“Sir, I’m picking up massive interference across all subspace carrier frequencies,” reported Ensign Kellan Seltzer from the operations station. “When I ping our nearest subspace relay, I can’t get an ACK back, and even the FNN feed is down.”

“Not shedding a tear over the FNN,” chuckled Lieutenant Commander Sherrod Allen in response to the FNN comment. The aged executive officer had never been a fan of organized media, but ever since the Lost Fleet crisis, his distrust for it had only grown. That said, it broadcast on a fairly wide band so the idea it was down meant a broad spectrum issue. “What about our command frequencies?”

“They’re down too, sir.”

That was far more concerning. Without those frequencies, the USS Ingenuity could not communicate with its away teams, nor with the rest of the Polaris Squadron. If something went wrong on the surface of Beta Serpentis III or back in the graveyard of Wolf 359, they would be none the wiser, and if something bad befell them, they wouldn’t be able to call for help. All things considered though, Lieutenant Commander Allen was not a man prone to panic. In his two decades as a Starfleet officer, he’d seen many things, and few were worthy of the panic they caused. “Can you cut through the interference?” Lieutenant Commander Allen asked calmly.

“Not easily. The interference appears to be constantly remodulating with random harmonic variations,” explained Ensign Seltzer as he ran a multivariate regression in the background. “It will take time to determine if there’s a way to predict the shifts and underwrite our signals with a destructive interference pattern.”

“There would have to be a pattern, wouldn’t there?” asked Lieutenant Commander Allen. “It wouldn’t be very useful to just blanket the carrier wave otherwise, would it?”

“If its only purpose was to black out communications, it would be effective enough,” Lieutenant J.G. Rafael Cruz volunteered from tactical. He too had realized the implications, and his eyes darted swiftly across his displays, searching for anything he might have missed earlier. “I don’t know what could produce a signal of this strength, but I suggest we go to yellow alert.”

Lieutenant Commander Allen didn’t disregard the suggestion, but he also didn’t leap to implement it. The latest scans from their long-range sensors showed nothing of concern, and they were deep within Federation territory over a backwater colony in an insignificant system. It was hard to imagine there was anything waiting for them out there. “What’s the source of the interference, Ensign?”

One would think that tracing powerful emissions would be easy, but the problem is that, when projected as this one was, it caused reverberation all around the system that made it sort of look like it was coming from everywhere. It took a few moments, but eventually Ensign Seltzer narrowed it down: “It’s coming from a high power signal originating from within the atmosphere of Beta Serpentis IV.”

Lieutenant Commander Allen looked over at Lieutenant J.G. Cruz. Although the rest of the crew was unaware, as it had been kept very hush-hush, they both knew that the class I gas giant had been where Commander Lee and Dr. Brooks were going when they set out in their Type-11 shuttle a short while ago. Commander Lee hadn’t shared any details about the purpose of their trip, but the correlation was too much to ignore. “What can you tell me about the signal?”

“I’m not exactly sure…” Ensign Seltzer admitted as he stared at the readings. Suddenly, a horrified realization washed across his face. He saw a pattern. “It’s almost like a… a… no, it can’t be.” He paused to review it again. It couldn’t be. But it certainly looked like it. “Sir, it’s not identical, but the peaks, troughs and periodicity, they’re all reminiscent of a… of a Borg signal.”

The bridge became deathly silent. Everyone stared at Ensign Seltzer with bated breath, waiting for him to elaborate, but the young operations officer was too consumed in his analysis to say anything further. He was completely focused on trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

“Like the pattern for the homing beacon we were searching for the other day?” prompted Lieutenant Commander Allen. He could feel the nerves of the bridge crew mounting, but he still wasn’t panicking yet. The signal patterns provided by Fourth Fleet Intelligence were not from active Borg ships but rather from Borg technology that had been left behind.

“No, not like that,” Ensign Seltzer replied, shaking his head. He recognized the pattern though. He’d been studying during his time off for the last month. It was odd to see it presenting like this though. As he understood it, it should have been presenting on a lower subspace band, barely perceptible to anything except the implants it communicated with. “The structure is more similar to the Borg neural interlink frequency.”

From across the bridge, the Chief Security and Tactical Officer’s face became ghost white. “Could it reactivate the latent programming from Frontier Day?” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz blurted out in panic before remembering himself. But the damage had already been done. Officers began to look at each other nervously. Could this be the beginning of the end? Which of them would fall to the voice of the Collective this time? A flicker of worry even flashed across Lieutenant Command Allen’s face, and an officer by the MSD set his hand on his phaser.

“No, it could not…” Ensign Seltzer began to reply, but no one was paying attention. The bridge was awash with panic. “Guys… guys…” His voice just fell into the void, lost in the fray. “Guys, stop!” Ensign Seltzer shouted. “Stop already!”

Everyone turned to look at the young man, and it got deathly quiet again.

“Even if we hadn’t all gone through the procedure at Starfleet Medical, it would not have any impact because it’s being projected into a higher subspace band,” explained Ensign Seltzer. “To do this, the signal must be band-passed and boosted, causing it to lose the definition it needs to actually articulate instructions.” It was basically like someone – the Borg queen maybe? – was shouting so loudly that her voice had become unintelligible.

