis as he looked around. The terminals that littered the promenade had taken on an eerie green hue, and then his gaze came to rest on Elyssia Rel. Her beautiful eyes had turned her black, and her fair skin now had black veins running across it. She looked possessed. “Elyssia?”

For a moment, Ensign Rel just stared blankly past him, but then she spoke, and as she did, so too did a hundred thousand other young souls across the system: “We… are the Borg.”

Ensign Rel raised her rifle and leveled it on Commander Lewis, and for the first time in memory, rather than responding with force, he just froze. But for as fast as Ensign Rel moved, Dr. Hall moved faster. The beam of her phaser lanced out, striking the young Trill flight controller in the center of her chest before she could fire on them.

Ensign Rel crumpled to the deck.

The air left Commander Lewis lungs. Was she… had Dr. Hall just killed Elyssia? 

“Relax Commander,” Dr. Hall assured him as she walked over to where Ensign Rel lay motionless. “It was set to stun.” She looked at the young woman. What had happened to her? How had she been turned… Borg?

“Eliminate all unassimilated.”

The statement echoed through the cavernous interior of Sol Station, repeated in perfect synchrony by dozens of officers as they advanced down the promenade. A polaron burst exploded overhead. And then another. 

Dr. Hall ripped the phaser rifle out of Ensign Rel’s limp grasp, a far more suitable weapon than the one she’d wrestled from the security officer, and she returned fire. Alongside her, Commander Lewis and Admiral Reyes did the same.

“We need to move!” Dr. Hall shouted over the phaser fire. The numbers weren’t in their favor.

Commander Lewis looked down at Ensign Rel. He wasn’t ready to leave her behind. He’d just started to build something with her.

“Now!” Dr. Hall insisted.

“She’s right, Jake,” Admiral Reyes said between volleys. “If we don’t go now, we’ll be overrun.”

He knew they were right. No matter how many they dropped, more would keep coming. And so, with one last regretful look back at the young Trill flight controller lying there on the deck, he turned and fled.