Hell had come to Sol Station. Firefights waged across a thousand decks as officers and crew turned their weapons upon friends and colleagues. Their minds were not their own, but that made their weapons no less lethal.

Retreating from the main promenade, the admiral, the spook and the counselor found themselves in a fight for their lives. Commander Lewis dropped to a knee and unloaded on three young officers before them, while Dr. Hall and Admiral Reyes dueled a rainbow of red, yellow and teal behind them. The place had gone completely mad.

“What has gotten into them?” Commander Lewis asked as he felled the last of the petty officers that obstructed their way. “You don’t just become Borg…”

“It would appear you do,” Dr. Hall observed as they rushed away from the advancing officers, stepping over the incapacitated body of a young man Commander Lewis had dropped. He couldn’t have been two years out of the Academy. “The Borg seem to have developed a way to assimilate from afar.”

“Why aren’t we affected?” Admiral Reyes asked.

“I can’t even offer a conjecture at this point,” Dr. Hall admitted. “Frankly, none of this makes sense.” One moment, they were squaring off against a Changeling, and then the next, the entire place turned Borg. “The Changeling seemed to have some foreknowledge of what was about to happen though.”

Admiral Reyes looked over at Commander Lewis. When he and Ensign Rel had freed them, he’d been fast to lobby accusations that Rear Admiral Edir was a Changeling. “Any idea Commander?”

“Unfortunately not,” Commander Lewis shrugged. “We came over here when we discovered that Mister Ellis had been replaced by a Changeling… call it a hunch… but the Borg? No, they didn’t feature in any of my theories about what was going on.” His mind went to his operators on the Serenity. He’d tasked Dr. Brooks and Chief Shafir to see if they could find anything. “Maybe Serenity knows more?”

Admiral Reyes tapped her combadge.

“Reyes to USS Serenity.”

Nothing.

“Commander Eidran, please come in.”

Still nothing.

The Borg signal had completely overwhelmed the local comms channels, and the call from Admiral Reyes’ combadge never made it off the Probert-class station. Even if it had though, there was no one to pick up on the other end. Their ship had fallen to the Borg.

On the cold deck of the Serenity’s brig, Lieutenant Commander Eidran lay motionless, shot in the back by his own brig officer. He was on the verge of passing out, unable to do any more than watch helplessly as the brig officer approached the cell that held the Changeling. The brig officer tinkered with the controls, and the forcefield dropped.

The Changeling stepped out. It had abandoned its facade as the aged husband of a retired Rear Admiral. “I believe now is the time for me to take my leave,” the creature said as it looked around. From the dark eyes and black veins of the brig officer to the greenish hue the terminals had taken on, it was clear things had unfolded exactly as planned. “Tell your queen I send my regards.”

The brig officer looked up and to the left, as if processing, and then back at the Changeling. The shapeshifter could leave. It had served its purpose. “A shuttle awaits you in shuttlebay one.”

“Enjoy your time with Earth,” the Changeling smiled deviously as he stepped over the Betazoid that had just moments earlier held him captive. At last, the moment of their revenge had arrived. No longer would the solids of Earth threaten them. Sure, it had come at the price of empowering the Borg, but the Borg were simple creatures. They would be dealt with in due time as well.

And then Lieutenant Commander Eidran passed out.

Two decks beneath the brig, Lieutenant Morgan, Chief Shafir and Dr. Brooks had sealed themselves in Mark Ellis’ quarters. The body of a dead security officer lay on the floor near them.

“Please tell me you have an idea, any idea, about what the fuck is going on,” pleaded Lieutenant Morgan as he looked at the young man he’d just killed. “Ensign Bragg, that was this guy’s name… I had breakfast with him in the mess hall just last week.” 

Lieutenant Morgan was shaking. He’d been the one fastest on the draw, the one that had dropped the young Starfleet officer where he stood. There’d been no other option. After that signal had overwhelmed their systems, the Ensign had declared himself Borg and tried to open fire on them. It didn’t make it hurt any less though. He was just a kid.

“Approximately seventy percent of our crew no longer show as aboard the Serenity,” explained Chief Shafir as her hands flew over a wall-mounted terminal. “They’re registering as some form of organic-inorganic hybrid, and their neurological function appears Borg-like in nature.”

“A high-energy signal originating from the outer atmosphere of Jupiter appears to be the source,” Dr. Brooks added as he worked a PADD with one hand while holding his phaser towards the door with the other. “It is triggering a latent genetic sequence in those without a fully developed prefrontal cortex.”