“Could it be made intelligible?”

“Not without losing amplitude and falling back to its lower band.”

“So it can’t do anything?”

“Correct… except jam up our subspace comms spectrum.”

That was still an issue, but it was much less of an issue than remote assimilation. Lieutenant Commander Allen opened his mouth to ask another question, but suddenly, the operations console began to beep again.

“Sir, I’ve got an incoming signal from the planet.”

“I thought you said comms were down due to the interference caused by the signal?” asked Lieutenant Commander Allen.

“I did,” Ensign Seltzer nodded. He was as surprised as the XO. “But someone down there has clearly figured out how to keep up with the constant modularity shifts to null out the interference pattern.”

Lieutenant Commander Allen furled his brow. If all the technology aboard the USS Ingenuity could not compensate for it, how had a backwater colony with seventies-era equipment figured it out? Or maybe it was their people? Lieutenant Sh’vot was a world class astrophysicist, after all. There was only one way to find out. “Put it on screen.”

A moment later, they got their answer. And it wasn’t that their people had figured it out. Administrator Thoss appeared on the screen looking less disgruntled than the last time, but far more menacing. Just as in his prior calls, the Andorian cut straight to the chase: “We have hostages.” 

The Andorian stepped aside to give them a clear view. Sitting there with her hands bound and her mouth gagged was Fleet Admiral Allison Reyes. On either side of her stood young Andorian men, motionless and emotionless, each holding a phaser rifle against their chests.

“If you want to see them again,” Administrator Thoss added. “You will do exactly as I say.”

Oh. My. God. They had the Admiral. Lieutenant Commander Allen’s heart froze. Lieutenant J.G. Cruz was no better, nor were any of the other members of the bridge staff. None of the young officers aboard the USS Ingenuity had ever faced something like this, and for a moment, there was nothing but stunned silence. Finally, Lieutenant Commander Allen pulled himself together enough to ask the obvious question: “What do you want?”

“We are transmitting a list of our demands,” Administrator Thoss replied firmly. “And don’t you dare consider any funny business. To show you I’m serious…” He gestured off camera, and a moment later, his men dragged a pair of Starfleet officers into the frame. “We found the weapons on these two. Given they were coming for a friendly meet and greet on a Federation member world, that sounds a lot like funny business to me.” 

The administrator nodded at his men. Without a word, they raised their rifles and fired. The two Starfleet officers collapsed to the ground. Dead.

Behind them, Admiral Reyes didn’t flinch. In fact, she showed no reaction whatsoever. She would not give her captors the satisfaction.

Aboard the USS Ingenuity though, the bridge staff let out a collective and audible gasp, and Lieutenant J.G Cruz had to grab onto his console to stay standing as the blood left his head. He knew those men. They were his men. He’d sent them down in plain clothes as part of the delegation. And now they were dead.

“I think I’ve made my point,” Administrator Thoss said as he stepped back into the frame. “Follow our instructions to the letter. Resistance is, as some would say, futile.” The Andorian smiled sadistically and then hung up the link, leaving the bridge crew in stunned silence.

Lieutenant Commander Allen looked over at Ensign Seltzer. “Did we receive their demands?” The Ensign nodded. “Let me see them.” There was an uncustomary urgency and nervousness in the Executive Officer’s voice.

“I will be honest, sir,” Ensign Seltzer explained as he loaded them onto a PADD and approached the center island. “It’s all pretty innocuous stuff.” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz also stepped away from his station and met them in the middle. The trio huddled over the PADD, quickly skimming the list of demands.

“No weapons, no explosives, and frankly nothing that would be likely to pose a tactical risk at all,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz offered. “The best option may be to simply meet their demands.” It was an odd list. It read more like a Chief Engineer’s requisition form for repairs to a warp assembly than something one would expect from hostage takers.

“Are you suggesting we negotiate with terrorists?” asked Ensign Seltzer incredulously. He’d never been in a situation like this, but he knew what the books said, and what the Chief Security and Tactical Officer was proposing was most certainly not that.

“I’m suggesting we don’t really have another option,” Lieutenant J.G. Cruz countered with a mix of desperation and fear in his voice. “You saw what they did to my men!” The murder of his men had shaken him, and he was beyond terrified to do anything that might lead to the deaths of the rest. Especially when all they were asking for was bland, uninteresting engine and EPS parts.

“What if it’s not the end of their demands?” Ensign Seltzer pressed.

“Then we’ve bought a bit of time to figure out what to do next.”

Lieutenant Commander Allen let the younger men debate for a moment, but now was time to make a call. “I agree with Lieutenant Cruz,” he said firmly. “For now, we meet their demands, and we do nothing that might cause them to kill the hostages.” It wasn’t the call Commander Lee would most likely have made, and it certainly wasn’t the call Admiral Reyes would have made, but they weren’t up there on the bridge. He was. Lieutenant Commander Allen and his young colleagues were going to have to find their way out of this situation on their own.