“Any idea how we can stop it?”

“Besides going to Jupiter and shutting it down, no,” replied Dr. Brooks as he studied telemetry on his PADD. “And given the state of our ship, that seems beyond unlikely.” They’d lost all control, and the number of non-Borg lifesigns aboard was quickly falling. “Chief, can you get me a line off the ship?” Maybe Admiral Reyes or Commander Lewis had a better idea.

“Where?”

“Sol Station.”

“Maybe. Give me a moment,” replied Chief Shafir. The Borg’s adaptive cyberdefenses were cutting off attack vectors as quickly as she could establish them, but as she poked and prodded, eventually she found a way. It wouldn’t last though. The Borg would adapt. They always did. “You’ll have sixty seconds at most.”

“Brooks to Lewis.”

“Lewis, go,” came the Commander’s response almost immediately. Lewis’ voice carried a hint of relief, even as phaser fire could be heard in the background. He was just relieved to know that they were not completely alone.

“Sounds like Sol Station has gone mad?” Dr. Brooks observed, noting the sounds of battle across the comlink.

“As good a description as any. I’m going to guess Serenity is no better?”

“Affirmative. 70% assimilated, and the remainder disappearing quickly,” Dr. Brooks replied. “Shafir and Morgan are holed up with me in Mister Ellis’ quarters, and we had to kill our security officer when he went mad.” There was no regret in his voice. Just reality.

“Any idea what’s causing this Tom?” asked Commander Lewis, an uncharacteristic desperation in his voice. While the aged shooter had found himself in many bad situations over the decades, this was something different. In an instant, it was as though all of Starfleet had been assimilated.

“A Borg signal originating from the outer atmosphere of Jupiter is the source,” explained Dr. Brooks. “It is activating a genetic sequence in all our younger crew. Twenty-five appears to be about the determinant age, give or take a few years species to species.”

“That aligns with our experience here,” agreed Commander Lewis. The problem, one not lost on him, was that the majority of Starfleet was twenty five and under. “And it means most of the Fleet is no longer in control of their own actions.”

“Dr. Brooks,” Admiral Reyes asked, jumping into the conversation. “Can you respond to Jupiter with the Serenity?” She had a sense what his answer would be, but she had to ask. Marooned as they were on Sol Station, simply trying to stay alive, they certainly weren’t going to be able to do anything about the Jupiter signal.

“Negative. The Borg have complete control of the ship.”

“What about the rest of the Fleet?”

“Appears to be the same situation everywhere.”

“Then we need to change that. Dr. Brooks, I’m afraid I have a request of you and anyone you can muster,” Fleet Admiral Reyes replied with a deep sense of gravity, recognizing that she was about to make a desperate request of a man Starfleet had turned its back on. “We’re stuck here. We’re going to do what we can to save people aboard Sol Station, but it’ll all be for naught if we cannot stop that signal. You need to retake control of the Serenity and get to Jupiter. At any cost. The fate of the Federation may depend on it.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Dr. Brooks replied without hesitation, but then the line dropped before anything further could be said. The Borg had caught onto Shafir’s signal and cut it off.

Chief Shafir and Lieutenant Morgan looked over at Dr. Brooks for guidance.

“You heard the Admiral,” Dr. Brooks said as his mind raced over ways they might be able to subvert the Collective’s control of their ship. “We’re going to take back this ship.” The fact Starfleet had burned him didn’t even go through his head. Such things were water under the bridge in comparison to the fate of their entire civilization, and that was what was at stake here.

“What about our people?” asked Lieutenant Morgan. He’d already killed one of his colleagues today, and the idea of spilling more blood made his stomach turn. “They’re good officers.”

“They were good officers,” Dr. Brooks replied. “But now they are Borg. Whatever reservations you may have, put them aside Lieutenant. Unless we stop that signal, everyone, and I mean everyone, will be dead… or worse.”

“And you’ve got a good plan for that?” asked Chief Shafir.

“I’ll be honest,” admitted Dr. Brooks. “All I’ve got is a hail mary.”

“Then a hail mary it is,” nodded Chief Shafir. “And if we fail today, at least we can say we did our duty.” She had no illusions about the likelihood of success. The odds were stacked heavily against them. But there was no other option.

And so the three of them set off to do their duty, even if it would be for the very last time.